· MGM CFO Daniel Taylor will take over as president of the studio. The elevation of the studio's chief bean counter to the top spot makes it painfully clear that MGM is now officially Sony's money-printing bitch. [insert sound of a lion being sodomized] [Variety]
· The Oscar nominations of Finding Neverland and The Aviator have Disney and the Weinsteins again holding hands and skipping around the Maypole. [Variety]
· News that five people care about: The rift between the WGA West and WGA East is about to get all Biggie-Tupac over which coast gets what share of dues. [THR]
· "Script problems" delay the Crowe-Kidman flick Eucalyptus. You'd think they would've gotten that troublesome script thing in shape before everyone showed up to shoot the movie. [THR]
· Jerry Bruckheimer lures feature directors Andrew "The Fugitive" Davis and Simon "Tomb Raider" West to his TV
drama pilots, promising them they could blow up as much shit as they like on the small screen. [Variety]

Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman comes down from the Murdoch Empire mountaintop to answer the anxious Arrested Development fans who are e-mailing her, afraid the show is about to be canceled after its original episode order was reduced. Of course, by "comes down from the mountaintop" we mean "makes her second assistant send out boilerplate responses while she kicks off early for a pedicure." Here's the short version: Watch more and we won't have to cancel it. Longer version below:

· The House Energy and Commerce committed passes a bill that "dramatically increases" broadcast indecency fines. Way to go, five people that file 99 percent of indecency complaints! You're officially running the country now. [Variety]
· For those who prefer their Messiah roughed up, but not graphically brutalized, Mel Gibson is recutting The Passion for a limited theatrical release. Five to six minutes of violent scenes will be cut, and instead of a crown of thorns, Christ will wear an uncomfortably tight baseball cap. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Scorsese Edition: The Aviator's team of Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, and writer John Logan will remake Kurosawa's Drunken Angel for Warner Bros. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, What the Fuck? Edition: Producer Tony Thomopolous and George Hamilton are developing a sequel to the 1979 vampire comedy Love at First Bite. Finally, all those 25-year-old loose ends will be tied up! [THR]
· The Tom Cruise Book Club: Paramount buys another book for their golden boy, Christopher Reich's as-yet-unpublished The Patriots Club. [Variety]
· Meg Ryan, apparently bitter that her agents at William Morris thought it would be a good idea to get massive plastic surgery that rendered her almost unrecognizable, bolts for CAA. [THR]

Today's NY Times reviews the James B. Stewart tell-all DisneyWars, a collection of sordid, family-unfriendly tales from the underbelly of the Magic Kingdom during Michael Eisner's dysfunctional reign. Luckily for Stewart, Eisner's "exiles... have a tendency to wind up testifying in public about their former boss":

· Hey, starfuckers with wanderlust! Quick, get thee to the Land of Hasselhoff to see the likes of Keanu Reeves, Bill Murray, Will Smith, and Kevin Spacey hawking their cinematic wares at the Berlin Film Festival. [Variety]
· The New Paramount™ continues to spend, spend, spend, buying the rights to the gold-digging kids book Treasure Trove for Tom Cruise's production company. [Variety]
· Start your angry letter-writing campaign now: Fox reduces Arrested Development's episode order to make room for American Dad. Looks like the network has finally run out of patience with AD's ratings...or American Dad/Family Guy (which is being relaunched there soon) creator Seth MacFarlane has some incriminating pictures of Fox head Gail Berman. [THR]
· American Idol continues to bestride the feeble television landscape like an out-of-key Colossus, pulling in another 30 million viewers. [THR]
· Chris Noth's career comes full circle, as he returns to the Law & Order franchise (this time to the Criminal Intent flavor), giving the producers some insurance against future Vincent D'Onofrio "fainting spells." [Variety]

At the New York screening of the Brian Grazer-produced Brian Grazer Presents: Inside Deep Throat, A Brian Grazer Production, Gigi Grazer (Brian's wife, stay with us) explains a surefire way to land yourself a high-powered Hollywood producer:

It's not exactly Paul McCartney whipping it out in the middle of "Hey Jude," but it looks like Fox Sports did indeed get their nipple slip. Having it happen to a Playboy bunny almost disqualifies it...almost. Click here to see the uncensored pic, at least until someone at the Fox site takes it down.

· Double-feature alert: There are plans to re-release Deep Throat to accompany the Universal documentary Inside Deep Throat on the [cough-cough] "seminal porn film." [Variety]
· Fox sensibly shits its pants and decides to move Fantastic Four back a week, avoiding a likely one-sided Fourth of July showdown with War of the Worlds. They're a lot less afraid of Bewitched, the new competition, which will likely feature fewer spectacular explosions. [THR]
· Now that Paul McCartney's buzzless Super Bowl halftime show has made live television safe for America, ABC will air the Oscars through 2014, and will shrug off the tyranny of the 7-second tape delay. [Variety]
· In an effort to capitalize on the runaway popularity of housewives in suburbia, ABC signs
Kristin Davis to star in the one-hour pilot Soccer Moms. The move also helps temporarily to keep former Sex in the City stars off the welfare rolls. [THR]
· Even after bothering to "reimagine" Jennifer Love Hewitt half-hour In the Game, ABC mercifully decides to finally put it down like a crippled dog. [THR]

Now that Disney CEO Michael Eisner is getting comfortable with the idea of retiring from his post, it seems that the embattled lame-duck has fired the little gatekeeper in his head that stops his internal monologue from sneaking past his lips:

· Actors celebrating their own: The SAG awards throw a bone to the Sideways ensemble, while Jaime Foxx and Hilary Swank warm up for their Oscar speeches. [Variety]
· John Cusack takes a break from romantic comedies to to star in the hitman thriller The Contract with Morgan Freeman. We're unclear which of them is the hitman; both have previous contract killer experience. (See Grosse Pointe Blank and Nurse Betty.) [Variety]
· The delightfully jiggly Eva Mendes will star opposite Nicholas Cage in Columbia's Marvel comic adaptation of Ghost Rider. Daredevil's Mark Steven Johnson is directing, so you know this one's going to be huge. [THR]
· Pilot pick ups: a Fox sitcom set at a used car dealership, an NBC poker comedy, and a wacky, "high-concept" WB show about Miami mermaids. In related future news, networks will reduce their slate of new comedies to record low levels. [Variety]
· Tired of all that "fake crime" bullshit on the innumerable CSI and Law & Order series? A&E is launching the Crime & Investigation network for those who like their crime to have real victims. [Variety]

With Disney board members scheduled to start discussing their search for CEO Michael Eisner's successor, president and promotion hopeful Robert Iger has to be thrilled about Eisner's passionate endorsements in the upcoming inside-the-belly-of-the-Mouse tell-all, DisneyWar:

· Microsoft brings out the million-dollar check to snag Alex Garland to translate the Halo videogames into some kind of coherent script. We get the feeling that everyone's favorite monopoly ain't gonna settle for an Alone in the Dark kind of adaptation. This will probably be a REALLY EXPENSIVE kinda flop. [Variety]
· David James Elliott, star of JAG, the longest-running show that no one we know has ever seen, gets a development deal with ABC and Touchstone TV for his 10 years of service. In the corporate world, you'd get a nice watch. [THR]
· Dustin Hoffman signs on for the Will-Ferrell-hears-hilarious-voices-in-his-head comedy Stranger Than Fiction. He'll play another wacky professor type, a la I Heart Huckabees. [Variety]
· Hey, did you forget that they're still making James Bond movies? They are! The next one will be Casino Royale, even though they don't know which guy with a funny accent will get to wear the golden tuxedo yet. [THR]
· Studios shuffle around the release schedule for their summer-flavored crap. But don't bother paying attention yet, it will all change four or five more times in the next few weeks. [Variety]

· You heard it here first: Boxing movies are hot, hot, hot! Paramount and Sony team up to buy the rights to make the boxing documentary Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, the true story of the boxer that beat his opponent to death in the ring after he called him a homo, into a feature film. You're not going to get that kind of edge in Russell Crowe's Cinderella Man. [Variety]
· The People's Mandate: American Idol trounces Bush's State of the Union address in the ratings, despite the president's hilariously off-key rendition of "It's Raining Men." [THR]
· It's official: The Apprentice: Martha Stewart is a go at NBC, and Stewart's five-month house arrest isn't even a problem—she'll bring her new prison edge to the show. Instead of merely dismissing contestants who can't hack it in Marthaland, they'll be raped by her former lesbian cellmates. [Variety]
· You just know this one was sold off the pitch, "Antonio Banderas is a ballroom dancer." [THR]
· Jack Nicholson joins Martin Scorcese's The Departed to show young punk co-stars Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio how it's done. [Variety]

· MGM picks its final four films before their new masters at Sony take over. Strangely, one of the chosen films is Breaking Vegas, a directing vehicle for Brett Ratner. Wouldn't it have been less painful to burn down the place before Sony gets to run the show? [Variety]
· Tina Fey will write the script for and star in an NBC pilot about "the head writer of a SNL-like variety show, focusing on her efforts to control a volatile star and executive producer." Don't stretch yourself too much, Tina. [THR]
· Ray director Taylor Hackford seems to know he's got no shot at actually winning the Oscar, as he signs up to direct Jerry Bruckheimer's "West Wing at the Pentagon" pilot E-Ring. [THR]
· Aspiring actors willing to do anything for your careers, take heart: unionizing casting directors have decided not to strike, and are still willing to accept your sexual favors in return for a break. [Variety]
· American Idol's huge ratings continue to distract everyone from thinking about how horrible the rest of Fox's schedule is. [Variety]

You may remember that NBC-Universal head/fading golden boy Jeff Zucker recently agreed to show his acting chops and poke some fun at his image by guest-starring as himself in the upcoming Kirstie Alley trainwreck Fat Actress. Now Zucker's tumbling down the slippery slope of pop-culture punchlines, as his name has been appropriated for a TV network president character in a WB sitcom pilot fittingly named Nobody's Watching. (If your mind isn't yet sufficiently blown, the pilot was originally developed at NBC. Oh, the balls!) Unfortunately, the WB is expected to change the name if the show makes the schedule, but we sincerely hope that "Zeff Jucker's" essence as a once-proud programming world-beater who's watching his Must-See empire crumble around him is left intact. Also, he's still bald and short.

· Towleroad continues its comprehensive coverage of all developments in the timeline of gay cowboy epic Brokeback Mountain by filling in the blanks in some screenshots from its "cockteaser trailer."
· Words fail us when trying to describe the mangled mess that's replaced Jackie Stallone's face, but we'll take a crack at describing it as "watery Play-doh."
· The Tinseltown Tattle-Tale drops by Funnsylvania for a little gossip session...why aren't we getting these hot scoops?
· Edward Furlong can't shut up about lobsters: "Lobsters, they are great spirits and they need to roam free." Especially if you're shitfaced at the time you realize that lobster liberation is such a lofty goal.
· Disney is opening an entire unit dedicated to the skillful knocking-off of their Pixar collaborations.

When we saw this map of the sex-offender danger lurking perilously close to Disneyland, we wondered if the Megan's Law website could help us find a safer place in California where concerned parents could bring their children.

· A&E wins the bidding war with TNT for Sopranos basic cable reruns, ponying up $2.5 million an episode. They pledge to "preserve the integrity of the show" while presumably editing out much of the nudity and violence, i.e., the good parts. [Variety]
· Everybody Loves Raymond's Patricia Heaton signs a development deal with ABC and Touchstone TV, who will immediately try and shoehorn her into a sitcom where she plays a sassy wife who must endure the antics of a schlubby husband. [THR]
· Disney is financially propped up by ESPN and theme parks, while home video revenues head toilet-ward. Hey, why don't they try convincing that Eisner guy to step down or something? [Variety]
· Medium continues to beat up on its mostly-rerun competition, giving NBC a win on the 18-49 demographic, [THR]
· Agent Dance Mini Edition: 23-year William Morris TV veteran Steve Glick dumps WMA for the greener ten-percent pastures of ICM. [Variety]

Have you ever found yourself staring at your cellphone and wishing that the tiny screen could be filled with beheadings, drug-addled special anti-terrorist agents, and inscrutable plot twists? You're in luck, because today Fox and Verizon are rolling out 60-second episodes of a 24 series called 24: Conspiracy made to be viewed on the two-inch space previously reserved for your phone numbers, postage stamp-sized pictures of your drunk friends, and the occasional game of Tetris. And if the series doesn't show early promise (like most of the offerings on the network), the programming geniuses at Fox will undoubtedly prop up the short-attention-span 24 episodes with endlessly repetitive clips of people singing off-key renditions of Celine Dion songs.

In his farewell to the NY Times on Sunday, former entertainment reporter Bernard Weinraub offered up a litany of his Hollywood sins. He admits to some initial starfucking (hey, wouldn't you ditch Billy Bob Thornton to squeeze a quote out of Cameron Diaz?), falling asleep while interviewing Jim Carrey (mortifying!), and personal shame over driving his crappy beater to meet rich studio types (doubly mortifying!). In one anecdote, Weinraub admits to falling for the estimable charms of Jeffrey Katzenberg, who predictably dropped him like a dead kitten once he finally abandoned the movie beat after his marriage to rising studio head Amy Pascal proved too complicated for the Times: