· Hey, starfuckers with wanderlust! Quick, get thee to the Land of Hasselhoff to see the likes of Keanu Reeves, Bill Murray, Will Smith, and Kevin Spacey hawking their cinematic wares at the Berlin Film Festival. [Variety]
· The New Paramount™ continues to spend, spend, spend, buying the rights to the gold-digging kids book Treasure Trove for Tom Cruise's production company. [Variety]
· Start your angry letter-writing campaign now: Fox reduces Arrested Development's episode order to make room for American Dad. Looks like the network has finally run out of patience with AD's ratings...or American Dad/Family Guy (which is being relaunched there soon) creator Seth MacFarlane has some incriminating pictures of Fox head Gail Berman. [THR]
· American Idol continues to bestride the feeble television landscape like an out-of-key Colossus, pulling in another 30 million viewers. [THR]
· Chris Noth's career comes full circle, as he returns to the Law & Order franchise (this time to the Criminal Intent flavor), giving the producers some insurance against future Vincent D'Onofrio "fainting spells." [Variety]

It's not exactly Paul McCartney whipping it out in the middle of "Hey Jude," but it looks like Fox Sports did indeed get their nipple slip. Having it happen to a Playboy bunny almost disqualifies it...almost. Click here to see the uncensored pic, at least until someone at the Fox site takes it down.

· Double-feature alert: There are plans to re-release Deep Throat to accompany the Universal documentary Inside Deep Throat on the [cough-cough] "seminal porn film." [Variety]
· Fox sensibly shits its pants and decides to move Fantastic Four back a week, avoiding a likely one-sided Fourth of July showdown with War of the Worlds. They're a lot less afraid of Bewitched, the new competition, which will likely feature fewer spectacular explosions. [THR]
· Now that Paul McCartney's buzzless Super Bowl halftime show has made live television safe for America, ABC will air the Oscars through 2014, and will shrug off the tyranny of the 7-second tape delay. [Variety]
· In an effort to capitalize on the runaway popularity of housewives in suburbia, ABC signs
Kristin Davis to star in the one-hour pilot Soccer Moms. The move also helps temporarily to keep former Sex in the City stars off the welfare rolls. [THR]
· Even after bothering to "reimagine" Jennifer Love Hewitt half-hour In the Game, ABC mercifully decides to finally put it down like a crippled dog. [THR]

· Actors celebrating their own: The SAG awards throw a bone to the Sideways ensemble, while Jaime Foxx and Hilary Swank warm up for their Oscar speeches. [Variety]
· John Cusack takes a break from romantic comedies to to star in the hitman thriller The Contract with Morgan Freeman. We're unclear which of them is the hitman; both have previous contract killer experience. (See Grosse Pointe Blank and Nurse Betty.) [Variety]
· The delightfully jiggly Eva Mendes will star opposite Nicholas Cage in Columbia's Marvel comic adaptation of Ghost Rider. Daredevil's Mark Steven Johnson is directing, so you know this one's going to be huge. [THR]
· Pilot pick ups: a Fox sitcom set at a used car dealership, an NBC poker comedy, and a wacky, "high-concept" WB show about Miami mermaids. In related future news, networks will reduce their slate of new comedies to record low levels. [Variety]
· Tired of all that "fake crime" bullshit on the innumerable CSI and Law & Order series? A&E is launching the Crime & Investigation network for those who like their crime to have real victims. [Variety]

· You heard it here first: Boxing movies are hot, hot, hot! Paramount and Sony team up to buy the rights to make the boxing documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, the true story of the boxer that beat his opponent to death in the ring after he called him a homo, into a feature film. You're not going to get that kind of edge in Russell Crowe's Cinderella Man. [Variety]
· The People's Mandate: American Idol trounces Bush's State of the Union address in the ratings, despite the president's hilariously off-key rendition of "It's Raining Men." [THR]
· It's official: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart is a go at NBC, and Stewart's five-month house arrest isn't even a problem—she'll bring her new prison edge to the show. Instead of merely dismissing contestants who can't hack it in Marthaland, they'll be raped by her former lesbian cellmates. [Variety]
· You just know this one was sold off the pitch, "Antonio Banderas is a ballroom dancer." [THR]
· Jack Nicholson joins Martin Scorcese's The Departed to show young punk co-stars Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio how it's done. [Variety]

· MGM picks its final four films before their new masters at Sony take over. Strangely, one of the chosen films is Breaking Vegas, a directing vehicle for Brett Ratner. Wouldn't it have been less painful to burn down the place before Sony gets to run the show? [Variety]
· Tina Fey will write the script for and star in an NBC pilot about "the head writer of a SNL-like variety show, focusing on her efforts to control a volatile star and executive producer." Don't stretch yourself too much, Tina. [THR]
· Ray director Taylor Hackford seems to know he's got no shot at actually winning the Oscar, as he signs up to direct Jerry Bruckheimer's "West Wing at the Pentagon" pilot E-Ring. [THR]
· Aspiring actors willing to do anything for your careers, take heart: unionizing casting directors have decided not to strike, and are still willing to accept your sexual favors in return for a break. [Variety]
· American Idol's huge ratings continue to distract everyone from thinking about how horrible the rest of Fox's schedule is. [Variety]

Have you ever found yourself staring at your cellphone and wishing that the tiny screen could be filled with beheadings, drug-addled special anti-terrorist agents, and inscrutable plot twists? You're in luck, because today Fox and Verizon are rolling out 60-second episodes of a 24 series called 24: Conspiracy made to be viewed on the two-inch space previously reserved for your phone numbers, postage stamp-sized pictures of your drunk friends, and the occasional game of Tetris. And if the series doesn't show early promise (like most of the offerings on the network), the programming geniuses at Fox will undoubtedly prop up the short-attention-span 24 episodes with endlessly repetitive clips of people singing off-key renditions of Celine Dion songs.

· After watching the DGA and WGA go down in flames negotiating for increased DVD residuals, SAG/AFTRA gives up the dream after facing "rock-hard resistance from studios and nets." But everyone knew they were going to get bent over and given the "rock-hard" shaft after the writers and directors hummed their way through their earlier buggerings. [Variety]
· Despite The Big Pitt and Aniston Break-Up, Plan B and Tri-Star will soon start production on the adaptation of Running with Scissors, starring Annette Bening, Gwyneth Paltrow, Brian Cox, Evan Rachel Wood, and Joseph Fiennes. [Variety]
· More Brad and Jen: Mr. and Mrs. Smith will be a test case for whether or not banging your co-star before a very public split with your A-list wife results in increased box office. God, we hope it does, just for all the studio-ordered affairs. [THR]
· Huzzah! The overall deal is not yet dead! Darren Star is close to signing a three-year deal with Sony Pictures TV. OK, it's not dead if your last project was Sex and the City. [THR]
· Fox and Spelling TV team up for one hour drama set in a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Please, kill us now, and make it painful. It'll still be better than an hour of this. [THR]

· A NY court rules that Marvel Enterprises owes comic book legend Stan Lee 10% of the profits earned from TV and movies based on Marvel characters, including Spider-Man. (The worldwide gross from both Spidey movies is about $1.5 billion, but let's see what happens after the studio accountants are through.) Obviously, Marvel will appeal. [Variety]
· Les Moonves refuses to accept that UPN's ratings are flat, questions the whole Nielsen system! Well, as it pertains to his shows, anyway. [THR]
· Warner Brothers and Paramount are in negotiations to co-finance a film about the Zodiac killer. David Fincher is also in talks to direct, but, as always, he'll have to fight to make sure that his "foreboding atmosphere" budgetary needs will be met. Constant rain doesn't come cheap. [Variety]
· Acquisition-hungry studios descend on Sundance tonight, ready to feast on the "best lineup of films in recent memory." We can't wait to see what stays down and what gets vomited back up. [THR]
· American Idol defeats Lost in the Wednesday battle of ratings titans. Stay tuned as ABC rushes Lost's very special, out-of-tune musical episode onto the air next week. [Variety]

· The Golden Globes ratings slump causes the Television Academy to consider overhauling the Emmys ceremony, such as removing most movie and miniseries categories from the telecast, or reducing the show to a half-hour series of reaction shots of the Will & Grace cast. [Variety]
· Fox entertainment president Gail Berman can unload the suicide pistol in her desk, as better than 30 million viewers per hour tuned in to watch the premiere American Idol "retards singing Ricky Martin standards" episode. [THR]
· Red-hot off The OC, Tate "Jimmy Cooper" Donovan signs on for...a Sci-Fi Channel series with Shaft? We smell an agent firing on the horizon. [Variety]
· Paramount is still remake-crazy, but at least this time they're bringing out the big talent guns for their live-action/CGI Charlotte's Web. Julia Roberts, Oprah, Andre 3000, Kathy Bates and a cast of thousands will do the voices. [Variety]
· We thought they'd hold out for Speed 3: Somewhat Faster, but Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves will reuinite in the romantic drama Il Mare for Warner Brothers. [THR]

Fox is ready to roll out another new series tomorrow night, and we all know what that means: the inevitable cross-promotional theme menu at the on-lot Fox News Cafe. This time around, the network's crack marketing team had to tie the Cafe's offerings to Jonny Zero (tagline: "Now the city's toughest ex-con is helping those who can't help themselves"), a show that's likely to have the shelf-life of their Zero Guilt Salad. Some of the names smack of laziness. We assume a Personal "Jonny Calvo"ne is a calzone, but what does Fresh Outta Prison have to do with pizza? It's enough to make you put down your I Had To Befriend The Mobbed-Up Italians So That The Aryan Brotherhood Wouldn't Rape Me In The Shower Panini and send the PA out to fetch some Chinese food.

· News Corp., in good financial shape, looks to start buying everything in sight just for shits and giggles. [THR]
· If 74-year-olds keep scoring seven-figure deals like the one Alvin Sargent just signed to write Spider-man 3, older, out-of-work writers are going to have a hell of a time suing studios for age discrimination. [Variety*]
· Afraid of the possibility that the God of the Old Testament might smite them for their sin, ABC will produce their Ten Commandments miniseries without a singing Val Kilmer. [THR]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, We Were Just Ahead Of Our Time Edition: Disney signs up writers Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal for a Tron remake. [Variety*]
· Sean William Scott joins Billy Bob Thornton in the cast of the New Line comedy Mr. Woodcock. Enjoy the movie's title before it gets changed to something more palatable to red state theatregoers. [THR]

Audience response to the season finale of Nip/Tuck was so good that creator Ryan Murphy, who had one foot out the door to start a career in directing features, was suddenly filled with more stories:

Did anyone else notice that last night's season premiere of 24 featured a terrorist named "Tomas Sherak"? (It was a little hard to miss, since the name was mentioned about a dozen times during the episode.) The real-life Tom Sherak, of course, is a partner at Revolution Studios and the former chairman of Fox's film division. Naming a terrorist after a studio exec really lacks the shout-out cachet of, say, the writers of The O.C. slipping their agents' names into their show.

· Rick Sands, the Miramax COO hardened by years of Harvey Weinstein's cat o' nine tails, assumes the title of president and CEO of DreamWorks. He'll report to David Geffen, whom we expect will issue a totally different kind of daily beating than the ones Sands grew accustomed to at The Max. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· You hardly needed this told to you: Shrek 2 was the highest selling home video title in 2004. DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg can now flush entire stacks of hundred dollar bills down the toilet, whereas before he had to peel them off one by one. [THR]
· Just because there's nothing to do in the first week of the year but count the piles of money: Sony wins the year in North American box office thanks to Spider-man 2, while Warner Bros. takes the international box office crown [THR, Variety]
· Paramount execs were taken by surprise by the stories that Brad Grey has been anointed as the next studio head, feeling they weren't consulted. Hmm, maybe they weren't told because they're all about to get fired? [Variety]
· Jerry Bruckheimer gets two drama pilot pickups, including E-Ring for NBC, a supposed West Wing in the Pentagon. Maybe it's time he gets his own channel. Jerry's Steaming Pile of Derivative Shit TV has kind of a nice sound to it. [THR]

Who could've seen that coming? In response to the failure of Who's Your Daddy?, Fox Entertainment head Gail Berman, worried about her job but convinced the show is a winner, will pledge patience and sign up another installment that even further raises the emotional stakes. In Who's Your Mommy?, five barren women are turned loose in a hospital's nursery to grab an infant, then given a two-day head start before being hunted down by the babies' heavily-armed birth mothers.

·"No power player has ever given up as much autonomy and wealth to become the No. 3 man in an entertainment company." So sayeth Peter Bart about Brad Grey's expected move to Paramount, but he's obviously overlooking the valuable opportunity to be Les Moonves' demonic valet (Tom Freston will be long slain) at Viacom when the Rapture comes. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda will open the Santa Barbara Film Festival. This isn't as scary as it sounds—Allen's only creatively dead, not actually dead. [THR]
· Samaire Armstrong, on-screen assistant to Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold on Entourage (and late of The O.C.), is cast as Lindsay Lohan's BFF in her untitled "Lucky" project. Next up for Armstrong: peer-pressure surgery, a drinking problem, and a punitive fling with Fez. [THR]
· Carsey-Werner and Fox will attempt to squeeze every last drop of blood from the dessicated corpse of That 70's Show, formulating plans to keep the sitcom going after Topher Grace bails at the end of this season and Ashton Kutcher makes only token appearances. [Variety]
· Every time a publicist is promoted, an angel gets a scorching case of herpes: Rebecca Marks moved up to executive VP of NBC Universal west coast publicity division. The bad news is she still reports directly to fading NBC-U golden boy Jeff Zucker. [Variety]

Just kidding. But seriously, if you're gonna do some devious business crap or deviant personal insanity, do it today. No one's paying attention. Here's all we could scavenge from the desiccated trades today:

Expectedly, Monday morning's Christmas weekend box office projections were a little off—hey, we were drunk, why shouldn't the folks who do screen math have been a wee bit tanked too? The good news soon to be trumpeted by publicist Marleah Leslie & Associates is a triumph of the emaciated over the plump: Jim Carrey pulls Lemony Snicket (barely) into second place behind Fockers, and Fat Albert plops down to third place.

· In the dark alleys of Europe, "obscure" execs challenge Rupert Murdoch's monopoly on Pay TV with their sinister new technologies and low prices. Here at Fox, from the fifth floor of building 100, an old Aussie weeps. "Fie! Fie on ye, progress!" [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Disney execs face "incentive revisions." Happy holidays! [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Baio returns to the small screen with NBC comedy produced by Jace Richdale. In it, Baio stars as a 40-something guy who moves in with a 20 year old and subsequently "turns his life upside down." So, like Charles in Charge, plus 20 years, minus Nicole Eggert. [THR]
· 2005 Television ad market looking "cloudy." In unrelated news, 2005 product placement market looking "egregious." [THR]
· The Incredibles paves way for new subgenre: superheroes vaguely reminiscent of comic books characters, but not so much as to require the exchanging of money. [THR]
· Rap "star" Kurupt and David Carradine to star in one of the more ridiculous movie ideas in recent memory, the urban Western Click. [THR]