· Dueling premiere parties, arguments over release dates (too close to Labor Day, American Gangster, and Brad Pitt's Jesse James flick?), and bickering over one-sheet images that reportedly made notoriously cuddly star Russell Crowe feel fat: the tension between Lionsgate and its 3:10 to Yuma talent has certainly made for some good times, according to Slate.
· Jeremy Piven admits to not being as stylish as the professionally wardrobed fictional character for which he is best known.
· Joe Mantegna tries to fill the Mandy Patinkin-shaped hole on Criminal Minds.
· Danny DeVito is not opposed to the terrible, terrible idea of a Throw Momma from the Train sequel.

Brazen Santa Monica jaywalkers, beware! A concerned operative with your best interests at heart writes: "Massive jay-walking sting operation outside HBO, MTV, and Lionsgate. No fewer than four Santa Monica motorcycle cops at the corner of Colorado and Cloverfield, ticketing dozens of pedestrians. Be warned."

· The NFL gets into the movie business, opting to launch their new endeavor with a biopic of Green Bay Packers coaching Vince Lombardi over the more timely, image-rehabilitating comedy Michael Vick's Obedience School. [Variety]
· Didn't it seem inevitable that Simon Cowell would expand his karaoke-based empire into films? He'll produce Star Struck, a Fame-inspired musical project about contestants on an American Idol-like singing competition. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Comic Book Vigilantism Edition: Lionsgate will "overhaul" The Punisher for yet another big-screen adaptation, futilely trying to improve upon the yeoman work turned in by Dolph Lundgren and Thomas Jane in previous film versions. [Variety]
· TV viewers desperate for even the most modest levels of entertainment give Fox a Wednesday night win by tuning in to So You Think You Can Dance and Don't Forget the Lyrics. [THR]
· Not to be outdone by the NFL's showbiz ambitions, AMC and former Laker Rick Fox (he was so good on One Tree Hill! And the hot tub/dildo scene in Dirt!) are developing a series about basketball players. [Variety]

Having already had the release date of his beloved Captivity delayed by the MPAA's displeasure over an accidental billboard campaign depicting step-by-step instruction on how to capture and torture a B-list actress, and recently having witnessed the bombing of the higher-profile Hostel Part II, desperate, self-consciously controversial After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon is trying to salvage his movie's box office prospects by bragging to the NY Times about the over-the-top coming-out party he's throwing to celebrate his movie's arrival in theaters. Boasts Solomon about the upcoming premiere orgy at Privilege:

It's been a good run for Lionsgate marketing co-president and shock-artist-in-residence Tim Palen, whose groundbreaking work composing controversial Bijou-Phillips-beheading, Wienerdog-inverting (pictured), and director-dong-exposing imagery to promote the upcoming Hostel: Part II are getting exactly the kind of media attention the studio was surely hoping for, culminating in today's LAT story about his campaigns. But what makes selling a horror flick with an image of a naked Phillips toting her head around like a Prada purse any different than what the much-maligned Captivity crew (coincidentally, a movie also distributed by Lionsgate! Funny how that worked out.) did with their billboard tutorials on how to kidnap, torture, and execute Elisha Cuthbert? Palen explains to the Times::

We apologize in advance for subjecting you to this image of leading Hollywood torture-pornographer/ turkeysploitation visionary Eli Roth, but we felt that today's combination of disturbing Lindsay Lohan and Brian Grazer imagery, while certainly distressing on its own, probably wouldn't leave any lasting psychological scars. We are, however, giving the squeamish the opportunity to go no further and avoid the soul-chilling shock of discovering what lies beneath that Hostel: Part II logo by continuing on to this (very, very NSFW) post on NY Mag's Vulture blog, but here's a hint for those who haven't figured it out already: the altered photo is from a two-page spread entitled Eli Roth Has the Biggest Dick in Hollywood, from a book on the marketing of horror films by Lionsgate executive Tim Palen. Happy Monday!

· The Weinstein Co. (with help from their besties at Lionsgate) will release Michael Moore's documentary Sicko on July 29th, which should do for America's health care system what Bowling for Columbine did for a senile-seeming, rifle-loving Charlton Heston. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Even In The Prehistoric Past And Distant Future Edition: Robert Rodriguez is in talks to direct a live-action feature adaptation of The Jetsons, and has also met with Universal about Will Ferrell's adaptation of Land of the Lost. [THR]
· Universal lands its second Serious Actor for its The Incredible Hulk project, as Tim Roth is in negotiations to play Hulk antagonist Abomination and spend long hours discussing how best to portray the emotional torment of gamma-wave-poisoning sufferers in the context of a superhero film. [Variety]
· FX may pay up to $40 million for the TV rights to Spider-Man 3 for five years, but only once it completes it pay-cable run on Starz. [THR]
· Var TV critic and Entourage nemesis Brian Lowry is amused that his HBO stand-in, who'll be harassed by an aggrieved Johnny Drama in an upcomnig episode shot in the paper's offices, has an assistant. [Variety]

· Thighmaster Records proudly announces the forthcoming greatest hits package from Andy Bernard, The Office's beloved rageoholic crooner.
· As fun as standing in a field and roasting in 100-degree weather sounded to us, we somehow never got around to buying tickets for Coachella. But here are a shitload of videos from the festival, and a link to LAist's exhaustive coverage.
· Haley Joel Osment gets behind the wheel again.
· A former American Idol contestant is in legal trouble. Must be Monday!
· Lionsgate will find out if a post-Virginia Tech America is ready for some fresh torture porn.

· Apparently, The Departed's Best Picture win triggered a clause in all participants' contracts mandating that all of their subsequent movie projects must involve at least two Departed alumni, as Leonardo DiCaprio and screenwriter William Monahan form yet another "reunion" for the adaptation of the novel Body of Lies for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Emboldened by the Easter holiday, Jesus finally serves a cold dish of revenge to Desperate Housewives for its second-season "slutty nun fight" episode, sending the series to its lowest ratings in its three-year history. [THR]
· Harrison Ford will sneak in a stint protecting America from illegal immigrants in the Weinstein Co.'s Crossing Over before reporting for duty this summer as cinema's most beloved, swashbuckling sexagenarian archaeologist. [Variety]
· Jared Padalecki will play the Painter of Light™ himself in Lionsgate's groundbreaking adaptation of Thomas Kinkade's blockbuster "Christmas Cottage" painting. [THR]
· 300 topples Mr. Bean at the foreign box office on its way to a $32 million weekend, boosting the tale of a crazed Persian emperor's ill-fated campaign to give every last soldier in Greece an erotic shoulder-massage to a $367 worldwide gross. [Variety]

We've had only one additional report of a Captivity billboard still awaiting removal since this morning's post ("Big one still up at wilshire and wilton next to the 7-11. It's giving the homeless gentleman out front ideas." And this just occurred to us: should we be asking for tips about ones that have been taken down?), but a reader with a good memory passed along this story from a couple of weeks ago, in which a certain, previously obscure small-time studio head who's spent a lot of time lately trying to explain how some OTP ideas mysteriously found their way into his movie's campaign positively glows with pride about the out-of-the -box marketing for another project he's involved in:

Yesterday's self-imposed 2 p.m. deadline for After Dark Films to remove the controversial Captivity billboards turning various Los Angeles intersections into gruesome instruction manuals on the capture, imprisonment, torture, and disposal of B-list actresses has come and gone, but buck-passing CEO Courtney Solomon's clean-up crew seems to be lagging a bit behind schedule, as reports of extant snuff ads have come in:

Just a gentle reminder to local movie fans: there is now a mere three hours until After Dark Films' self-imposed 2 p.m. deadline to remove the disturbing Elisha Cuthbert snuffboards looming over the city's roads, leaving you precious little time to wander out to a nearby intersection, gape in disgust at the unapproved images ("Personally, I wasn't going to go with this campaign. I thought it was OTP (over the top)," scandalized printing company mix-up victim [and After Dark CEO Courtney] Solomon told the Reporter. "Nothing like this can ever happen again.") that misrepresent the movie's uplifting message of female empowerment, and then return to your desk to research what you can do to help this country's 850,000 annual kidnapping victims. Hurry, for time is running short to raise your awareness of the important issue being championed by the brave studio.

Realizing that the millions of purchasers of the shopping-mall-quality artwork of Thomas "The Painter of Light" Kinkade who spend their weekend nights avoiding the multiplex in favor of staying home to stare contentedly at the quaint tableaux upon which they've just spent hundred of dollars represent an untapped market for their cinematic product, the visionary executives of Lionsgate have announced that they're adapting Kinkade's "The Christmas Cottage" painting into a feature to be released around the holidays, according to Variety.

With the first Love-Crazed-Astronaut-related project now officially jammed into the development pipleline (even one that's only tangentially connected, but apparently sold on astro-sizzle), studios that want to stay on the cutting edge of fundamentally cinematic batshit-level insanity should already be scrambling to discover the next unhinged hotness. In the interest of making their jobs a little easier, we introduce you the The Valentine's Day She-Vampire:

Our previous post about a beehive outside MTV's Santa Monica headquarters, in which we voiced our concerns that the aggravated honeymakers might be a divine symbol meant to foreshadow the impending fires and brimstone to soon come hailing down upon our quaint, seaside community, was read by a Defamer operative, who was then instantly reminded of another such ominous foretelling at almost the exact same location—a power outtage at Lionsgate HQ next door, to be precise, which occurred on Halloween day. The video above, made by a Lionsgate employee during an investigation into the cause of the blackout and distributed to the entire company, reveals the horrifying and gruesome truth behind what happened that day. Watch it if you dare, and merely await the coming of the final sign—a pack of albino coyotes wandering in from the North Hollywood hills to wreak havoc on the Universal backlot—which shall mark the official beginning of the End of Hollywood Days.

Today's LAT story on The Descent, the new horror movie that hopes to distinguish itself from the glut of recent splatter flicks by being incrementally more shocking and violent than the last one to pass through the multiplex, offers a crash course in how to market a cinematic product that doesn't have the benefit of bankable stars or a big-name director as a built-in selling point, courtesy of Lionsgate: 1) Play up any connection between the new movie and the wildly successful movies your studio has released in the past, even if that connection is that the same set of people signed the paychecks, and 2) feel free to borrow ideas from other revered horror movies for your advertising campaign, even if those ideas don't really have anything to do with your product. Writes the Times:

Lionsgate seems to have an iron stomach for brutally graphic, sado-sexual material (Hard Candy's extended castration sequence, the Hostel ball gag torture, virtually any scene in Madea's Family Reunion, etc...), so you'd think their people wouldn't be the least bit uptight about the director of their latest gorefest's XXX past. Not so, says Page Six:

After spending the last 24 hours or so self-inflicting paper cuts with a copy of the Crash script (the pages where Sandra Bullock is paranoid about her Mexican locksmith hurt the best) and seasoning the fresh wounds with a generous amount of table salt, we think we're ready to read some analysis about how Paul Haggis' little-race-fable-that-could pulled of its upset. Sure, you can blame actors, who were targeted with many of the 130,000 screeners the studio sent out, and who represent 22% of the Academy's voting members. But credit Lionsgate's Tom Ortenberg for his Rovian (this year, a better choice than the excess of a Weinsteinesque blitz) campaign strategy. Says The Envelope:

Starbucks continues its steady, overly caffeinated drip into the Hollywood game, with news that the coffee and public loitering facilities chain is moving some of their employees to the LA area in hopes of generating more opportunities for promotable entertainment tie-ins:

The Envelope reports that Lionsgate had to disclose exactly what its been spending on its For Your Consideration assault for Crash, letting us know exactly what the studio is willing to spend to buy itself an Oscar. The total's up to $4 million (against the movie's reported $6.5 million budget) for the entire awards-season campaign, with the last couple of million coming after the movie snagged its nominations in the only contest that matters: