In the dark places in our soul that we don't like to talk about at cocktail parties, we were secretly terrified that we might never again experience the unbridled, brain-smoothing joy of Chris Tucker shouting high-pitched expletives at a seemingly uncomprehending Jackie Chan while shit blows up around them. It seems that New Line is finally ready to shovel cash onto the raging fire of another Rush Hour sequel, locking up Tucker, Chan, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson, and, most crucially, visionary fauxteur Brett Ratner. Variety has the staggering details:

· Warner Brothers and AOL team up to create the web television outlet IN2TV, which will air library titles (read: Chico and the Man) for free on demand, though with four 15-second commercials per half hour. The webnet will also be able to offer interactive features with the programming, like the indispensable ability to win prizes if a viewer can correctly guess how many secret Christian references Kirk Cameron slipped into late season Growing Pains episodes. [Variety]
· ABC continues its predictable, yet oddly comforting, Sunday night ratings dominance. It's kind of nice to know that no matter what ludicrous plot twist surfaces on Desperate Housewives (this week: the gay-seeming pharmacist moves ever closer to becoming a serial killer), people will still tune in in massive numbers. [THR]
· More Aquaman news: The WB will give Aquaman the Smallville treatment, but it won't be a spinoff launched by the recent fish-boy cameo on that series. The new producers promise that the character won't "won't be talking to fish or riding a seahorse," which will basically reduce him to an above average swimmer who wears orange spandex to class. [Variety]
· Greg Coolidge, the man behind Cockblockers, is set to write the script for 5-0, a single-camera comedy about a short, 18 year-old cop. For NBC, exactly the hit-starved place we'd expect to greenlight Doogie Howser PD. [Variety]
· New Line will keep star Will Arnett busy in the rapidly approaching post-Arrested Development era, casting him as the lead in comedy Jeff the Demon. [Variety]

· Fox commits to the Ashton Kutcher-produced pilot 30 Year Old Grandpa, in which a young guy marries a "mature" lady and winds up a stepdad to children close to his own age. How does the creative genius Kutcher come up with these wonderful ideas? Deal was reached after Kutcher's Katalyst Productions agreed to change the title from the edgier How I Boned Your Mother.* [Variety]
· SpongeBob Squarepants will soon debut in 120 million Chinese households, helping the government's desperate attempts at population control by attempting to turn an entire generation of children gay. [THR]
· Former King of Queens showrunners Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa are the latest writers trying to translate 24 into sitcom form with the pilot A Day in the Life (each season is one wacky day!) for ABC, who have apparently forgotten they tried to do it earlier this year with the original version of Jake in Progress. [Variety]
· Michael J. Fox will make a triumphant return to television as a guest star on Boston Legal, where he will play a character battling lung cancer, not Parkinson's disease.. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Yet Another Scary Movie Redo Edition: New Line buys the distribution rights to Hong Kong horror remake In-Utero, in which a pregnant woman who sees spirits and whatnot. [Variety]

· David Geffen called off talks for NBC Universal to buy DreamWorks, stepping away from the table when NBC Uni reduced their offer "on the 1-yard line," noting partner Steven Spielberg's supposedly "ambivalent" attitude about the deal. Who will buy the Geffen-Spielberg lovechild? [dramatic organ music] Will Geffen's ploy to negotiate in the trades pay off? [somewhat louder, dramatic organic music] Stay tuned! [Variety]
· Why We Love Hollywood, Part Thirty-Five: Benderspink and New Line come up with the idea for the comedy Boob Job during a company lunch, when a NL exec "told a really funny story about a guy whose wife had gotten implants and it ruined the guy's life," With that kind of thoughtful storycraft, there is no way this movie can possibly fail. [THR]
· Giddy from signing Family Guy showrunner David Goodman to a two-year development deal, 20th Century Fox TV president Gary Newman lets down his guard and describes Goodman as "a fantastic piece of manpower." Wow. That must've been some hot, closed-door negotiation. [Variety]
· Judging from her premiere Nielsens, fictional Commander in Chief president Geena Davis is easily more popular than George W. [THR]
· Says Var about Michael Eisner's final public address as head of Disney: "Call Michael Eisner the anti-Cher: While most aging icons' farewell tours are loud, frenzied and never-ending, the Walt Disney CEO seems determined to go out like a lamb." The anti-Cher? This pretty much kills Eisner's post-Disney plan to make a living doing campy cameos on Will & Grace. [Variety]

· Gone are the days when Oscar winners were too afraid to drive their Bentleys through the dangerous ghettos of episodic television, as Charlize Theron will cruise through the rapidly gentrified neighborhood of Arrested Development for a five episode arc as a potential love interest for Jason Bateman's character. The days of lazy extended metaphors, however, are still with us. [Variety]
· Million Dollar Baby and Crash scribe Paul Haggis's heavy-handed gifts are sought out by Sony/MGM, who've signed him on for a rewrite of the James Bond pic Casino Royale. Can't wait for his version of that iconic line, "Bond. James Bond. James, like the king, and B-O-N-D—oh, shall I just write it down for you?" [THR]
· Producer Saul Zaentz, original Lord of the Rings rights-holder, reportedly squeezes another $20 million out of New Line in settling a lawsuit over the LOTR trilogy's royalties. [Variety]
· Cheri Oteri joins the cast of thousands of Richard "Donnie Darko" Kelly's Southland Tales as a "villainous lesbian bodybuilder." Strangely, we've always pictured her this way. [THR]
· Universal signs up The 40 Year-Old Virgin's Judd Apatow to write and direct another "offbeat romantic comedy," which will star longtime (Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared) muse Seth Rogen and semi-muses Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. We have to admit, a Seth Rogen vehicle sounds kind of awesome. [Variety]

Whether or not you believe that the studios are making less money at the box office this year, there is hardly anything more entertaining than a reporter (this time, it's Sharon Waxman of the NY Times) using The Slump to corner some high-powered film executives and make them admit that many of their movies are, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty shitty:

· The New Paramount's summer has been spent wandering around the box office, finding piles of War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard cash left laying around by the old, Sherry Lansing regime. Third place never felt so easy. [Variety]
· Hollywood's unions are lobbying NY's Governor Pataki, urging him to veto a bill that would allow managers to procure work for their clients while operating outside of the rules that apply to licensed agents (like the one that usually limits them to 10 percent commissions), plunging the world of talent agencies into chaos. [THR]
· Steve Carrell is the new poker: New Line nabs The 40 Year Old Virgin for High T, in which he's injected with testosterone until acceptable levels of hilarity ensue, and ensuring that the actor is well on his way to Stilleresque/Ferrellian levels of overexposure. [Variety]
· People are actually watching Big Brother 6, proving that the late summer schedule is even more of a wasteland than previously suspected. [THR]
· What we meant to say is that AJ Jacobs is the new poker: After very recently selling a book proposal to Paramount, Universal options the Esquire writer's article "My Outsourced Life" for Jay Roach's (newly Universal-based) Everyman Films. Steve Carrell to star. (Just kidding—for now, at least). [Variety]

· Let us all rejoice at the further enriching of a faceless multimedia conglomerate! Even without franchise pictures like Harry Potter and LOTR, hits from New Line, Warner Bros, and Warner Independent (Wedding Crashers, Dukes of Hazzard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, March of the Penguins, et al) have made a dandy summer for Time Warner. [Variety]
· Let us be gripped by profound sadness because of the financial misfortune of another conglomerate! Blockbuster more than doubles its forecasted loss, leaving investors to make frowny faces. [THR]
· ABC isn't sure how it will replace beloved, just-deceased anchor Peter Jennings, but World News Tonight with Peter Jennings will still bear his name for now. We can't decide if that's creepy or a touching tribute. [Variety]
· The Asian box office looks to King Kong's "800 pound gorilla" for salvation. This isn't some kind of weird cult, merely a recognition of Peter Jackson's track record. [THR]
· New Line tries to repeat the plucked-from-indie-obscurity-to-mainstream-visionary-hitmaker formula that worked with Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings, choosing the little-known but highly enthusiastic Anand Tucker to direct the first movie in their His Dark Materials trilogy. [Variety]

Oscar season. Cue the usual chest-beating by the New York independents. Miramax has Chicago in contention; New Line funded Lord of the Rings; Focus Features bought The Pianist. Crain's quotes Amir Malin of Artisan: "People were talking about the demise of Miramax. But (tomorrow) everyone there will be smiling."
New York's Oscar [Crain's]

New York's hosted more big movie premieres than usual this month, partly because local studios such as New Line and Miramax are releasing bigger movies, partly because December is seens as the best time to release an Oscar contender. But I'm getting off the point: Tracie Martyn's Fifth Avenue skin-care salon is backed up with visiting Hollywood actresses, nervous about their red-carpet close-ups. Ren e Zellweger will be delighted to know she's touted as a customer. The hot treatment: a resculpturing facial.