· Brad Pitt, finding himself unable to love the current script for State of Play, ditches the about-to-shoot project, leaving the production up Shit Creek without its A-list paddle. Said Universal in a statement. "Brad Pitt has left the Universal Pictures production of `State of Play.' We remain committed to this project and to the filmmakers, cast members, crew and others who are also involved in making the movie. We reserve all rights in this matter." And by "reserve all rights," the studio means "the right to sue that pretty boy back to his Growing Pains cameo days if we can't find someone to take his place before we lose the rest of the cast to scheduling issues." [Variety]
· NBC will be running "vintage" episodes (read: very old repeats with high-profile guests) of the Tonight Show next week. Relive your favorite, fifteen-year-old talk show moments with stars like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts! [THR]

• Despite their matching dice tattoos, model-heiress Lydia Hearst claims she and testes-elephantiasis sufferer Cisco Adler are not, like, a thing. [Page Six]
  

As you pour yourself the first of the countless glasses of whiskey that will allow you to survive yet another Thanksgiving feast with the dysfunctional clan whose lack of support and grudgingly given affection drove you to seek out a life in Hollywood, Star editor Bonnie Fuller asks that you consider the even more distressing plight of your celebrity betters. If you can't even endure a meal with your relatives without an emotion-blunting buzz on, how can you expect Angelina Jolie, whose family dynamics are undoubtedly far more turbulent than your own, to weather a sure-to-be-tense Turkey Day at Brad Pitt's parent's house without suffering a nervous breakdown? Blogs Fuller:

This Thanksgiving, as you add the last pat of butter to the mashed potatoes while trying to ignore your great uncle's comments about how your mother's like Crisco because she's fat in the can, be thankful that you're not Brad Pitt. So says Bonnie Fuller, who, in her latest HuffPo blog post, points out that she believes her own magazine's report about how strained things could be at the Pitt home in Missouri on Thursday!

With Oprah Approved™ presidential hopeful Barack Obama trailing to Hillary Clinton, it would seem the voiced support of Angelina Jolie's do-gooding wingman—rounding out a megastar hat-trick that already includes George Clooney and Matt Damon—would be precisely what the candidate needs to get ahead in the polls. However, fearing heartland voters might be turned off by the endorsement of someone perceived as an overly privileged and left-leaning actor who's "all shacked-up with that vampire lady and her 14 colored kids," Obama's campaign has kindly declined Brad Pitt's generous offer:

· Defamer videographer Molly goes deep inside slow news day victim Barbara Walters' beef with her TMZ TV tormentors, stringing together the show's speech-impediment-based attack and Walters' subsequent Airing of the Grievances on today's The View. Enjoy the feud while it lasts!
· Brad Pitt's publicist patiently explains that just because someone at his production company may be looking at Unambomber script doesn't mean that he's wandering around the office trying on hooded sweatshirts, sunglasses, and various crazy-person beards quite yet. After all, he may eventually realize that Benicio del Toro is a much more natural fit for the part.
· David Beckham will attempt to save his adopted home from the wildfires through the power of soccer.
· An angry father accuses a strip club of fraudulently lapdancing and champagne-rooming his son into $53,000 worth of charges, threatening to diminish what was obviously the greatest day of his kid's life.

· Peter Jackson's feature adaptation of The Lovely Bones suffers a severe cast downgrade as Mark Wahlberg steps in to replace Ryan Gosling, who's departing the project following the always-popular "creative differences." [Variety]
· Talks are underway to bring a reality series starring Scottish psychic Derek "The Baby Mind Reader" Ogilive to America, centering around his possibly telepathic ability to translate the secret language of an infant's mysterious cries, gurgles, and gassy smiles into something understandable by parents. [THR]
· Superman Returns writers Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris bail on the franchise, opting not to come back to write a sequel. Warner Bros. denies rumors that the studio is planning on hiring new writers to start the Superman saga over yet again, avoiding the potential Superboy Problem presented by the introduction of Kal-El's bastard, half-Kryptonian offspring introduced in Returns. [Variety]

Upon noticing that adoption hobbyists Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie appear to have been afflicted with an acute case of wanderlust, a concerned Page Six contacted "psychotherapist/social worker Puja Hall" for her expert thoughts on how their failure to plant firm roots could lead to developmental problems for their pancultural brood:

Angelina and Brad are off to California and so the days of dropping off little Maddox at the Lycee Francais every day are over. Says a parent: "I've heard other parents saying, 'We're glad they're gone.'" [NYO]

Brooklyn Heights was the scene of a terrible tragedy on Saturday night, when the shooting of the new Coen brothers movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt at Clinton and State streets somehow took out the cable T.V. in local buildings. Reports a resident: With no T.V. to soothe the masses, the streets were filled with "throngs of otherwise too-good-for-celebrity stalking parents camped out with their children for a sighting. Street reporting revealed nobody had gotten one but I did spot one five or six year old boy, bent-legged on the sidewalk, head resting in his small hands and asleep. I'm calling child welfare...."

What celebs move the most magazines? "We looked at the newsstand sales of the six leading celebrity weeklies—People, Star, US Weekly, In Touch Weekly, Life & Style and OK!—over a six-month period ending June 30, as supplied by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. We eliminated all non-celebrity and collage covers as well as special issues with exceptionally large rate bases. Then we counted how many more—or less—issues the celebrity's cover sold, as compared with the magazine's average newsstand sales." Your top three, in order: Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt, and Scarlett Johansson. The big loser? Britney Spears. [Forbes]

The parents of students at the Lycée Français de New York have had to be restrained by their own schmancy school, the Observer tells us; it seems they lose it a bit in the presence of new fellow parents Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. The school's memo to parents: "Regretfully, I have seen some parents taking pictures, asking for autographs, talking to the media and even shouting at Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt for recognition." That is so uncouth! Everyone knows that New Yorkers are too cool to pay attention to celebrities. God, what is this, L.A.? Their poor child Maddox is apparently so troubled by Manhattanites' celebrity obsessions that when he and his fellow kindergartners were asked to bring in a picture of themselves, he started crying. Do you see what you terrible New Yorkers have done to him now, by forcing him into the limelight and also by selling those pictures of him to People magazine?

• The 'Hills' star dishes about the 'thoughts' that crossed her 'mind' right before her breast augmentation and rhinoplasty surgery: "Right before I went in, I was like, What if I don't wake up? Oh, this is scary. Then I thought, I don't care. If I don't wake up, it's worth it. I just wanted it so badly." [Us Weekly]
  

"An Inside summary last Sunday about The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford misspelled the given name of the actor who stars in the film. He is Brad Pitt, not Bratt." [NY Times via Maroon Voices]

· It's a Hollywood abs-off! Extravagantly six-packed superstar Brad Pitt is in talks to replace Matt Damon and appear opposite famously washboarded former underwear model Mark Wahlberg in the Darren Aronofsky boxing drama The Fighter. Shirts will be doffed, and stomach muscles menacingly flexed! [Variety]
· NBC orders four episodes of the Christmas-themed reality show, Clash of the Choirs, in which celebrities return home to assemble armies comprised of their towns' best amateur singers, then pit these muscial warriors against each other in a primetime TV deathmatch. [THR]
· In perhaps today's most touching news, Katherine Heigl options the rights to adapt bestseller Lost & Found, a project she will produce with the very same mother who didn't believe she would win that Emmy. [Variety]
· Light-fingered sometime actress Winona Ryder joins the ensemble cast of the big-screen adaptation of novelist Bret Easton Ellis's The Informers. [THR]
· And this one is going right on our Season Pass list: VH1 is planning the series Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, where the Loveline physician will help former reality stars get off the drugs and back to dealing with their semifame in a more healthy manner. [Variety]

No longer trying to hide the debilitating orphan addiction he's developed up since beginning a relationship with Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt admits that he uses kids to make the pain go away. [People]

· In case you haven't heard, Jon Stewart is going to host the Oscars again. Obligatory press release self-deprecation follows: "I'm thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time's the charm." [Variety, THR]
· NBC greenlights a pilot for Rat Entertainment's cop drama Blue Blood, a project that will see the collision of irresistible party-boy force Brett Ratner with immovable rock-star object Ben Silverman, unleashing a wave of good-time energy that will likely reduce all of Hollywood to smoldering rubble. [Variety]
· The next time Hell's Kitchen star Gordon Ramsay sears his scrotum on a hot oven, it will be an Endeavor agent who holds the bowl of ice water into which he can dip his still-sizzling testes. [THR]
· Fight Club alter-egos Brad Pitt and Edward Norton reteam for Universal's State of Play, a feature adaptation of the British miniseries about a journalist's investigation into the murder of a congressman's girlfriend. We're unfamiliar with the source material, so we won't promise any scenes in which the duo strip off their shirts and stage a much-clamored-for FC rematch. [Variety]
· The Weinstein Company's $2-2.5 million purchase of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, ahem, reanimates the Toronto Fest market. [THR]

Even though Brad Pitt is despondent over how age is cruelly robbing him of the good looks that have made him rich and famous beyond his wildest dreams, all is not lost: As a member of Hollywood's Secret Brainiac Society, he should be able to make a nice living from his staggering intellect long after his legendary six-pack has softened. [Rush & Molloy]