· Paramount and Tom Cruise will premiere M:i:III in Rome on April 24, a fitting tribute to the city that so warmly hosted hosted the coming out party for the world's most suspicious relationship. [Variety]
· William H. Macy will class up Touchstone's City Slickers Meets The Hell's Angels flick Wild Hogs, joining a casting-by-dartboard ensemble of John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence. [THR]
· Disney pushes Mel Gibson's Apocalypto from a late summer to a Dec. 8th release, perhaps downgrading the film from "blockbuster" to "holiday heartwarmer" or "Oscar bait" status. The studio is also considering dubbing the movie from Mayan into its proprietary Atlantean dialect, hoping the move from obscure to fictional language might impress Academy voters. [Variety]
· ABC finally proves that not everything can be a hit following Desperate Housewives, as new series What About Brian shed 27% of its cherished key demographic viewers. [THR]
· The casting of Kate Winslet in Elton John's CGI Gnomeo and Juliet (just what it sounds like—Shakespeare with "tacky garden gnomes") may have saved the project from the cutest circle of Miramax's development hell [Variety]

A producer of Chicago—the swansong of Miramax's heyday, when the Weinsteins would throw enough blinding sequins, stars and money at audiences and Academy voters to distract them long enough to scoop up all the Oscars—is suing the studio for cheating him out of what he claims is $10 million in his share of the profits:

Ben Affleck's been a movie star long enough to fully understand movie premiere etiquette. For example, if he's somehow obligated to show his face at an opening because of unavoidable political reasons (i.e., his new Miramax boss's first film is screening), he knows that no one will even notice that he snuck out before the movie began if he leaves behind some photographic evidence of his presence:

With Miramax releasing the Tsotsi, the first movie of the Daniel Battsek regime this weekend, it's a convenient time to discuss How The New Guy Is Not As Crazy As The Weinsteins. Offers the LAT:

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:

The deadline for Academy members to cast their votes might be weeks away, but we're ready to call one of the races right now. And the Oscar for Most Disingenuous Quote In Response To An Awards Snub goes to...Harvey Weinstein, for Proof, as he tells the NY Observer:

Many things, it seems, went wrong with The Brothers Grimm, one of 2005's more resounding box office bombs. Big-budget movie production is a delicate, interconnected affair, so who's to say that an error in producer Harvey Weinstein's fuckability calculus, which led to casting little-known actress Lena Headley instead of an Oscar-nominated treasure, didn't contribute to its failure? From The Scoop:

Is there any colder dish of revenge than one served from the grave? True, Harvey Weinstein's final all-bomb slate of Miramax releases may not look great lumped together on his IMDb profile, but the demonic jollies he's no doubt getting over Disney's $313 million cliff-dive more than makes up for it:

· Steven Spielberg makes a deal with gaming juggernaut Electronic Arts to develop three original video game franchises. EA will own the rights to games, and Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment first-look development rights for TV and Film. The first game is already in the works, and will revolve around a hugely successful director's attempts to keep his out-of-control star from terrorizing depressed new mothers and ruining the opening of their summer blockbuster. [Variety]
· True of False: The Hollywood Reporter really, really likes Jodie Foster. Have you ever seen a salad tossed in true-false form? You have now. [THR]
· Steve Carell sets up two projects with Universal, ensuring that he will have steady work well into the next decade. One is from Carell's original pitch, the other, according to one of its writers, "[I]s for Steve to play the most Caucasian man in America, who's sent to juvenile prison for a petty crime he committed as a kid. Suddenly this suburban drip is surrounded by 11-year-old bad-asses." Ooh, watch the uptight cracker get menaced by 11-year-old bad-asses of color! [Variety]
· Jerry Bruckheimer buys the rights to the sports comedy Ballers, assigns his staff to determine a plausible way that pro footballers might explode spectacularly. [THR]
· What's left of Miramax buys the North American rights to The Queen, a film about the royal family after Princess Diana's death, based on a scene from a particularly moving commemorative dinner plate. [Variety]

· By way of review, enjoy the trades' coverage of yesterday's Paramount Classics bloodletting. Optional: Chatter about Lions Gate's Tom Ortenberg redecorating an office on the Paramount lot. [Variety, THR]
· Not having had their fill of humiliation and abuse back in the good ol' days of Miramax, survivors Eric Roth and Barry Littman sign up for another tour of duty with the Weinsteins at the Weinstein Co. [Variety]
· Don Johnson unemployed: The WB cancels the this-should-really-be-about-a-jailbait-porn-publisher drama Just Legal. Also, Supernatural gets a full season pickup. [THR]
· Weinstein Survivor Update, Part II: Former Dimension guy Andrew Rona acquires his first project at Rogue Pictures (the "futuristic action thriller" Doomsday), resists the reflexive urge to pick up a phone to get chewed out by Bob Weinstein. [Variety]
· ABC buys a one-hour dramedy script inspired by the music of Diane Warren, about a songwriter who specializes in love songs but—get ready to have your neck snapped with surprise—has a messy love life. Yeah, we didn't see that one coming, either. [THR]

Another former MiramaxClassic employee shares further heartstring-tugging details about their impromptu "Drink-the-Kool-Aid" farewell party Thursday night at Barney's Beanery:

There's all kinds of goodies in the Defamer tip box: Ben & Jerry's coupons, Peruvian currency, little notes that say 'Next time, don't screw up my order.' But once in a while, there's something truly special, like this report of a MiramaxClassic staff reunion. Attended by Harvey Weinstein himself:

· The new-look, post-Weinstein Miramax looks to roar back to relevancy and make a splash at the Toronto film festival by acquiring...a documentary about girls' basketball. [Variety]
· ESPN will branch out from Bristol with offices in a new Los Angeles entertainment center (think ESPN Zone on steroids—a lot of steroids) being built across from Staples Center. The new facility should help the network's ESPN Hollywood coverage become at least 200 percent more pointless and annoying. [THR]
· House executive producers Paul Attanasio and Katie Jacobs move from NBC Universal to Fox; Fox's Peter Liguori calls the producers "monster talents" with whom he'd "like to make out with, all day, every day." [Variety]
· On a slow news day, sometimes it's fun to dive down into the deepest recesses of the casting notices and see what kind of bizarre bioluminescent news lives there: Devon Sawa and Matthew Lawrence sign on to star in the sci-fi/horror flick Hunter's Moon. [THR]
· Simon Baker joins Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in Fox 2000's The Devil Wears Prada. We feel somewhat ashamed that we have no idea who Simon Baker is, even after reviewing his IMDb profile. [Variety]

· Variety and THR offer their tributes to Peter Jennings. Mercifully, Var doesn't say that Jennings "ankled" his mortal coil. [Variety, THR]
· DreamWorks sends a "vote of confidence" by extending the contracts of production president Adam Goodman and producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald, bolting down the furniture on the Titanic before prospective buyer Universal can rearrange it. [Variety]
· Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continues its impressive run at the international box office. [THR]
· Props are due: ABC is first out of the gate with a John Paul II biopic, which Var headlines "ABC's Up With Papal." Nicely played. [Variety]
· Bravo tacks on two more episodes to their order of Being Bobby Brown, giving the world an "inside look" at the homes where the phrases "Hell to the no" and "dootie bubble" were born. [THR]
· Miramax's production co-president Jon Gordon will play out the string on his contract before taking the same job with Universal. We loved his scene-stealing work on the first season of Project Greenlight. [Variety]

· German movie theater chains protest the Shrinking Home Video window by boycotting Herbie: Fully Loaded, which is scheduled to appear on DVD an unacceptable four months after its theatrical debut. We can't approve of the Germans holding Lindsay Lohan hostage in their business drama. [Variety]
· We're not going to let ourselves get excited about this (Ed. note—Pleasepleaseplease let it be awesome], but there is now a Voltron movie in development. The nerd is us is "forming the sword" in our pants, but we're still ready to be withered by disappointment. [THR]
· Now that Daniel Battsek has been installed as president at the new-look Miramax, they're ready to get back into the acquisitions game. Sadly, we fear that the hobbled studio may never fully regain its ability to wildly overpay for festival movies. [Variety]
· After months of languishing in the limbo of untitledness, Steven Spielberg's upcoming movie about the 1972 Munich Olympics finally has a name: Munich. Sometimes inspiration is just waiting for you to give up and go with the obvious. (Trust us, we know.) [THR]
· NBC flinches first in game of chicken with Fox's celebrity American Idol, shelves its I'm a Celebrity But I Wanna Be A Pop Star. Even though he's not directly involved, we expect CBS's Les Moonves to release a statement calling NBC's Jeff Zucker a "pussy." [Variety]

The press releases are flying as Disney has finally, officially named Daniel Battsek (don't pretend you don't know that he's Executive Vice President/Managing Director of Distribution and Production for Buena Vista International) as the new president of what's left of the lean-and-mean Miramax. Effective immediately, Battsek begins a tenure of being referred to as "the new Harvey Weinstein," whether or not he actually presides over a fresh reign of Weinstein-style terror.

· Mr. and Mrs. Smith brings in $32 million in foreign box office, raising its weekend take to $83 million. Fox distribution head Bruce Snyder shows a flair for understatement concerning Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's tabloid ubiquity: "It certainly didn't hurt." [Variety]
· The Supreme Court lets stand a lower-court ruling that prevents multimedia conglomerates from gobbling up too many media outlets in a single market, temporarily putting off further media consolidation until someone can buy off a couple of Justices. [THR]
· Fox coincidentally fast-tracks the reality show Skating with Celebrities, which bears absolutely no similarity to the uncoordinated-celebrities-humiliating-themselves ABC hit series Dancing with the Stars. [Variety]
· Tobey Maguire is in negotiations to star in and produce the romantic comedy Quiet Type for New Line, the story of "an unassuming mute from a small town who moves to New York to pursue his dreams of conducting an orchestra." Also, the mute may or may not have a weight problem, depending on whether or not Maguire feels like working out prior to production. [THR]
· The Weinsteins continue to stay too busy to name their new company, but will distribute the puntastically titled Bruce Willis gangster thriller Lucky Number Slevin. [Variety]

· The Weinsteins will snatch Miramax distribution head Mike Rudnitsky for their new empire when they leave in late September, but in the meantime, they'll help usher nine of their old Miramax and Dimension babies into the world in Auguest and September. [Variety]
· Theaters owners resist billionaire Mark Cuban's "ass-backwards" plans to release films in theaters, home video, and on cable simultaneously, threatening not to show his movies in their venues. In turn, Cuban threatens to destroy their cineplexes with a satellite-mounted death-ray. [THR]
· More sweeps ratings postmortem: ABC, CBS, Fox, and UPN were all up over last year, the WB was down a bit, and NBC...well, we think Jeff Zucker's ratings bitch-hood has been well-established by now. [Variety]
· Carmen Electra continues to get acting work, while thousands of other, equally qualified dancers with fake tits continue to work the pole. [THR]
· We somehow missed this yesterday, but allow us to update the record to reflect that Meathead has dumped William Morris for CAA. [Variety]

OK, maybe we're a little bit caught up in the excitement of today's Popeapalooza, but berproducer Scott Rudin admitted to the LAT that he'll be exiting the New Paramount™ to help revitalize the Weinstein-Free Miramax™ (and make movies for Disney's other studios, Touchstone and Walt Disney Pictures, as well). Perhaps it's fitting that this story broke today; Disney really needed to find someone who puts the fear of God in his sheep the way that Harvey Weinstein did for years at The 'Max.

· Details/rumors about the new-look, Weinstein-free, Disneyfied Miramax are leaking out: It will have an annual budget of $350 million, release only 6-10 films a year, get cut down to about 50 employees, keep its HQ in NY, and whoever gets to lead the studio will be Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook's bitch. Sounds like a party! [Variety]
· Kate Winslet is in talks to star in New Line's adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel Little Children, and will play a suburban mom who boinks a stay-at-home dad. You know, like Desperate Housewives, but without the stars tearing out each other's hair between takes. [THR]
· The New Paramount™ takes a page from the Sherry Lansing recycling playbook, signing up Mummy/Van Helsing hack Steven Sommers to remake When Worlds Collide, the big-object-crashes-into-Earth classic that's already inspired asteroids-fucking-shit-up flicks like Deep Impact and Armageddon. But unlike the old, cheap Paramount guard, Brad Grey's team will throw a lot of money at the rehash. [Variety]
· UPN gives "ratings-challenged" Veronica Mars an early pick-up; ABC keeps Grey's Anatomy safe behind its Desperate Housewives lead-in, bumping the already-renewed Boston Legal into another timeslot that will inevitably lack the same ratings protection. [THR]
· DreamWorks enables Beyonce's acting ambitions, negotiating with her to star in the adaptation of Dreamgirls. [Variety]