With infidel Mickey Mouse still in hiding after last week's death-sentence fatwa, Disney appears to be rolling the dice on a bold rebranding of sorts. Behold — Disney Depp (née Johnny), whose anchoring of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise yielded yesterday's news of not only Pirates 4, but also the star's attachment as Tim Burton's Mad Hatter in a live-action Alice in Wonderland and as Tonto in a revival of The Lone Ranger. The announcement was made Wednesday in Disney's marathon State of the Mouse Biennial, putting its jittery investors at ease, its fans in an uproar and the press into some kind of overwhelmed coma. Johhny Depp? As Tonto? In Josh Groban's incredulous words, "Really?!"Yes, really:

Ready Your Pitchforks: While we can usually count on Nicolas Cage for his on-screen eccentricities, it seems that he can't even let a simple financial pickle pass without adding his own unique touch to the proceedings. According to Forbes, the actor has been caught deducting millions worth of personal expenses (simple things, like a Gulfstream 1159A turbojet) and now owes the IRS "substantial back taxes." Just how much does Cage have to fork over? The not-at-all ominous sum of $666,000. Looks like Ghost Rider's been taking that deal with the devil a bit too seriously... [Forbes]

Forgive us. We're still a little hazy, having stumbled out in the wee morning hours from a Chateau Marmont bungalow, where the Jonas Brothers were reading bible passages off a stripper's ass at their official post-VMAs party. Good news: our virginity is still intact! Bad news: we wish we could say the same about our septum. More bad news: the box office crapped itself this weekend. Please enjoy this fittingly humdrum installment of Monday Morning Box Office: 1. Bangkok Dangerous - $7.8 million The worst box office in five years is led by this low-budget shoot 'em up starring Nic Cage, a remake of the Pang twins' Thai-language film. The number is in line with Lionsgate's expectations, they say, and should become "nicely profitable" just as soon as its star—who recently admitted to David Letterman that he was sold into Bangkok flesh trade sometime mid-filming—gives American businessmen with a taste for eccentric movie stars with roaming hairlines the sex-tour satisfaction they seek.2. Tropic Thunder - $7.5 million We've done the "full retard" jokes. We've done the "pee-pee maker t-t-tingle" jokes. And, sadly, that's all we got. Clearly, we have Tropic fatigue. 3. The House Bunny - $5.9 million Feel free to arouse yourselves with this photo of Anna Faris in a revealing pink two-piece holding a garden hose. 4. The Dark Knight - $5.715 million We're similarly at a loss as to what to say about The Dark Knight, so we cede the floor to this mashup trailer, which takes the audio from The Dark Knight trailer and grafts it to footage of Casino Royale. Why? We really have no idea. But it's well done. 5. Traitor - $4.66 million OK, clearly we don't want to write this today. So we'll let you write it, with a little round of Logline Mad Libs! "[Man's name] Cheadle and Guy [Verb] star in a [ADJ] international [NOUN] set against a [A CHILDREN'S GAME] of covert [A LINE OF WORK] operations."

· Let Lindsay Lohan, Albert Brooks, Jamie Lynn Spears, and Life Magazine introduce you to the GOP's great vice-presidential hope. · In one of the best TV scraps since Judd Apatow eradicated That 70s Show's Mark Brazill, Greg Garcia branded Alec Baldwin as an "unlikeable, psychotic narcissist" after Baldwin bitched about NBC showing more love to My Name Is Earl than 30 Rock. · David Duchovny taught us all kinds of hilarious euphemisms for "sex addiction." · Madman Nicolas Cage went all the way to Thailand and all he got was this lousy coup. · David Spade might have made a kid, but Matthew McConaughey made a kid cry. · Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Paris Hilton made their respective plans for the Toronto Film Festival. · Do we dare ponder a future without Beijing Ben frolicking on NBC's behalf? · David Cronenberg explained to us that David Lynch is "way weirder" than he is. · All-Trailer Day had a look at Zack & Miri, Labor Pains and Milk. · The likeness to Jason Priestley's facial shrub was easy to place. Robert Downey Jr's, though? Not so much. · The first trailer of burgeoning political pundit Lindsay Lohan's comeback vehicle, Labor Pains, made its way online. Lindsay and her newly remunerative ladyfriend Sam Ronson celebrated with a full-fledged liplock for the paps. · We finally got a taste our first taste of the newer, smilier 90210. It remains to be seen whether Shenae Grimes' shit-eating grin can top Shannen Doherty's bitchy frown of yore, but one thing is certain: we can't wait for the reveal that Brandon was really the Unabomber! · Don LaFontaine, RIP. · And finally, don't forget to check back here on Sunday for our liveblog direct from the red carpet of the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. Britney will be opening and Kanye will be closing, while we're hopeful that watersports-enthusiast Russell Brand will be able to shake off his terrifying experience with an elephant's vagina and be as funny hosting as he was when we interviewed him. See you on Sunday at or around 3pm PDT!

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your weekly guide to everything new, noteworthy and potentially nausea-inducing at the movies. If summer was really just a heady four-month industry bender of superheroes and the occasional Sex romp, then consider this week the hangover: The brutal post-Labor Day doldrums, when phoner-inner Nic Cage has the box office to himself, our underdog is an ethnic punchline, and we want to to do nothing but shut ourselves in with a few of this week's only slightly more intriguing DVD releases. So read on for a remedy; as always, our opinions are our own, but let's just assume we're all in agreement this time around. It's kind of hard to screw up a week like this. WHAT'S NEW: However wistful our recollections of Nicolas Cage's finer moments, it's never enough to shake the grave reality of seeing him as a laconic, hairplugged hitman in Bangkok Dangerous. And while our pity is mitigated slightly by the minor majesty of his Thai survival struggles, we're guessing a deafult number-one opening around $9.3 million (nothing else is opening wide this week) is deflating enough to set us back at least a few years to The Wicker Man — another ill-advised remake he had no business touching. Anyway, it's too late now. And did we mention we're hungover?Also opening: Jamie Bell's teen-voyeur tale Mister Foe; Azazel Jacobs's wildly overrated Sundance darling Momma's Man; Oscar-winning docmaker Jessica Yu's narrative debut Ping Pong Playa; and Claude Chabrol's moody May-December psychodrama A Girl Cut in Two. THE BIG LOSER: Honestly? You, the moviegoer. Even Tropic Thunder could drop 50% from last week and still surpass its production budget, a symbolic bump that will probably please all those woozy DreamWorks execs with hot compresses on their foreheads just fine. But until the Coens, The Women and the rest of the fall players start trotting out of the tunnel next week, your options are as limited as they've been all year. Sorry!

In the New Yorker review of Nicolas Cage's new film Bangkok Dangerous, film critic Anthony Lane complains, "The Cage of Wild at Heart and Leaving Las Vegas found life to be engrossingly weird, and treated it accordingly, whereas the Cage of Bangkok Dangerous intones a line like 'There’s a beer in the refrigerator' as if he were reading from the Book of Micah." To that, we ask: is this something new? Nicolas Cage has always been counted on to deliver insane line readings, bizarre physicality, and all around weirdness to his roles. Hell, isn't that why we like him? In the spirit of Cage's eccentricity (and with the help of videographer Molly McAleer), we've assembled a video that chronicles the ten weirdest on-screen moments of Nicolas Cage's career. To be fair, we only allowed one moment per movie — otherwise, you'd be looking at a played-out (but delightful!) highlight reel of The Wicker Man. Enjoy!

It's altogether possible that Nicolas Cage's new film Bangkok Dangerous is among his finest — a lively, entertaining adventure recalling his early years romping through movies by the Coens, David Lynch and his uncle Francis Ford Coppola. Still, we relieved most of our illusions fairly early in Cage's appearance last night on Letterman, when the Oscar-winner-for-hire confessed both his inability to distinguish his twin-brother directors from each other and his time spent fleeing Thailand's recent coup d'etat with his wife and child. But then we felt a certain restorative surge of confidence, a sort of implied Method veracity that re-established our faith in his cockroach-eating batshittery of yore. So now we're just confused. But hey as long as it's not, like, Ghost Rider 2 or... Wait, what? Oh. So much for optimism. [CBS]

· Yup, that's it. And yet we can't help but get caught up in all the silliness, too. Wolf Blitzer? That sounds like a WWI machine gun! LOL! [Late Night] · "Canada Remains Happily Mediocre," says Canada's official online presence. [Canada.com] · No Nuns on the Catwalk: Eurotrash dance single, or Vatican fashion scandal? [Reuters] · You really haven't lived until you've heard Gwyneth Paltrow make an offhand joke about getting fat she knows will never, ever come to pass...in fluent Spanish! [BWE.tv] · "My dad’s not an idiot — he’s nothing short of a genius, in my opinion," says Jack Osbourne, who's making a movie to repair his father's depiction on The Osbournes as the lovably addled Prince of Darkness and Allowance-Distribution. [RollingStone.com] · Nic Cage, in hair and pictures. [Latino Review]

· The Ivy Chronicles, a Sarah Jessica Parker project about an "upper-middle-class New York mother" who loses it all, has signed The Devil Wears Prada writer Aline Brosh McKenna take on the screenplay. And we just grew a set of ovaries typing that. [THR] · The Prince of Persia, Disney's Bruckheimerian take on the popular video game series starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the shirtless, saber-wielding warrior, has been delayed by a full year. Excuse us for one moment, will you? THERE IS. NOOO. GODDDD!!!! OK! Back! [Variety] · Nicolas Cage and director John Carpenter are close to signing on for Scared Straight, about a wayward teen held hostage during a jail riot who turns to prisoner Cage for a way out. Cage agrees, but not before making the teen his bitch. [THR] · Thomas Jane will play the lead in HBO's pilot Hung, an hour-long "dark comedy" about a man with an enormous manhood, and all that that implies. And we think you know what we mean. Yes, we thought so. [THR] · Speaking of ubiquitous Dicks, Dick Wolf's pilot Lost and Found has been picked up by NBC. It involves law enforcement and crime-solving of some kind. [Variety]

As THR reported recently, MGM is planning a musical remake of the cult classic Valley Girl, which became the epitome of everything the magical land of acrylic nails and gum chewing addictions stood for in the early `80s. However, the remake is ruffling the feathers of many an industry insider, mainly because the brains behind this project are less interested in revisiting the infamous twang and mall headquarters associated with girls from the Valley, a group the film arguably captured better than any successor. Instead, the epic soundtrack will serve as the reincarnation's primary subject. But whether or not the idea tanks, we're just happy to have the chance to round up our five favorite on-screen Valley Girls to ever gag us with a spoon:

Everybody loves lists, right? Especially those mystifying annual tallies compiled by the American Film Institute, which lumps together 100 films by style or some other vague calculation of merit upholding AFI's profile in cultural irrelevance. Its latest list mixes things up a little, however, featuring a who's who of talent ruminating on the 100 best "genre" films — from Westerns to sci-fi to mysteries, 10 at a time. But for every Clint Eastwood commentary about The Searchers or Roman Polanski insight about Chinatown, we've got Sean Astin chiming in about Judgment at Nuremberg and Jessica Alba weighing in on... well, we've assembled the greatest hits after the jump. Let it suffice to say that Annie Hall is closer than you might have thought to Alba's self-described, "stomach-turning" neurosis and that Cher is... yeah, she's the best. [AFI]

Seeing how much fun we had grilling John Cusack last week, we decided one impromptu, inquisitive turn deserves another. Then, through some minor miracle/apparent PR botch, we found ourselves sitting across from Werner Herzog talking about his new documentary about life in Antarctica, Encounters at the End of the World. We'll get to that as its release date approaches later this month, but for the moment, we're still wondering how hard our legs were just pulled as Herzog told us all about his mad vision for remaking continuing (or something) Abel Ferrara's 1992 cult classic Bad Lieutenant.

The ongoing, skull-melting hallucination yielding visions of Werner Herzog micromanaging Nicolas Cage's masturbation technique abated slightly today when, at a Cannes press conference for his new film Chelsea on the Rocks, director Abel Ferrara raised his first public objection to duo's planned remake of his 1992 effort Bad Lieutenant:

We drank too much last night as usual, blacking out and then awaking from the strangest dream in a cold sweat: Werner Herzog was in New York remaking Abel Ferrara's infamous, NC-17-rated 1992 cop drama Bad Lieutenant and arguing with his star — Nicolas Cage of all people! — about the most tasteful way to replicate Harvey Keitel's full-frontal nude scene from the original film. Cage wanted a stunt penis, but Herzog, in his stern Bavarian accent, scolded Cage repeatedly: "No, no, no, Nic. That is cowardly and stupid. If Kinski were here..." At which point noted schlock producer Avi Lerner showed up out of nowhere to intercede on his director's behalf, reminding Cage that if Jason Segel could do it, then an Oscar winner could as well — ratings be damned.

Our interviews with celebrities usually go something like this...

Nicolas Cage's long, excruciating nightmare on the International Chihuahua-Thief Blacklist ended today in a British court, where his solicitor acknowledged a settlement between the Oscar-winner and rumor-slinging memoirist Kathleen Turner. The actress wrote of several newly disproven Cage exploits in her recent book Send Yourself Roses, including being "arrested twice for drunk-driving" and renting-to-own a Chihuahua on the set of Peggy Sue Got Married. Cage took his beef to court after the Daily Mail published the offending excerpt. Sadly, we've learned that the resolution will deprive us of some of our favorite apocrypha of contemporary literature:

We now return to the Everybody's Suing Everybody Day festivities with the ongoing feud between Kathleen Turner and Nic Cage, the former having accused the latter in her upcoming autobiography of having several DUI and dog-snatching marks on his personal record. An irate Cage quickly issued a denial, out of concern that Turner's tales might render his many impressionable young fans incapable of separating truth from fiction: The last thing the world needs is a spate of renegade Chihuahuanappings, or, heaven's forfend, a troubling new trend in which confused teens light their heads on fire before embarking on stolen-motorcycle joyrides. Perhaps to fully hammer his message home, Cage has now filed a "defamaton, libel and slander" suit against his Peggy Sue Got Married co-star in British court:

Say what you will about Kathleen Turner—she gives good memoir. We're still reeling from her anecdote about Anthony Perkins' habit of sneaking a little whiff of poppers before every shot (though it did shed some light on that scene in Psycho III, where, apropos of nothing, Norman Bates starts making out with a taxidermied racoon). But it's her claims about Nicolas Cage being a drunk driver and convicted dognapping felon that seem to have caused the biggest stir since excerpts of her upcoming autobiography were leaked. Today, a spokesperson issued us this heartfelt statement from the National Treasure star:

In frequently amusing excerpts from her upcoming autobiography now being published in the UK's Daily Mail, Romancing the Stone and Serial Mom star Kathleen Turner unloads both tell-all barrels into a number of her former co-stars, including Michael Douglas ("a wonderful friend and a terrible enemy"), William Hurt ("he loved those magic mushrooms"), and Anthony Perkins ("Everywhere he went, he carried a little bottle that I was told was benzyl nitrate. We'd rehearse a scene, then before the call to 'Roll camera', he'd take out his bottle and sniff it with each nostril.") But a special place in Turner's Hollywood-hardened heart is reserved for Peggy Sue Got Married castmate Nicolas Cage, whom she accuses of acting out so as not to seem like director/uncle Francis Ford Coppola threw him a spot on the call sheet purely out of nepotism:

Hollywood's refusal to toss any new-release chum (with the exception of a single horror offering) into the waters of America's multilplexes just seemed to intensify the public's appetite for the stale Nic Cage/Will Smith/Chipmunk-flavored morsels already floating there. Your Monday morning romp through this weekend's box office results: