Trade Round-Up: No Room For The Old At The New New Paramount
· Heads at the New New Paramount continue to roll! Veteran Paramount distribution president Wayne Lewellen, described as "part of the studio's old guard," (italics ours) is sensitively drop kicked in time for the new fiscal quarter and replaced with DreamWorks' Jim Tharp. [Variety]
· A noted lead actor on a TV comedy is making his feature film directing debut in a movie about "alienated youths in suburban New Jersey." No, this isn't a two-year-old story about Zach Braff and Garden State. It's Entourage's Kevin Connolly directing The Gardener of Eden, produced by his buddy Leonardo DiCaprio. [Variety]
· Oxygen network orders 10 episodes of The Janice Dickinson Project, a reality show about the self-anointed "first supermodel," in the hopes of netting the women's network the highly coveted 50-79 "nightmare bitch" demographic that is so attractive to advertisers. [Variety]
· VH1 will launch a new show called Web Junk 20 in January, a weekly top 20 featuring the hottest viral internet videos. So basically, by the time the Chronic(What)cles of Narnia goes from SNL, to the internet, then back to TV, it will surely be as hysterical as the first time you saw it. [THR]
· A conservative media watchdog group called The American Family Association is stepping up its campaign against NBC's upcoming series, Daniel, which their website claims is about a "drug-addicted Episcopal priest whose wife depends heavily on her midday martinis," or, as it was pitched in the room, "Thornbirds meets Will & Grace." [THR]