We were worried that Fox would have trouble finding new ways to shock and sicken America with its reality shows. Where is there left to go after providing blowsy women with extreme surgical makeovers and then forcing them into a beauty pageant of the damned? Or taking away helpless children's mothers and replacing them with a new version, as the cameras dutifully capture every last moment of permanent emotional scarring? These turned out to be very silly worries indeed; Fox never fails to deliver the damaged goods. People are again up in arms over Who's Your Daddy?, a show whose money-shot is the reunion of a daughter and her biological father. The LAT reports:

You don't get to be the supreme leader of the world's leading, just-right-of-Stalin media conglomerate by squandering an opportunity to rally the troops during what would otherwise be five wasted minutes spilling saccharine, candy-cane sentiment into a dictophone . Rupert Murdoch pauses during this busy holiday season to steel the Fox troops for next year's challenges:

· Michael Ovitz will produce a feature version of the Tom Clancy videogame Splinter Cell for Paramount. Ovitz is back, baby! By the end of next week, he'll demand that Paramount make him president and erect a bronze statue in his likeness on top of their famous water tower. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Diane Keaton, Sarah Jessica Parker and Dermot Mulroney join Claire Danes, Rachel McAdams and Luke Wilson in the Fox 2000 romantic comedy formerly known as Hating Her, and now tentatively titled Kind of Like Meet the Parents Meets Anything That Meg Ryan Was In Before The Surgery. [THR]
· Working Title Productions has picked up the spec feature Suicide Squad, a caper where a suicide hotline operator "recruits a ragtag group of suicidal outcasts to help him knock over a horse track." You know what? We kind of love this idea, but it's only going to end in disaster when they cast Josh Hartnett. [THR]
· Fox hires former Golden Girls showrunner Mort Nathan to write the sitcom Spirit of America, which will mine endless laughs from the hilarious situation in Iraq. [Variety]
· Fox fails to learn the lessons of this TV season and keeps moving forward with the Fox Reality Channel, hiring David Lyle to run the network that will provide a new outlet for their low-rated reality show flops. [THR]

And now for something completely different: A reader report from a party totally devoid of open-bar clogging, hors d'oeuvres gobbling, goodie-bag grabbing B-listers. Each December the studios will lay out some cold cuts, spin some records, and hire some booze-wielding cater-waiters for their employees, all in the name of averting a bloody end-of-the-year. burnout-induced revolt. Some might mistake this for goodwill, rather than a necessary evil rooted in self-preservation. Whatever the motive, a snout full of free vodka feels just as good:

· The latest on Miramax vs. Disney: In an SEC filing, Disney ominously states that production of Miramax projects may be "abandoned or otherwise impaired" after their deal with the Weinsteins expires. This is the closest Michael Eisner can get to threatening to kill Harvey Weinstein's children. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Hilary Swank gets the "femme fatale" role in the Brian DePalma adaptation of the James Ellroy novel The Black Dahlia. DePalma will now have to try and find a way to butch her up a little and put her right back in Oscar contention. [Variety]
· No matter how hard we close our eyes and wish for Brett Ratner to disappear, he stubbornly continues to show up in the trades. Robin Tunney signs up for Ratner's Fox drama Prison Break.[THR]
· NY Film Critics Circle jumps on the Sideways bandwagon. When will these critics stop blindly rewarding excellence, just like the Academy voters did years ago? [THR]
· NBC Universal Television pretends to humor Will & Grace star Eric McCormack's producing aspirations, sets up a shingle for him with offices across from the CBS Radford lot. How long will it take McCormack to figure out NBC provided him with cardboard prop computers from Ikea and Fisher Price telephones? [Variety]

· Let the end-of-year listmania begin: AFI releases its top 10 movies/television programs of 2004. [THR]
· The lovable drunks of Sideways take the LA Critics Assn. [THR], San Francisco Critics Circle [Variety, sub. req'd.], and NY Online Critics [THR] top honors. They're all just setting themselves up for disappointment when Miramax buys a win for The Aviator at the Oscars.
· The Desperate Housewives juggernaut outdoes all TV series in Golden Globe nominations, even beating The Sopranos by a count of five to four. Unfortunately, adulterous, teen-banging wife Eva Longoria is shut out. [Variety]
· Fox is so desperate to grab the Steve Levitan-Pamela Anderson pilot that it gives the still-unwritten project a six- episode, on-air commitment. Or, in terms we can better understand, three episodes per implant. [Variety]
· Kathy Bates is in negotiations to star in the Lifetime movie Ambulance Girl, about a middle-aged housewife who drives a fire truck. Kidding! She drives an ambulance. Naked. OK, not really. One nude scene per decade for Bates really is more than enough. [THR]

· Adorably creepy child-actor-of-the-moment Dakota Fanning will star in a Paramount/Nickelodeon Pictures adaptation of Charlotte's Web. We once again applaud her handlers' savvy in keeping her busy before she boards the train to Osmentville. [THR]
· Tom Hanks's Playtone Productions sets up reality show/mockumentary We're With The Band at Comedy Central, a show so confoundingly genre-busting that it seems designed solely to circumvent the rules of every professional guild in town. Also, it stars Alanis Morrissette, probably just to piss off the INS. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Vol. XXI: 20th Century Fox Television forces us to remember Maury Povich's salad days by resurrecting "seminal" news magazine show A Current Affair. [THR]
· Stunt casting alert! Zach Braff talks pal Colin Farrell into doing a turn on Scrubs, where he'll play against type as an "unruly Irishman" who "shows up drunk to the set every day" and "shows his penis to everyone in a ten-foot radius" before "vomiting on a gurney." [Variety]
· News That Ten People Care About: The WGA West will re-edit a controversial roundtable discussion about the Guild's problems with an eye on publishing it in Written By, their in-house magazine. Also, Dan Petrie, Jr. is fighting a ticket he got for double-parking on Fairfax. [THR]

· Scott Rudin takes a break from his extremely busy schedule of hiring, torturing, and firing assistants to produce an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men for Paramount. He may even have to postpone at least three of his weekly lashing sessions until the project's casting phase. [THR]
· Studios shuffle end-of-year release dates, killing time during the holiday season under the guise of "awards positioning" and "Christmas openings." [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Julianne Moore is in negotiations to star opposite Nicolas Cage, currently the Biggest Star in the World, in yet another Phillip K. Dick adaptation, Next. [Variety]
· "Breaking news": Kanye West nominated for shitload of Grammys. [THR]
· Snarkster comedian Michael Ian Black loses out to Craig Ferguson (say it with us now: "Who the fuck is that?") in the sweepstakes to host CBS's Late Late Show. We think they made up the name "Craig Ferguson" just so Craig Kilborn can sneak back on the air without losing face. [THR]

· Nicole Kidman will star in the Robert Evans-produced (apparently he's making time to produce in between hottubbing with Brett Ratner and planning his Broadway show) romantic comedy Wedding Season. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Chris Columbus will direct an adaptation from the dregs of Marvel Comics' hero stable, The Sub-Mariner. They're not going to waste any of the good characters on Columbus. [THR]
· The always-innovative Fox picks up "Lost, but on the moon!" pilot Darkside. Prepare yourselves for their coming "Desperate Housewives, but underwater!" project. [Variety]
· New Line Cinema acquires the rights to He's Just Not That Into You, with the book's writers Greg Behrendt amd Liz Tuccillo adapting the non-fiction blockbuster bestseller for the screen. In a related story, we are planning on killing ourselves as a Sex and the City rerun plays in the background. [THR]
· Shitergy Report: NBC Universal sells the syndication rights for Law & Order: Criminal Intent for a record $1.92 mil an episode to sister company USA and sister channel Bravo. [Variety]

In today's LAT piece on "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About How a Movie Trailer Gets Shown at Your Local Theater, But Were Afraid To Ask," we were utterly unsurprised to discover that the same system of studio payoffs, favor-trading, and intimidation that marks day-to-day business in Hollywood also effects theater chains' choices in trailers. Most comforting is the revelation that these transactions are not immune from the time-honored industry ritual of a studio executive unleashing profanities at someone with a much smaller salary:

Media Notes' Howard Kurtz reports that FOX News' outdoor news ticker displayed the following yesterday: "War protester auditions here today...Thanks for coming!" And: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them." And: "Attention protesters: The Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street."
Embedded and taking flak [WaPo via 601am]

A Raleigh, North Carolina FOX affiliate has pulled the reality TV series, "Married by America," citing "bad taste." Shows that, inexplicably, haven't been pulled for bad taste: Rikki Lake, Mama's Family, Cops, Chained Heat 2, Malibu Beach, Married...with Children.
Fox station pulls "Married by America" [Triangle Observer via Fark]

Ouch, that has to hurt. Jack Welch, former chairman of GE, says he turns to Fox News for breaking stories. I like the Fox style ... the Fox edge. GE owns CNBC and MSNBC.
Vault Message Boards [TVSpy.com]

Friday's box office receipts are in. Gangs of New York opened at number four, with a $2.9m gross. Word of mouth won't save it. There's a more generous take by Roger Friedman of Fox News.
Daily Box Office [Box Office Mojo]
Gangs Box Office: Follows Braveheart, Other Epics [Fox News]