Despite early hopes that the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century would take down the whole fucking system from the inside!, so little good dirt has been unearthed that a bored Hollywood seems ready to put the whole project in turnaround. [Variety]
James Bond franchise producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli announce they've invited back Daniel Craig for a 007 film to be released in May 2008, giving the British tabloids another two years to concoct stories about Blonde Bond's desire to incorporate strappy heels into the superspy's staid, tuxdeo-based look. [THR]
NBC is resurrecting the Bill Lawrence pilot Nobody's Watching, which was not picked up by The WB but became a hit on YouTube, by ordering six scripts of the series. Tube-smitten network president Kevin Reilly is also expected to announce the greenlighting of a series consisting of nothing but re-edits of movie trailers in which the leads are presented as gay lovers by the Brokeback Mountain theme playing in the background. [Variety]
· Studio execs are hopeful that the movies they're releasing in the summer "stretch drive" (Talledega Nights, Snakes on a Plane, The Any Bully, etc) will perform well enough not to cost them their jobs. [THR]
· Hollywood is relieved that the government will distinguish between it and the hardcore porn industry in matters of keeping records on the ages of performers who appear in sex scenes, allowing CBS's special episode of CSI, "Preschool Orgy Massacre Autopsy," to proceed unencumbered by annoying bureaucratic red tape. [Variety]

• America's first couple, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline, may no longer be rolling in the filth of their wedded bliss. Brit's publicist refuses to deny that they've split, and in the court of celebrity trash, silence is an admission of divorce. If the sweet sounds of "Popozao" can't save a marriage, can anything? [Mirror UK]
• After signing a $6 million deal with Miramax Books for her memoirs, Barbara Walters has weaseled her way out of the contract in pursuit of a better deal elsewhere. If Hillary Clinton can get $8 million for her autobiography, then certainly Babs can fetch just as much. The face-lifts aren't going to pay for themselves, you know. [Page Six]
• Having worked for everyone in Hollywood, jailbird P.I. Anthony Pellicano may have worked with Israeli mobsters — a natural climb up the Power Jew ladder. [R&M]
• Brandon Davis issues an official apology to Lindsay Lohan after calling her a firecrotch. He's also "horrified" by that bit about her seven-foot-long clitoris, and considers the freckles coming out of her vagina to be "reprehensible." [Page Six]
• Fox News' Kimberly Guilfoyle is set to marry male socialite Eric Villency in Barbados tomorrow — and just in time, too, as she's 5 months pregnant. We can't have a bastard baby around Murdoch's house. [Lowdown]

Today's NY Times story on the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century raised the somewhat deflating notion that when prosecutors get done turning Hollywood upside down and giving it a vigorous shake, not much more than a bunch of eavesdropping-happy lawyers might fall out:

• Star Jones is allegedly out at the View — in fact, Rosie O'Donnell's arrival was conditional on Jones' departure, a demand Barbara Walters was all too happy to meet. We don't know whether to be happy or sad. On one hand, we won't have to look at Star's melting face anymore; on the other, now we'll never get to see her and Rosie wrestle in a pool of poop soup. [Page Six]
• Whenever he entered the Tribeca Grand Hotel last week, John Travolta demanded that the music be turned off, forcing a dramatic hush to fall over the room. Unfortunately, not even Scientology offers an explanation for this one. [R&M]
• Anthony Pellicano's associate Paul Barresi hands over notes detailing the identities of several tabloid sources, including Sly Stallone's mother and Cher's daughter Chastity Bono. Most interestingly, Oprah's niece Alisha had been selling her out. Guess someone's not getting a free car this year. [Lowdown]
• Is Tori Spelling growing a silicone fetus in her plastic womb? [Scoop]
• Bijou Phillips climbs back aboard the crazy train. Good thing — her acting "career" really hadn't been so entertaining. [Page Six]
• Until his single really takes off, Nick Lachey will never get over Jessica Simpson. [Access]

In Hollywood, you learn who your real friends are after your movie bombs in its opening weekend, or, in certain other cases, once you're jailed for possessing explosives and/or allegedly conducting scores of illegal wiretaps involving some of the most powerful people in town. Erstwhile Private Eye to the Stars Anthony Pellicano has figured out the hard way that the bond he shares with Universal president Ron Meyer is both real and special, as the NY Times reports that Meyer is fiercely defensive of their relationship after being questioned about his jailhouse visits to his incarcerated pal:

· Various people whom former mananger and current Paramount chief Brad Grey has helped make incredibly rich (Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, HBO), claim that Vanity Fair's big story on the Anthony Pellicano investigation is full of inaccuracies and fabrications. And Grey's Paramount flack isn't happy (shocker!) either: "Specific allegations and statements made by unnamed sources about Brad Grey in Vanity Fair's piece on Anthony Pellicano are total fabrications." [Variety]
· THR finds the most unflattering picture possible to illustrate their story on Jon Favreau's hiring by Marvel Studio to develop and direct an adaptation of Iron Man. Seriously, that pic is just plain mean. [THR]
· Lindsay Lohan signs up for her next opportunity to be accused of sleeping with a smarmy older guy, joining Adrien Brody in the cast of the romantic comedy Speechless. Go ahead and try and say "Brohan" to yourself without inducing a seizure, we dare you. [Variety]
· Fox makes pre-upfronts pick-ups of comedy 'Til Death and drama Vanished, while NBC renews its committment to being Dick Wolf's bitch by bringing back all three Law & Order series. [THR]
· The buzz-killing plagiarism scandal over the novel How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life has DreamWorks slowly backing away from the suddenly radioactive material it had planned to adapt. [Variety]

· So we finally got around to wading through the huge Vanity Fair piece on the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century—let's just say that WiFi reaches the bathroom and leave it at that—and were slightly disappointed that Nicole Kidman stopped short of our turkey-baster line in her eavesdropped conversation, but did reportedly taunt the unwanted guests on the line with the occasional, "So, Tom, are you listening? Am I saying what you want me to say?" (Clearly, she was constitutionally too feisty for that marriage to work.) But the rest of the piece is apparently damaging enough that... [Vanity Fair]
· ...the US Attorney's Office told VF writer John Connolly that the Pelican has threatened his safety, and Pellicano's ex-wife Kat, featured extensively in the story, claims that she didn't give her permission to be quoted. That sound you are hearing is the splat of several shits hitting mupltiple fans. [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
· Crushing irony alert: Pellicano has accused the feds of spying on him in prison. But as far as we can tell, he hasn't yet claimed they bugged the phone that lets him communicate with guests through the glass barrier in the visitor's cubicle. [LAT]
· And what of guilty-pleading Die Hard director John McTiernan's future projects? Courthouse News reports: "Bms Picture Three has sued John McTiernan for fraud and breach of contract in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming he failed to inform Bms that he was being investigated for hiring private eye Anthony Pellicano, of wiretap fame, and McTiernan has failed to perform and may not be able to direct the movie Crash Bandits." [Courthouse News]

• Vanity Fair contributing editor John Connolly has been informed by the U.S. Attorney's office that Anthony Pellicano has "threatened his safety." Connolly has written several pieces on the wiretap case, including the latest in the June issue, and just signed a book deal on the subject. Nikki Finke counts this as the third journo Pellicano has threatened, and the first NYC-based of the bunch. Congrats, Connolly. [Deadline Hollywood]
• Predictably, Harvard has started "gathering information" on the case of plagiarizing prodigy Kaavya Viswanathan. It's not a formal investigation, but is it ever? Also, of her book deal, she says that she "just thought everyone was being nice" to her. Har. [Crimson & NYT]
• Anderson Cooper will start appearing on 60 Minutes. That's double the silver foxiness! [NYP]
• Russell Crowe accuses of Sony BMG of leading him on before they decided against giving him a record deal; Crowe chucks phone at record exec's head. [Daily Telegraph]
• Only the classiest advertising for George Clooney. [AdFreak]
• Buddha Bar gets a death sentence: "Like Spice Market meets Ninja." [Snack]
• Enjoy information while it's free, 'cause it might not be for long. [FT]
• We'll help this kid out, but only in the name of threesomes. [HWTB]

An unexpected deluge of Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century-related material today necessitates the use of that most hallowed of blog post formats, the afternoon round-up:
· Pellicano told his girlfriend that high-powered divorce lawyer Dennis Wasser, who represented Tom Cruise in ending his marriage to Nicole Kidman, "had received wiretap information" from him (though not necessarily for that case), getting our hopes up that one day an audio tape might surface of Kidman presciently suggesting that Cruise "find someone young and desperate to terrorize with his turkey baster." [NY Times]
· Vanity Fair has posted the big Pellicano story from its upcoming issue on their website. But who's got time to read all those "words"? Certainly not us, who fainted dead away just from the sight of that gigantic, uninterrupted column of text. We'll take a look once the intern arrives with the smelling salts necessary to get through the whole thing. [Vanity Fair]
· TMZ claims that prosecutors have only listened to 25 percent of Pellicano's tapes, raising the possibility that more wiretapping fun is still to come. Also, they have some snappy video of the PI showing off in The Pelican Cave in happier, less incarcerated times. [TMZ.com]

The LAT drags Chris Rock into the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, reporting that the comedian hired Hollywood's favorite eavesdropper and illegal background checker to dig up some fun facts on Hungarian model/Perfect 10 naked person Monika Zsibrita, who made a paternity claim against Rock back in '99. Rock's publicist admits the hire, but not, er, the illegal stuff:

In an unexpected collision of players from the Payola Six scandal and the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century (yes, we must: "Hey, you got your eavesdropping private dick in my extorted supermarket billionaire!" "No, you got your extorted supermarket billionaire in my eavesdropping private dick!"), today's NY Times reports that Hollywood PI Pellicano tried to shake down Ron Burkle (you know him as "the rich guy who bravely refused to pay protection money to Page Six freelancer Jared Paul Stern") to the tune of $100,000 to $250,000, claiming that erstwhile Most Powerful Man in Hollywood Michael Ovitz had hired the detective to dig up dirt on Burkle. Ovitz's lawyer was quick to poo-poo the Pellicano story, asking, "Who are ya gonna believe, the rat who listens in on phone calls, or my client, an upstanding member of the weasly former superagent community?" Reports the Times:

Reports that Die Hard/Predator/Last Action Hero hero John McTiernan entered a guilty plea for lying to the FBI about hiring Anthony Pellicano to wirtetap producer Charles Roven hit yesterday afternoon, but this morning's news cycle brings some more information about what went down in the courtroom. Says the LAT:

You know, the more we look into the Big B's black ops, the more we keep hearing one name over and over: Anthony Pellicano.

Today's NY Times nudges the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century incrementally closer to embattled Paramount emperor Brad Grey's doorstep, reporting that when the studio chief told the FBI that he was "casually acquainted" with the "colorful" Pellicano, he probably meant something slightly cozier than just nodding a "What's up?" to the detective across the room at a cocktail party:

Late Monday afternoon, news hit that Die Hard director (or Last Action Hero director, if you insist on being cruel) John McTiernan has been charged with lying to investigators about his relationship to Hollywood Wiretapping Hall of Fame first-ballot inductee Anthony Pellicano, whom McTiernan had allegedly hired both in connection with his divorce from ex-wife Donna Dubrow and to do a little eavesdropping on Rollerball producer Charles Roven. Today's LAT starts to piece together the illicit McTiernan-Pellicano love affair, including this delightful piece of process-serving color:

Just as Paramount emperor Brad Grey has been forced to defend embattled lieutenant Gail Berman from rumors that her job was in jeopardy following the studio's acquisition of DreamWorks, skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone risked shattering several metacarpals by publicly clapping Grey on the shoulder and offering a "That's my boy!" vote of confidence amidst widespread speculation that Grey may be replaced by new hire Stacey Snider should the studio chief be further ensnared in the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century. Redstone assures the LAT:

The Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century has finally netted its first big Hollywood fish, as Predator/Die Hard/Last Action Hero/Thomas Crown Affair director John McTiernan has been charged with lying to the feds about his involvement with Pellicano, the wiretappingest (why do we love that word so much?) private dick in all of show business. Reports the LAT:

Two big-shot attorneys from Scary Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields' firm might be stuffing seven of their colleagues into a cardboard box and slipping out to start a new, less suspicion-riddled practice, reports today's LAT. But just because the timing makes them seem like they're trying to sneak away before a much-rumored indictment of firm partner Fields can be handed down in connection with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century doesn't mean they think anything bad is going to happen to their soon-to-be ex-colleagues. Says the Times:

Today's NY Times again draws embattled Paramount emperor Brad Grey into the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, reporting that the "first direct evidence" of how the eavesdroppingest PI in Hollywood used his illicitly gained information to benefit his clients has been introduced in the case—in this instance, how wiretapped conversations between screenwriter Bo Zenga and his lawyer may have helped Grey's attorney defend against Zenga's suit. (We're not even going to bother to explain, especially when the Times so helpfully put together this handsome chart.)

Ever since Scary Hollywood Lawyer Terry Christensen was indicted in connection with the Anthony Pellicano Wiretapping Trial of the Century, the entertainment industry has been waiting for the other, fancier shoe to drop: namely, the bringing of charges against Scarier Hollywood Lawyer Bert Fields, who had hired Pellicano in the past but denies knowing about any of the investigator's illegal eavesdropping activities in connection with his cases. Today's LAT reports that prosecutors and Fields' predictably high-powered defense team have engaged in "a difficult game of chicken" by agreeing to extend the deadline for the filing of charges, and that part of the new strategy may include offering Fields an emasculating-sounding "queen for a day" session, which, unfortunately, does not seem to include wearing a tiara while receiving a pedicure and mud mask treatment: