· More proof that if you pray hard enough, anything can happen: Chris Tucker will soon sign a two-picture, $40 million deal at New Line, finally allowing visionary director Brett Ratner the opportunity to be involved with a an aesthetic disaster that may not bomb. [Variety]
· Three of the four big broadcast networks form the TV Watch coalition, which will urge parents to stop their kids from watching "indecent" content before the government starts making those choices for everyone. [THR]
·Chappelle's Show premiere delayed indefinitely, etc etc, but Variety plays the "unspecified personal issues" card. (More on this later shortly—stay tuned.) [Variety]
· News Corp profits fall 8%, causing Rupert Murdoch to temporarily halt the installation of 24-karat gold urinals in the perfect replica of Australia he's building off the coast of Florida. [THR]
· Cameron Diaz will take a break from punching out paparazzi and bungee-jumping in Burma to help reverse the greenhouse effect to star in Nancy Meyers' Something's Gotta Give follow-up, Holiday. Who will save the planet now? [Variety]

· Is all of this American Idol hubbub news, or just a ratings stunt devised for maximum sweeps impact? We suppose that depends on whether or not anal is involved. [Variety]
· Sure, you heard it here yesterday, but the "facts" are now in: Revolution embarks in a "new direction" without partner Todd Garner, i.e., a direction that includes making somewhat less risibly awful movies. [Variety]
· Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett are in negotiations to star in F. Scott Fitzgerald story adaptation The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for director David Fincher. We can't wait for the carefully-orchestrated release of photos from Pitt and Blanchett's inevitable, sex-soaked African safari shortly before the movie's release. THR]
· Super-publicist Leslee Dart gets three new flacks on board for her "Dart Group" venture. We're assuming that "The Fuck Pat Kingsley Group" was already taken. [Variety]
· Finding that buying the rights to ER from NBC to be needlessly complicated, ABC picks up 13 more episodes of Grey's Anatomy. [THR]
· The Sarah Michelle Gellar space meaningfully signs up for Warner Independent Picture's adaptation of the book A Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing. [THR]

· Overseas audiences make Americans look discerning for a change, as XXX tops foreign box office. We never want to hear another word about our cultural wasteland from someone with a foreign accent again. [Variety]
· MTV, buzzless and hurtling towards the upfronts, quietly prays for Newlyweds to end in a climactic murder-suicide. [THR]
· Regency and 20th Century Fox Television sign Malcolm in the Middle writer Alex Reid to a "rich" two-year development deal. (Full disclosure: As an intern, we made coffee for Reid on numerous occasions and were never once doused with our poorly-brewed Folgers, even if some grounds got into the pot.) [Variety]
· TheFamily Guy's re-debut does some nice ratings, but the crazy bitches from Wisteria Lane still have their way with Nielsen families. [THR]
· Director Todd "Far From Heaven" Haynes nabs Cate Blachett, Colin Farrell, Adrien Brody, Richard Gere, Julianne Moore, and Charlotte Gainsbourg for his "unconventional" Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. [Variety]
· News your waiter can explain much more clearly than we can: Former AFTRA head Greg Hessinger starts today as CEO of SAG. [Variety]

Tomorrow, at their storied News Cafe, home to endless show-related promotions and lamely-themed meals, Fox employees will gather to give outgoing president Gail Berman a tearful goodbye as she departs for a job helping Brad Grey run The New Paramount™. As a last act of brutality before forever leaving behind the lot that was her home for the last five years, Berman's apparently commissioned a baby writer from Stacked to pen the invitation to her going-away party, which was circulated to employees today via e-mail. Prepare yourselves, kids, this one's going to get a little rough:

· NBC goes cuckoo for the tainted Cocoa Puffs of reality television, planning to roll out six shows this summer. Scheduled to chip away at your soul: More Biggest Loser, Average "We Always Pick The Hot Guy, So Why Bother?" Joe, a new entry in the still-hot family-destablization genre (Meet Mr. Mom), and something from whose uterus sprung Paris Hilton. We're never going to get a tan at this rate. [Variety]
· Oliver Stone gets another opportunity to prove he's completely forgotten how to direct a compelling movie with an adaptation of James Ellroy's The Night Watchman. [THR]
· HBO lands The Office's Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's next show, Extras, about a struggling actor in Hollywood. And even though HBO is already jam-packed with Hollywood-set shows like Entourage and Unscripted, there is still much rejoicing that Gervais didn't take his new baby to a broadcast network. [Variety]
· The resurrected Family Guy seems "less frenetic" than it was in its early, oft-canceled incarnation. [THR]
· Marvel and Paramount enter into a production deal, ensuring that every obscure superhero in the Marvel Universe gets his chance to be in an absolutely execrable movie that will make fanboys sob into their Power Man and Iron-Fist pillow cases. [Variety]

· Patty Hearst files for access to grandfather William Randolph Heart's will, a document shrouded in secrecy and which contains a clause stating that anyone who challenges it will be disinherited. It further states that any heir that can spend $30 million dollars in 30 days will inherit a vast fortune; while this sounds easy, there are Byzantine rules governing the spending of the money that ensure anyone taking the challenge will be plunged into a wacky adventure in creative capitalism. [Variety]
· Sort-of-actor/sometime-director/kinda-writer Peter Berg is rewarded for not being particularly good at anything, landing a production deal for his Film 44 shingle with Universal. THR]
· Bravo goes trulydeeplybatshit insane for reality programming, announcing new shows The Daily News (about the prolonged pissing match between tabloids the NY Daily News and the NY Post), The Real Housewives (about a cynical attempt to capitalize on ABC's huge hit), and Battle of the Network Reality Stars (about the final and total destruction of Western culture). But if they decide to do another season of Project Greenlight, all is forgiven. [Variety]
· Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Lopez will star in the indie thriller Bordertown, two actors equally confounded by the prospect of reciting their lines in the English language. [THR]
· 800-pound reality gorillas Mark Burnett and Endemol USA vote agencies CAA and William Morris (respectively) off the money-island. Also, torches snuffed, "you're fired," etc etc. [THR]
· Fox manages to hold on to at least one Berman. [Variety]

KABC-7's website reports a tragedy on the set of Fox 2000's remake of My Friend Flicka:

Pity the poor employees of Fox. They're routinely made to suffer the indignities of themed, promotional meals at their cafes, occasionally made to chomp on carb-heavy breakfast foods that are somehow supposed to remind them of burying their syrup-slicked heads between Pamela Anderson's enormous breasts, and once in a while, mysterious body parts supposedly belonging to long-disposed-of assistants are rumored to turn up on their lot. Haven't they suffered enough? They have not, say the smooth-brained imagineers of Fox's vaunted promotional department, for now they're being asked to become complicit in one of the lamest viral-marketing ideas we've ever heard of—attaching Family Guy signatures (OMG the baby does a widdle dance!) to their outgoing e-mail to publicize the relaunch of their dysfunctional relationship with the oft-canceled show.

· Long since having abandoned all hopes of catching Fox's American Idol in the ratings, ABC is instead planning a "potentially explosive exposé" of the juggernaut on Primetime Live. Among the shocking revelations: Sensitive, soft-spoken (and recently de-Idoled) contestant Anwar Robinson is gay, Simon Cowell had undifferentiated genitalia at birth, and talent-free crowd favorite Scott Savol looks like a cross between a giant, scary baby and Vincent D'Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket. [Variety]
· Time Warner and Comcast have agreed to buy cable-provider Adelphia, assuring that we will have no idea whom to call and scream at during our weekly internet service outage. [THR]
· Tobey Maguire signs on to star with George Clooney and Cate Blanchett in The Good German, in which Maguire will conveniently portray a movie star who really lets himself go while frittering away his Hollywood fortunes in poker tournaments. [Variety]
· Sarah Jessica Parker is in talks to star in the the "dark comedy" Slammer, in which she'd play a jailed publicist that organizes an inmate musical. The script marks a new (and potentially much better) direction for backer Revolution Studios, which is now generating movie plots with an old book of Mad-Libs. [THR]
· Nicolas Cage will star in the film Electric God, a development that provides so many potential punchlines that we decline to offer even one. [Variety]

· The Agent Dance Mini: CAA agent Michael Wimer is getting ready to bolt to form a production company with Roland Emmerich at Columbia, where the two will attempt to make movies where lots of shit blows up; to maintain a proper agent-equilibrium, Endeavor's Spencer Baumgarten fills a spot a CAA. [Variety, Variety ]
· Ed Burns will write, direct, and star in The Groomsmen, and somehow wrangles a cast of Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Matthew Lillard, Jay Mohr, Jessica Capshaw, and Donal Logue, an ensemble who clearly haven't seen Sidewalks of New York (and that includes Murphy, who was in the movie). [THR]
· NBC signs Fear Factor executive producer Matt Kunitz to a two-year development deal; Kunitz will spend the pact's duration trying to figure out even more ways for desperate actors and actresses to devour the genitalia of animals. [Variety]
· Sun rises, sun sets, American Idol crushes its competition in the ratings. How far can we be from an all-Idol, all-the-time Fox schedule? More importantly, when is America going to vote off the off-key singing fat guy who looks like a giant, scary baby? [THR]
· Superhero villains Ian "Magneto" McKellan and Alfred "Doctor Octopus" Molina score roles in The Da
Vinci Code adaptation, which is apparently undergoing a slow transformation into a comic-book movie. [Variety]

The Hollywood Reporter sits down with fresh-faced Fox head Peter Liguori to discuss his first week at his new gig, predecessor Gail Berman's legacy, and the creative culture of his network:

Attention employees on the Fox lot: Hopefully you've already filled your bellies with the latest inspired creation of your co-workers in marketing, the stacks of "Pam Cakes" offered at the Commissary and New Cafe to celebrate the premiere of the sitcom that's not exclusively about Pamela Anderson's rack, for the offer will have expired by the time you read this. If you missed out on the breakfast, don't panic. You'll have a second chance at lunch, where the intramural promotion fun will continue in a somewhat more literal (and healthy!) fashion, with a delicious melons-with-cherries-on-top bar.

· Desperate Housewives, 24, and Lost have been successful overseas, thrilling international audiences in a way they haven't experienced since David Hasselhoff stapled a merkin to his chest and donned a red bathing suit. [Variety]
· While other media conglomerates look to get leaner and meaner through deconsolidation, Rupert Murdoch is happy to have his News Corp continue to bloat with further expansion. He's inching ever closer to his goal of having ten generations of heirs wipe themselves only with crisp hundred-dollar bills. (The help will use the wrinkled ones.) [THR]
· "Newsies converge on Vatican City." With a critical mass of priests gathering for the pope's funeral, the newsies don't want to see the altar boys getting all the action. [Variety]
· Summer is for remakes: The Pink Panther's release is moved to August 5th, where it will do battle with the similarly original Dukes of Hazzard flick.[Variety]
· George Clooney may join Cate Blanchett and his Section Eight producing partner Steven Soderbergh (who'll direct) to make The Good German, the story of "an American journalist who is sent to cover the Allied summit meeting that will carve out control of post-World War II Germany." If the deal is consummated, this will mark the fifth time that Clooney and Soderbergh have made beautiful love to each other across the camera. [THR]

· Variety celebrates the Pope's "theatrical" flair and claims he was "as much of a global pop-culture icon as Michael Jackson in his heyday." We suppose the publisher wouldn't pay for a plane ticket to Rome and a bag of rocks to toss at the pontiff's body. [Variety]
· BET is developing new series for the network, including their own, completely original Apprentice knock-off featuring Damon Dash. [THR]
· After months of breathless anticipation, the Fox Reality network is finally ready to launch in May. Finally, the country's 24-hour-a-day hunger for bastards to finally meet the parents that abandoned them as children will be sated! [Variety]
· Director Peter Jackson's completely plausible claim that he's shooting back-to-back King Kong sequels alongside the first installment in New Zealand was merely an elaborate April Fool's Day prank. Don't worry, kids, Universal will shoot the inevitable sequels at a later date in a fashion that will waste as much money as possible. [THR]
· The assumed-dead Yes Dear's surprising success filling the schlubby-husband-with-hot-wife sitcom hole left by the flop Center of the Universe in CBS's schlubby-husband-with-hot-wife schedule might earn the series a new episode order. [Variety]

· M. Night Shyamalan is close to corralling Paul Giamatti and Bryce Dallas Howard for the latest foray into his signature brand of Gotcha! cinema, Lady in the Water. Spoiler alert: Paul Giamatti is revealed to be the lady in the final frames. [Variety]
· It's official: Hitch is the winter's box office champion, with Meet the Fockers finishing second. To commemorate the occasion, Will Smith will ceremonially flush Ben Stiller down a giant toilet on the the Hollywood Walk of Fame. [THR]
· Network cockfight! ABC and Fox are planning to pit the Lost and American Idol season finales against each other in a bloody Nielsen deathmatch. [Variety]
· Today's actors being recycled through the magic of pilot season: Wendy Malick, Tom Everett Scott, Rhea Perlman, and Dabney Coleman are cast in pilots. [Variety]
· Chinese star Gong Li is drafted for the usual Hollywood duty as an all-purpose Asian actress in Miami Vice (Chinese/Cuban) and the Hannibal Lecter sequel Behind the Mask (Japanese). [Variety]

The mystery of the "Fox Leg," the severed appendage still nestled in a workboot that was discovered in a Malibu landfill and which was believed to have originated from a construction site on the Fox lot, may have finally come to an anticlimactic end. Authorities now believe it belongs to a suicide victim from Paramount (the town, not the studio) and that the foot might have been discarded when discovered by a shocked motorist. In the interest of softening the blow of disappointment at this turn of events, an alternate theory: Recently-departed Fox president Gail Berman found the foot stuck to the grille of her SUV, then kept it as a desk toy meant to intimidate her business associates. ("Hey, if you don't like the episode order reduction, maybe your tootsie would look nice next to Bootsy Joe's here. How does that float yer boat, Grazer?") When Berman took her new position at Paramount (the studio, not the town), she simply tossed the foot in the trash. And the rest, as they say, is completely fabricated history.

Since updates on the mysterious, severed "Fox Leg" have been scarce both from the media and from within the walls of the lot, we decided to analyze the evidence at hand.

This disturbing tip landed in our inbox a little while ago:

· For some reason, Paramount president Donald De Line thinks that not being told about Brad Grey hiring Gail Berman to do his job means it's time for him to move on. He's leaving his post at the studio for parts unknown (i.e., Sony, if you believe the rumors.) [Variety]
· Just-anointed Fox president Peter Liguori has kissed his teary-eyed FX troops goodbye, and is already busy at his new home, ready for the challenge of getting bailed out by American Idol every year. [Variety]
· CBS development moves away from competition-based reality shows, and now embraces the new self-improvement/family-related paradigm. A surefire hit on its way: Les Moonves destroys your mansion in the Hills with his bare hands, then orders his minions to rebuild it in under 24 hours. [THR]
· ABC's premiering hot-doctors-doing-cute-things drama Grey's Anatomy rides Desperate Housewives' coattails to strong ratings. [Variety]
· Everybody works during pilot season, part thirty-eight: Brenda Blethyn, Jane Leeves, Donal Logue, Mariel Hemingway, Alyson Hannigan cast in pilots. We give it a week before sneaky agents get a handful of dead clients cast. [THR]

Wow, that was fast. Guess the folks at the top of the Fox food chain were terribly afraid that all of the little chicks in the pilot season incubator would fall ill if neglected for too long. They've already named FX head Peter Liguori to take over for the bolting Gail Berman, ensuring that they have someone to shepherd such promising shows as Dirtbags, Don't Ask (not the John Goodman project that eventually became the short-lived Normal, Ohio—but very close), and Marriage 911. A hint for the new guy: They keep the Xanax in a Ziploc bag in the top left drawer of your new desk. Take a handful before you even consider picking up Pool Boys, then order seven more seasons of American Idol instead. That should get you through the first day on the job.