· Weinstein acquisition mania: Bob and Harvey pick up the family fantasy pitch The Impossible Adventures of Phineas Roone as a possible franchise for their new house of pain. [Variety]
· Why is the press beating up on Tom Cruise? Because sister/publicist Lee Anne DeVette doesn't inspire the same kind of "I'll rip off your head, defecate down the resulting cervical cavity, then cut off access to my other stars" terror that Pat Kingsley once did. [THR]
· Insert joke about the cruel abuse of your inferiors: Scott Rudin will produce an adaptation of the fraternity hazing memoir Goat. [Variety]
· Paramount hires Coach Carter director Thomas Carter for more sports-related work, a feature about arrested Vanderbilt football recruit Marcus Dixon's life titled, um, Marcus Dixon. [THR]
· Hugh Jackman's Seed productions gets a first-look deal at 20th Century Fox, but obviously lacked the clout to stop Fox from hiring Brett Ratner to ruin his Wolverine meal ticket. [Variety]

Various outlets are reporting today (though SorryIGotDrunk had a little info on it last night—God bless the internet news cycle) that Fox and Universal are going halfsies on a Microsoft bastard, teaming up to buy Halo (reportedly for half of the original $10 million upfront price, plus other concessions). In case you've suffered blunt head trauma and are having recall problems, you'll remember that CAA, Microsoft's pimp of choice, dispatched an army of green-armored men (or "Master Chiefs") to deliver the script to studios, most of which promptly passed.

We'd like to belatedly celebrate the highly unexpected (but satisfying) third-season pick-up of Arrested Development by alerting you to the latest round of Fox's Studio Store auctions, in which clothes worn by, purchased for, or possibly gazed upon, sort of, by stars in the network's stable are offered up to the highest bidder. How better to commemorate AD's rise from the dead than to purchase (at a heavy discount!) a shirt "worn" by everyone's favorite mustachioed, Blue Man Group understudy fop, Tobias Fünke?

· More proof that God hates nerds: After an exhaustive search determined that every other director in Hollywood has mysteriously been turned to dust, Fox names Brett Ratner to ruin take over X3. [H'wood incest alert: Bryan Singer ditched X3 to direct the new Superman movie, to which Ratner was previously attached.] [Variety]
· Doubt, Spamalot win a bunch of Tonys. Somewhere, a midlevel development executive pitches the idea of adapting Spamalot into a movie. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, part XXVI: Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, and Emmy Rossum join cast of Wolfgang Peterson's Poseidon Adventure remake for Warner Brothers. We suppose it's still too soon for a Titanic remake, so this will have to do. [Variety]
· Do they even count the Nielsens in the summer? A new Family Guy helps Fox to tie ABC (Housewives is in reruns) in the key demo. [THR]
· Oscar nominated Hotel Rwanda writer Keir Pearson gets out of genocide-writing jail, will pen the story of an Al-Qaeda-trained CIA informant for Paramount. [Variety]

· CBS Network sales president Jo Ann Ross on their upfront advertising riches: "We are happy with the share-shift we are getting from NBC." Somewhere, Les Moonves is laughing his ass off, as "share-shift" is his secret code for "Jeff Zucker is my bitch." [Variety]
· Fox gives American Dad an additional 13 episode order, allowing the network to trick viewers into thinking they're watching The Family Guy until 2007. [THR]
· Everything old is new again, but not as good: New Line and Benderspink are producing an updated Mr. Mom called, hilariously, Stay at Home Tom. [Variety]
· Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars, House, and Rescue Me are all up for best new program at the TCA's, while Who's Your Daddy? is criminally overlooked. [THR]
· Emmy-winning Arrested Development directors Joe and Anthony Russo sign on for the Universal comedy You, Me and Dupree, starring Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson. Run free, you magnificent steed! [Variety]

· Hillary Clinton is in town to rifle through the pockets of the entertainment industry for campaign donations. Obligingly, there's an opportunity for people of every tax bracket to hobnob and give away money:
$1,000 gets you a chance to dirty the furniture at Warner Bros. COO Alan Horn's house, while a budget-minded $125 cover gets you past the velvet rope at Roland Emmerich's pad (co-hosted by Scarlett Johansson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Xtina, and famed Dem booster Lindsay Lohan). [Variety]
· No-name director Matthew "Who? Oh, I saw the preview for Layer Cake, looks kind of bad" Vaughn leaves Fox's X-Men 3. Desperate to start shooting, Fox is looking to sign up a "promising young helmer" from USC who's made a "kick-ass slideshow" in iPhoto. [THR]
· A $61 million opening for Madagascar isn't enough to keep DreamWorks Animation's stock from dropping 9 percent. Who on Wall Street does studio boss Jeffrey Katzenberg have to climb up on a milk crate and blow to get some respect? [Variety]
· ABC makes $2.7 billion in upfront advertising deals, Teri Hatcher's publicist to immediately start referencing her client's "Billion Dollar Rack." [THR]
· The Farrelly Brothers, the guys responsible for inspiring nearly a decade of splooge jokes in lowbrow comedies, are closing to signing a deal to rewrite and direct a remake of The Heartbreak Kid for DreamWorks. [Variety]

· Return of the Sith continues to dominate overseas box office with a cumulative take of $246 million, largely due to George Lucas' controversial decision to export the movie exclusively in an Aramaic version. [Variety]
· Fans of Joan of Arcadia plead with an uncaring God (i.e., Les Moonves) to reverse the show's cancellation. Moonves bellows with laughter, then smites the Joan boosters' village with a tidal wave. [THR]
· Hot off roles in this weekend's $60 million earners The Longest Yard and Madagascar, Chris Rock announces he'll write, co-produce and star in The Gilmores of Beverly Hills, with buddy Adam Sandler's Happy Madison producing. Nota bene: Rock's last two movies were Head of State and Bad Company. [Variety]
· Does the last Star Wars mark the end of the "superfan"? Star Wars nerds, Trekkies, Deadheads, and Phish fans will soon gather for some chaste consideration of their plight while tripping face in a convention center parking lot. [THR]
· "I don't care what it costs, get me Denzel! Oh, we already had Denzel? Get me Cheadle. At a price." Universal wants Don Cheadle to replace the once-attached Denzel Washington for the starring role in the perpetually troubled American Gangster project. [Variety]

· All Hail Adam Sandler, Lord of Television: TBS/TNT and CBS fart out $27 million for the TV rights to The Longest Yard. [Variety]
· The two-hour finales of American Idol and Lost are huge ratings winners, proving that people will stay in and watch TV if you offer compelling content or pander to the nation's text-messaging-addled 15-year-olds. [THR]
· The Weinstein Co. finally reveals its release schedule, including the Tarantino-Rodriguez double-team Grind House, Sin City 2, and at least one effort to demonstrate their commitment to cynical, long-played-out, franchise crap, Scary Movie 4. [Variety]
· Filmmaker Ismail Merchant, still dead. [THR]
· Forced-out former Paramount co-pres Tom Jacobson finally makes peace with the Brad Grey regime, signing a first-look producing deal with the studio. But just so Jacobson remembers who's boss, his office on the lot will consist of a dog-bed in the corner of new president Gail Berman's office. [Variety]

· Michelle "Who?" Monaghan signs on to star in Mission: Impossible 3 as Tom Cruise's love interest. Put on your tinfoil helmets, kids, we're going for a quick ride: Is it just us, or does she look a wee bit like Katie Holmes? (The brunette one in the pics, duh.) [THR]
· Half of the legendary, classy-movie producing duo Merchant & Ivory died suddenly in London today. Hint: It wasn't Ivory. Statements to follow. [THR]
· Sopranos creator David Chase admits to the New Yorker that he might be able to squeeze a seventh season out of his lovable mobsters—and, of course, many more millions out of HBO. [Variety]
· Fox takes the season's ratings title in the 18-49 demo, CBS dominates overall and those watching on the community TV in the nursing home, ABC makes a heroic comeback, and NBC...well, let's just say that Les Moonves has just messengered Jeff Zucker a tape of Deliverance with Zucker's face superimposed on Ned Beatty's squealing mug. [Variety]
· SAG/AFTRA members voting on strike against video game companies, which do not pay "residuals for the use of actors' voices, likeness and performance in video games." Also, they have shitty craft service. [THR]

· Warning, impossibly lame, scatological pun playing on similarity of "Sith" and "shit" ahead: Foreigners eat up Sith, as the movie rakes in $145 million in international release. [Variety]
· The New Paramount™ continues in its mission to spend, spend, spend in the quest to woo A-list actors, dropping $4 million for the rights to Robert Ludlum's book The Chancellor Manuscript for Leonardo DiCaprio. [THR]
· We've been ignoring Cannes, so here's the round-up: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne win the Pal D'Or, Jim Jarmusch the Grand Prix, and Tommy Lee Jones wins best actor. [Variety]
· The Desperate Housewives finale kicks ass, takes names, etc etc. Grey's Anatomy is similarly huge, despite failing to make a play on the similarity of "The Syph" and "Sith." [THR]
· The Ellen DeGeneres Show wins big at the Daytime Emmys, but judging from the ratings numbers, nobody cared. We blame the pantsuit. [Variety]

· The still-unnamed Weinstein Co. gets funding from Goldman Sachs, who apparently found the coming years of physical and emotional abuse to be a good trade for a seat next to Gwyneth Paltrow at an Oscar party. [Variety]
· Revenge of the Sith takes in $16.5 million in just its first midnight showings, proving that not having to spend money on getting laid frees up capital for other nerd-intensive activities. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. leads studios with 32 shows on the network schedules, Fox is second with 25, and Paramount is right behind with 24. Apropos of nothing, CBS overlord Les Moonves releases a statement announcing that "Jeff Zucker is a little bitch." [THR]
· Topher Grace joins Thomas Haden Church as an undisclosed villain in Spider-Man 3. We're betting that Semiretarded Airplane Mechanic and Stuck In Puberty Boy will make worhty foes for the tubby wall-crawler. [Variety]
· Breaking! Gail Berman does something at The New Paramount™, though we can't be bothered to find out what it was. [THR]

· "Weinsteins ride over the Rainbow." If we clicked through to the actual story, it's inevitable we'd be disappointed. They probably didn't hop on My Little Ponies and and strangle some leprechauns for their pots of gold. [Variety]
· FX picks up a fifth season of The Shield. We hear they're doing nice things over there, but we still not sure why haven't seen anything on that channel. All of their shows must be on against Dr. 90210 or Gastineau Girls. [THR]
· That kiss in Hitch was apparently even hotter than it looked: Will Smith will produce former co-star Kevin James in the family adventure Monster Hunter for Sony. [Variety]
· At Cannes, Tom Hanks announces that he'll make sure that son Colin continues to work, even if he's got to underwrite (and makes cameos in) the movies. [THR]
· Paramount head Brad Grey continues to throw work to his old buddies by picking up Plan B's True Story. [Variety]

What happens to a character's clothes once he's been ruthlessly disposed of by a convenient heart attack? At Fox, whatever the actor can't shovel into his Benz while his assistant distracts the wardrobe people winds up at silent auction at the studio store. This week's offerings include a nice piece worn by The OC's Alan "My Agent Promised Me I'm Coming Back As A Ghost Who Likes To Throw Pool Parties" Dale:

· More fun from CBS: 60 Minutes Wednesday is kicked to the programming curb, but Moonves denies that Memogate had anything to do with it, but allows, "There's just something that bugs me about Dan Rather's face. It's all square and stuff." [Variety]
· John Woo will direct Chow Yun Fat in the "next generation action action game" Stranglehold. Things exploding stylishly and broken English to follow. [THR]
· In the unexpected, but potentially genius, casting move of the season, Kelsey Grammer will play Beast in X-Men 3. [Variety]
· Beware, the streets will be teeming with virgins carrying lightsabers: More than 80% of tonight's Star Wars post-midnight showings are already sold out. [Variety]
· Husband/wife team Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes leave their positions as co-heads of DreamWorks Pictures for the obligatory "shingle" gig. Curiously empty offices to follow. [Variety]

· THR calls NBC's schedule a "massive overhaul." Also, we forgot to mention the new drama with the most howlingly stupid name, Inconceivable, which takes place in (you guessed it by now) a fertility clinic. Welcome back to fourth place, NBC. [THR]
· The WB and 20th Century Fox TV scratch out each other's eyes over Reba license fees, nearly taking down two of 20th's pilots for the network in the skirmish. Also, Law & Order creator Dick Wolf is pissed that NBC canceled Trial by Jury. [Variety]
· Tired of the actress overshadowing him on the red carpet at Cannes, George Lucas holds down Natalie Portman and shaves her head. The move backfires as the world is now fascinated by the exquisite shape of her skull (see pic on THR homepage). [THR]
· Survivor takes out Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but the Housewives beat back CBS with a ratings rolling pin. [Variety]
· Michelle Pfeiffer will star in Amy Heckerling's I Could Never Be Your Woman, a romantic comedy "about a successful professional woman in trouble with her love life,"a groundbreaking premise sure to revitalize the genre. [THR]

· This apparently merits a red font and a Breaking News tag: DreamWorks unveils plans for the animated caveman flick Crood Awakening at Cannes, written by John Cleese. [Variety]
· Disney reports a 30-percent increase in its second quarter profits, temporarily making the uninspired choice of Robert Iger as its next CEO not look like a mistake. [THR]
· Paramount will foot the bill for Freedom Writers, which we will dismissively describe as Dangerous Minds with Hilary Swank, even if it only bears a passing resemblance to the earlier film. We're jerks that way. [Variety]
· ABC, CBS, and Fox seesaw back in forth in last night's war for viewers, but Fox ultimately wins the night on the power of the simmer sexual tension between Paula Abdul and Bo Bice. [THR]
· Meet the Parents of the Focker director Jay Roach picks up his Everyman shingle and moves it from Fox to Universal, who will get first crack at his dog-flushing comedic endeavors for the near future. [Variety]

Those Fox employees who failed to be impressed by their overlords' recent gifts of free corn-dogs and fake-tit-cakes may finally have an opportunity to rejoice: In its latest fit of largesse (and with News Corp profits down 8 percent), the Studio Store is waking its silent auction from a four-year slumber, offering clothes previously worn by stars in the Fox stable at bargain prices. From an e-mail announcing the sale:

· Spamalot nabs 14 Tony nominations, and Doubt picks up 8, thus ending our interest in the Tonys until next year's announcements. [Variety]
· CBS and Sony throw bags at money (and a feature deal) at Kevin James to do another season of King of Queens, buying at least one more year before the the network has to figure out how to turn CSI into a sitcom. [THR]
· Ousted/disgruntled former Disney board members Roy Disney and Stanley Gold sue Disney for not conducting a proper search for a new CEO; once again showing that he's no Michael Eisner, new Mouse leader Robert Iger promptly orders his lawyer to key the troublemakers' cars [Variety]
· George Clooney signs on to play the lead in Michael Clayton, a lawyer who's known for "fixing" his clients' personal problems. Also, the lawyer is very, very handsome with an undeniable, rakish charm. Sigh. [THR]
· 20th Century Fox TV signs American Dad showrunners to a two-year, seven-figure development deal to create shows that are completely indistinguishable from The Family Guy . [Variety]

· Tale of Two Headlines: Kingdom of Heaven's box office take was "far from 'Heaven', but "mighty o'seas." [Variety, Variety]
· Slow news day: Clive Barker does movie-related stuff with horror, video games, and John Woo. [THR]
· Helen Hunt will make her feature directing debut with the drama Then She Found Me; she's also convinced herself to take a chance on a first-time director and will star in the movie. [Variety]
· The 4,000th telling of the Elvis story stood no chance against the Desperate Housewives ratings juggernaut. [THR]
· HBO picks up Louis CK's multi-camera sitcom, American Dream, for 13 episodes (including the pilot), trying to find out if the traditional sitcom genre can be appreciably improved by the addition of swearing. (And breasts, please?)[THR]

· American Idol was still huge on Wednesday, Primetime Live's Idol did big numbers, and NBC still can't tell its ratings ass from its Nielsen elbow. [Variety]
· An appeals court throws out the FCC's rules for a "broadcast flag" that would dictate how viewers record and watch digital TV shows, allowing the consumer greater flexibility in how they drool in front of the American Idol results show. [THR]
· Filthiest Variety headline of the day: "Jobs strokes Mouse as Pixar soars." Why exactly the Pixar CEO is masturbating a rodent is anyone's guess, but we're not here to judge. [Variety]
· 20th Century Fox TV is doing its best to prove the overall developmental deal isn't dead, throwing money at Family Guy/Yes, Dear writer Bobby Bowman for two years. [THR]
· Because it's not technically a pointless remake if you replace the original white people with black people: New Line plans a "reimagining" of the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin pic All of Me, with Wanda Sykes playing the Tomlin role. [Variety]