Trade Round-Up: Billy Bob In Woodcock
· The industry is on pace to top last summer's box office grosses, setting new records for both box office receipts and actual admissions. Hollywood can't be stopped! We've done this to ourselves: even mega-bomb Catwoman makes $17 million in the first week. Next weekend Fox will empty a dump-truck full of elephant shit into the local megaplex and it will do around $15 mil, just from people trying to see what "all the fuss is about." [THR]
· Billy Bob Thornton to star in comedy Mr. Woodcock. Now that Thornton is set, casting kicks into high gear to find his love interest, Ms. Splintersnatch. [THR]
· Felicity hair model Keri Russell and former Minnie Driver boy toy James Brolin join Johnny Depp impersonator Skeet Ulrich in TNT's 12-hour, these-are-the-only-actors-we-could-get festival Into the West. [THR]
· On Air with Ryan Seacrest soon to become On In 20 Fewer Stations Because America Doesn't Care About That Gay-Seeming Host Guy Unless The Asshole Limey and the Untalented Singers Are Around. [THR]
· We would never insinuate that just-retired MPAA head/crazed pirate hunter Jack Valenti had anything to do with his daughter Courtenay's career as a film executive, but she was just promoted to exec VP at Warner Brothers Pictures. Hey, she has a handbag named after her! [Variety, sub. req'd]