Trade Round-Up: Casting Directors Go Teamster
· DVDs of TV shows did $2.8 million in sales in 2004; at least $2 billion of that came from viewers who don't realize that Friends and Seinfeld reruns play on free TV roughly fourteen times a day. [Variety]
· Casting directors overwhelmingly vote to join the Teamsters to give themselves extra leverage in their negotiations with movie and television producers. The funniest guy in each production office in Hollywood immediately begins telling the hilarious joke, "What did Jesus tell the newly-unionized casting director? Don't do anything until I get back." [THR]
· Vivaldi is the new poker: Indie production company Mechaniks puts a Vivaldi biopic into development, even though Columbia and Imagine have a similar project in their pipeline. [Variety]
· Hustle and Flow's writer/director Craig Brewer will reteam with H&F producing buddies John Singleton and Stephanie Allain and write/direct Black Snake Moan, the story of bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson. Christina Ricci is already attached to the pic, with Samuel L. Jackson and—get ready for it—Justin Timberlake in talks to join. [THR]
· Carsey-Werner might be close to shuttering its television production studio, seriously imperiling our hopes for a That 70s Show/Cosby Show hybrid spin-off featuring Danny Masterson and Raven Simone. [Variety]