Well, at least Jon Heder will no longer be on a TV show. Also today: new pilot roles from an old friend in the military and that stoner guy, a zombie series gets our hearts aflutter, and theater news.
Hillary Clinton turns 62 today. Julian Schnabel is turning 58. Dylan McDermott is 48. Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder is turning 32. Keith Urban is 42. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is turning 36. Rita Wilson is 53. Novelist Marisha Pessl is 32. Times theater critic Ben Brantley turns 55. Singer Natalie Merchant is turning 46. Jaclyn Smith of Charlie's Angels fame is 62. And game show host Pat Sajak turns 63 today.
Mel Gibson announces his next big movie role, and it's a strange one. The Green Lantern movie narrows its potential leads down to three curious choices, and little beaver Jon Heder has landed a TV show on cable.
• More data about the Biggest Television Event Ever™: Some 31 million people tuned into the Jackson memorial on TV, and video sites report that they delivered more than 10 million live streams on Tuesday. [THR, VB]
• One TV person not pleased with all the Jackson coverage: Conan O'Brien, whose new Tonight Show has seen ratings drop as a result. [NYT]
• News Corp. has paid more than $1.6 million to settle court cases involving reporters in Britain who hacked into public figures' cell phones. [Guardian]
• Is Liberty Media going to bail out Harvey Weinstein? Let's hope so. [NYP]
• None of the major media companies appear keen on buying Twitter. [LAT]
• Comedy Central has ordered up a sitcom starring Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, which will be produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay. [B&C]
• The title of Michael Moore's new movie: Capitalism: A Love Story. [NYDN]
"West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin is still in the research phase of his Facebook: The Movie project, but we thought Valleywag's readers could help cast the lead role. Take your pick from our list, below.
· David O. Russell's next movie, a romantic comedy called Nailed, adds James Marsden, Catherine Keener and Tracy Morgan to an all-star cast that already includes Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel. As thrilled as we are to see Morgan's movie career graduate to the level of a Russell production, we fear what mayhem might arise from combining the highly combustible auteur and the manically unhinged actor. [THR]
· Overseas audiences love 10,000 B.C.! So much so that Warner Bros. has ordered 9999 more sequels, at which point they'll have Roland Emmerich take a stab at the Nativity Story, in which the baby Savior will fend off bloodthirsty sabre-toothed manger goats. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are close to signing Nanny McPhee's Thomas Sangster to play the lead role in their motion-capture Tintin trilogy. Do they really have to make it motion-capture? Nothing good ever comes from motion-capture. Let's just leave it in the early '00s, like we left sundried tomatoes in the '80s. [THR]
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time you noticed Faye Dunaway meditating between screenings at the Sunset 5.
Bearing a passing resemblance to Jon Heder probably won't get you much in this town, but it's apparently at least good enough to get some wire service shooting gallery time at a porn-star-studded gala where Coolio is the highest-profile guest. Over on his blog, comedian Marc "The Guy Who Lived In A Reasonably Priced Foreign Car For A Week" Horowitz posts this video about his short, but heady, experience breathing the rarefied air of Napoleon Dynamite-level celebrity at prodigiously becocked thespian Ron Jeremy's recent birthday party, during which he enjoyed the brief attention of some adult performers impressed by the belief that they were in the presence of an actual B-lister. Now that the Hollywood event-throwing world has been alerted to this doppelganger in its midst, we imagine that the security at the upcoming Blades of Glory premiere will be air-tight, with Heder himself a likely victim of a red carpet stun-gunning from a hair-triggered publicist who thinks she's just bagged herself an interloping imposter.
· Ooh, CNN.com, we love it when you talk rough and dirty to us.
· In honor of Tom Cruise's alleged sparring partner— the "Big Red" wrestling T-shirt. Also available in black, which we don't really understand.
· This child is going to be gifted with more stuffed ligers than any kid in history.
· A week ago, we had never even heard of Banksy. Today we've seen his name about 5000 times. Banksy, Banksy, Banksy! Enough, already!
· The fun starts at 1:12.
· Don't panic—if you can make it until the second paragraph, you'll see they aren't talking about Jeremy Piven.
· We meant to post this yesterday but forgot: Our single favorite moment from Wednesday night's To Catch A Predator.
It seems like only yesterday that crazed fans at Sundance were shouting "I want to have your baby" to Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder. Now we can only picture him responding by handing his fans coupons for 15% off a delicious Double Fudge Cookie Dough Blizzard® at participating Dairy Queen locations, then half-heartedly mumbling something about how ligers are the only creatures that can handle the new, "more intense" fudge.
