john-cusack

Trade Round-Up: Freston's Fall From Viacom Grace Cushioned By Mattress Stuffed With $59 Million

mark · 10/19/06 01:50PM

Now we know the real reason that Sumner Redstone almost cried the night he fired Tom Freston: Freston's golden parachute just cost him $59 million for that one year on the job, plus millions more in consultant fees, deferred compensation, and his 401 (k). That's not just fuck-you money, that's fuck-you-and-everyone- who-looks-like-you money. [Variety]
Demonstrating its mandate to get faster, cheaper, and stupider, NBC orders 10 more episodes of 1 vs. 100—but then seemingly ignores orders from the corporate mothership by picking up six more scripts for newly verboten, expensive 8 pm drama Friday Night Lights. Maybe they fired the guy who's supposed to read the memos from Jeff Zucker. [THR]
John Cusack heads back into Grosse Pointe Blank territory by starring in, writing, and producing the dark political satire Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens, the story of an assassin sent to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. The movie is set to shoot this month in Bulgaria, which probably tells you all you need to know about the budget. [Variety]
Focus Features buys the drama Underdog from Gideon Yago. Yup, exactly the Gideon Yago you're thinking of while shaking your head and asking, "The MTV kid? Seriously?" [THR]
Now that CBS has bored you so profoundly with endless procedural dramas and flavorless comedies that you can't even be bothered to change the channel, they're now going to try to slip in some edgier shows. Watch out, they're throwing out the rule book! Schlubby sitcom husbands might soon be able to pull only semi-hot wives! [Variety]

Alleged John Cusack Stalker Insists She's Just Misunderstood Penpal

seth · 07/20/06 02:51PM

Celebrity/stalker disagreements are almost always precarious matters—usually he-said/ she-screamed-incoherently affairs, with the truth lying somewhere in the gray area in between. In the case of John Cusack's alleged obsessor, Jennifer Leatherman, the actor filed and won a restraining order against the homeless 31-year-old, claiming she threw "long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside." In an interview with the AP, however, Leatherman denied having catapulted the care packages into Cusack's yard, and resents the implication:

Gossip Roundup: Britney Beats 'Enquirer' Only on Foreign Soil

Jessica · 07/19/06 12:00PM

• By pursuing a libel case agains the National Enquirer in UK courts, Britney Spears wins over the tab's claim that she and Kevin Federline are splitting. The British and Irish editions will print a rare apology, which is all fine and good — but why the hell hasn't she sued Bazaar over that frightening cover shoot? [R&M (last item)]
• Aspiring pop singer and experienced Lolita Diana Bianchi can't carry a tune. God thing she still has a future serving as some sort of twat. [Lowdown]
• Justin Timberlake tries to convince the world he's not a pussy by proclaiming that he's "done way too many drugs." [Spin]
• Film critic Joel Siegel walks out of a screening of Clerks II, deeming it smut. The scene that set him off involved a discussion of a woman performing sexual acts on a donkey, which obviously brings up a lot of painful memories for Siegel. [Page Six]
• E! censors Voice gossip Michael Musto when he appears on The Simple Life to interview Paris Hilton. The offending phrase: "Are you a fag hag?" Apparently network execs didn't want anyone to even raise the issue of Hilton's hagginess. [Page Six]
• John Cusack scores a restraining order against his stalker who, we'll have you know, does not appear to have used the Stalker Map to harm Lloyd Dobler. [Reuters]

Gossip Roundup: Star Jones' Much-Needed Farewell

Jessica · 06/27/06 11:55AM

• More confirmation on yesterday's rumor that Star Jones is on her way out at The View — she's got no new gigs lined up (shock), producers had been looking to give her the boot since the wedding freebies fiasco last fall (double shock), but Barbara Walters kept Jones around out of pity (unfuckingbelievable). The arrival of Rosie O'Donnell, however, sealed the deal, and Jones is off like an plus-sized prom dress. [Fox411]
And set your DVRs: Star's big farewell is allegedly on Friday. Actually, she announced it this morning. Alas, we were watching hot Brazilian men kick Ghana's ass. [Lowdown]
• Lohan's recent week in NYC was so hardcore — fights with Paris, late nights at Bungalow, tears and glasses thrown at promoters — that not even her stylist, Nate Newell, could handle it. After being flown out to keep Lohan company, he begged friends to get him home after the constant drama. Good riddance to him, too. Rachel Zoe would never pussy out like that. [Page Six]
• You won't see pictures of baby Suri because no one will pay for them. [IMDb]
• Elton John and hubby David Furnish are kicked out of Pharrell Williams' party in Milan by a security guard looking to bring in more women. If only he'd realized the lady-gems that had been sitting right before him. [R&M]
• Megapublicist Dan Klores tries his hand as a playwright. From one sort of fiction to another, we suppose. [Page Six]
• John Cusack seeks a restraining order against a stalker named Emily Leatherman. The surname really should have tipped everyone off. [TMZ]

John Cusack: Dog Lover Or Dog Haver?

mark · 08/01/05 01:07PM

An obligatory wire service "I'm exactly like my character/nothing like my character in my just-released movie" story goes horribly awry when a crucial mistake bumps us right out of an in-depth examination of John Cusack's similarity/dissimilarity to his on-screen persona in the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs [bold ours]:

Gossip roundup

Gawker · 01/03/03 08:16AM

· New Year's Eve brawl at SPA: the bouncers vs. the promoters, and even people in South Beach have had enough of P. Diddy. [Page Six]
· Page Six realizes that one of their "Most Eligible Bachelorettes"Saturday Night Live's Tina Feyis actually married. [Page Six]
· Soprano's star Joe Pantoliano stiffs guests at New Year's Eve dinner in Hoboken. [Page Six]
· John Cusack and Woody Allen are making a film about the infamous 1972 New Year's Day robbery at the Pierre Hotel. [Page Six]
· Cindy Adams bashes Starbucks. (Bashing Starbucks is soooo three-and-a-half weeks ago.) [Cindy Adams]
· Britney Spears misses her own New Year's Eve dinner party at the Hudson Hotel; former boy band member Joey McIntyre (of "New Kids on the Block") kicked out of Brooklyn hipster bar; Luciano Pavarotti splits with his longtime NY rep, Herbert Breslin; and Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw spotted catching "Chicago" at the Ziegfeld on New Year's Day. [NY Daily News]