Tired of buying cheerleader costumes for his hookers, Rob Lowe is moving on to bigger and better purchases. Slightly insane purchases, even. TMZ is reporting that the actor and his business partners, some fatcat moguls, are buying indie studio Miramax.

Very strange! And stranger still are the supposed co-investors. One is Flavio Briatore, a womanizing former Formula One racer and the father of Heidi Klum's first kid. Another is restaurateur Giuseppe Ciprani, who has had many of his restaurants shut down and is in a heap of legal trouble.

So all told this is a very odd development in the continuing saga of Miramax. First the Weinstein brothers were going to get their baby back. But then that fell apart. Now the dude from Hotel New Hampshire and The Lyon's Den might own the movie studio. Well, that's a pretty big "might". We haven't seen this reported anywhere but TMZ, so they could be getting the runaround from some trickster. (Flute-playing trickster god Kokopelli, perhaps? He and Rob certainly look alike!)