All those dire predictions about Canada shutting down Hollywood look like they may come to pass after all, but not because of runaway production. An Ottawa-based company called Research In Motion, which provides North American BlackBerry email service, is in a messy patent dispute. Result: all U.S. BlackBerry service is on the verge of a court-ordered shutdown.
In a story that features no dateline, the Post tells of a panel called "Indie Night School: Lawyer Edition," held at the standard Lower East Side venue for such a bizarrely titled gathering, Pianos. Tom Sean, a 26-year-old member of the Black Spoons, introduced the speakers, noting that the entertainment lawyers were "also TOTALLY COOL! Because even lawyers are indie."
· In our infinite mercy, yesterday we spared you a reprint of the press release announcing Revolution partner Rob Moore's departure for a post at The New Paramount as president of worldwide marketing. Today, your luck has run out, as we're compelled to direct you to the trades stories about the move. [Variety, THR]
· NBC Universal revenue is up 35%, yet we still don't know anyone who's seen more than two episodes of Joey. We're not sure that last sentence tracks, and we don't particularly care. Welcome to Friday! [THR]
· NBC orders midseason drama The Book of Daniel, starring Aidan Quinn as a pill-popping Episcopalian priest (Catholics are way too controversial) who talks to Jesus, forsaking the godless path taken by rival CBS. In other news, UPN gives Steven Guttenberg a job on Veronica Mars. [Variety]
· More nominations analysis: Emmy voters are sick of procedurals. [THR]
· ABC once again fills the summertime Nielsen void with a successful premiere for Brat Camp, a higher-quality version of just about every Sally Jesse Raphael episode ever shot. [Variety]
· Want to read Var and THR's coverage of the Emmy nominations? Of course you do! [Variety, THR]
· Also, the nominees seem pleased just to be recognized! [THR]
· Our pals at CollegeHumor.com have pacted with The New Paramount. Congratulations, guys! You'll be remaking Van Wilder for them in no time at all. [Variety]
· Recipe for instant mediocrity: Take one C-list actress (Jordana Brewster), add a little horror franchise prequel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre), and sprinkle in some Michael Bay production (Platinum Dunes). [THR]
· Peter Berg continues to work. [Variety]
· Wednesday is Butterscotch Stallion Day! Paramount signs Owen Wilson to star in a remake (How novel! Paramount never does that!) of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. [Variety]
· Jeri "Seven of Nine" Ryan is joining the cast of The O.C. as a mysterious woman that Kirsten meets in rehab, and a nation full of real-life Seth Cohens prepares for exciting nights composing Borg-Chino slash-fic. [THR]
· Uma Thurman and Luke "Why Don't I Get A Stallion Nickname?" Wilson will star in the Ivan Reitman-directed romantic comedy Super Ex, in which Thurman uses her super-powers to torture the man who dumped her. [Variety]
· Predictably, the baseball All-Star game attracts more Nielsen eyeballs than INXS's desperate attempt to replace their dead singer with a part-time bartender or waitress. [THR]
· ABC greenlights nine episodes of Simon Cowell/Freemantle Media reality show for entrepreneurs:The Million Dollar Idea. Here's a freebie: Someone should invent a set-top box that makes Paula Abdul seem like she's not flying on pain medication during American Idol episodes. [Variety]
After all of this talk of alleged sex tapes and the alleged unspeakable acts allegedly contained therein, we collapse against our keyboard, so spent that we can merely blockquote this touching press-released sentiment from New Paramount™ head Brad Grey on the occasion of the heartfelt ankling of COO/vice-chairman Rob Friedman:
· DreamWorks Animation is in trouble with a second straight quarter of disappointing DVD sales, an SEC investigation, and six pending shareholder lawsuits. We're starting to feel like it was a bad idea to sell our car to buy into mogul-in-miniature Jeffrey Katzenberg's Shrek-colored vision. [Variety]
· THR has yet another attempt to explain the downturn on European box office decline on sun-woshipping Germans. Left unexplored is the unpleasant possibility that God kind of hated Bewitched. [THR]
· And you can stick this in your Slump: Summer numbers might be down, but overall, studios are have taken in more money than last year. [Variety]
· On a slow Monday night, viewers prefer the culinary abuse of Fox's Hell's Kitchen to rubbernecking as INXS tries to replace their dead singer on national television. [THR]
· Poker is the new poker: Warner Bros. buys the rights to the book One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey 'The Kid' Ungar, the tragic story of a poker phenom who died of an overdose. [Variety]
Despite new leader Brad Grey's executive restructuring of The New Paramount™, the studio still can't seem to stop taking hits from the remake crack-pipe. Is there some holdover from the old regime feverishly making deals out of a well-hidden janitorial closet, waiting to be discovered? Today's Variety reports that Paramount plans to remake Summer School, the Mark Harmon comedy vehicle* from 1987:
· The Agent Dance, Trades Edition: Late Friday, we heard some rumblings about UTA agents Jason Heyman and Martin Lesak bolting for CAA, apparently because CAA was already calling the trades to brag about their poach. Now the question remains: Will Will Ferrell defect along with Heyman, loosening UTA's stranglehold on the New Gay Mafia and ushering in an era of comedies not packaged by The Ooota? Dave Chappelle is also believed to be "in play," should he ever return to commission-earning activities. [Variety]
· "Dissident former board members" Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold drop their lawsuit against Disney and give a vote of confidence to new Head Mouse in Charge Robert Iger. The trio then held hands and skipped down to grab a Fast Pass for a celebratory ride on the Matterhorn. [THR]
· The UK entertainment industry refuses to let the terrorists win, return to work creating hit shows that will one day fail on NBC. [Variety]
· Overseas audiences continue to display their enthusiasm for watching America get decimated by aliens, as War of the Worlds has taken in $201 million thus far. [Variety]
· More international box office: Fantastic Four runs roughshod over the overseas box office, once again proving that we are not alone in our bad taste. [THR]
· Hollywood has finally decided that it's OK to make 9/11 films, as Paramount and Columbia Pictures both prep movies about the tragedy. Paramount's even fast-tracked its offering, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Nicholas Cage, obviously in a rush to help complete the nation's healing. [Variety]
· SAG negotiates a three-year deal to raise minimum pay and increase health and pension contributions for television animation actors. Meanwhile, reality-TV writers are suing studios and networks. [THR, THR]
· Fox "hoping for 'Fantastic' weekend," while we hope for ponies made of gold to fall from the sky and gallop into the distance. We're probably both going to be a little disappointed. [Variety]
· CBS easily wins Thursday night as the Big Brother premiere brings in only 8.7 million viewers, beating up on its rerun competition. [THR]
· On Endemol gameshow Deal or No Deal: ABC toss it and leave it, NBC pull up quick to retrieve it. [Variety]
· CD sales are down almost 7% from last year, while downloading (the legal kind) is up 104 million units. In response to the new Nielsen SoundScan numbers, RIAA lawyers are busy trying to figure out how to sue everyone who's ever bought a song on iTunes. [Variety]
· Fox News was the first American TV outlet to air reports of the London terrorist attacks; the network was also the first to tie the subway bombings to Democrat-friendly terrorists. [THR]
· Disney partners with Sprint to create a family-targeted cellphone service. Soon, every five-year old will own a Mickey-shaped mobile phone and talk into the place where the mouse's genitals should be. [Variety]
· Nothing says World War II like Mr. Reese Witherspoon and the guy from Bring It On: Ryan Phillippe and Jesse Bradford are set to star in Clint Eastwood's next project, Flags of Our Fathers. [Variety]
· 18 million people tuned in to watch MTV and VH1 veejays mindlessly babble over the historic performances of the Live 8 concerts. No one wanted to hear the Pink Floyd reunion drown out that TRL guy, anyway. [THR]
· And because every world-shaking story has a show business angle, the entertainment industry in London is shut down in the wake of the terrorist attacks. [Variety]
· Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's coyly-handled and tabloid-friendly smoldering sexual relationship seems to have helped Mr. and Mrs. Smith at the box office, while the Insincere-Seeming Publicity Theater of whatshisname and whatshername seems not to have damaged War of the Worlds. [Variety]
· Legendary screenwriter Ernest Lehman (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, West Side Story, The Sound of Music, and many more) died Saturday at the age of 89. [THR]
· Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way will produce an adaptation of Cat's Cradle, hiring the writer of the Joycian masterwork Sahara (and his son) to tackle the Kurt Vonnegut classic. [Variety]
· Tommy Lee Jones joins the cast of thousands in the Robert Altman-directed adaptation of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, will be lovably grizzled alongside Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Lily Tomlin and Maya Rudolph. [THR]
· Oh, and by the way: Paris is snubbed as London wins the 2012 Olympics. [Variety]
· WOTW takes in $102.5 million at the overseas box office; analysts attribute the success to the difficulty of properly translating the term "pseudo-science" into various languages. [Variety]
· TNT attempts to fill the void in the mobster cable series void left by the extended hiatus of The Sopranos, develops a "limited series" ("miniseries" is so 2003) based on the life of Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana. [TNT]
· The New Paramount and Warner Bros. are sharing director David Fincher on back-to-back movies, Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, splitting the inevitable "gloom and rain" budget overruns. [Variety]
· Because the Nielsen boxes never sleep, even on a holiday: CBS's Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular 2005 entertained more shut-ins than any other Monday night program. [THR]
· TV producer Lester Lewis pretends to be excited about working with Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick on their new sitcom, Four Kings. [Variety]
With just 5,431 copies sold in its first month of release, Michael Eisner's Camp, the longtime Disney CEO's heartfelt remembrances of three-legged races, leisurely canoe rides, and his serial victimization by swirly-obsessed bullies, isn't exactly burning up the summer bestseller lists. At least the soon-to-be-massively-remaindered author is looking on the semi-bright side. From the LAT:
No round-up of red-hot summer camp memoirs would be complete without the rising master of the form, lame duck Disney CEO Michael Eisner, whose visionary Camp will one day be considered the acme of the form. Unfortunately, this literary genius may be doomed to go unappreciated by his contemporaries, as a reviewer at USA Today dumps a bucketful of Kakutani-strength haterade all over Eisner's book:
· As previously reported (albeit as seen through the Cruise-lens), ABC has decided not to air Welcome to the Neighborhood, a reality show in which a snow-white neighborhood is shaken up when Gays, Pagans, and Asians move onto the cul-de-sac. [Variety]
· Everbody Loves Raymond In Near-Perpetuity: TBS shells out $650K per episode to keep Raymond rerunning through the network for the next eleven years. [THR]
· Did you know that The Dukes of Hazzard TV show was based on a movie called Moonrunners? Warner Bros. certainly does now, as it's agreed to pay $17.5 million to the movie's producer for copyright infringement. [Variety]
· Domino Harvey, the real-life version of Keira Knightley's bounty hunter character in the upcoming Domino, unexpectedly dies at 35. Does this mean reshoots? [Variety
· Var loves cute, extended metaphors: WOTW "wages six day War," "invading" nearly 4,000 screens. Who even knew Tom Cruise had a movie coming out? [Variety]
· Carsey-Werner's Tom Werner might be looking for a rebound hook-up with Mandalay Mosaic TV. Drunken, lustful late-night phonecalls to follow. [THR]
· Not even a bottle to the head can slow Leonardo DiCaprio's career, as the healing actor is in negotiations to play a smuggler in The Blood Diamond for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· A record 32 films have crossed the $100 million threshold in the past twelve months? But what about The Slump? We suspect someone is fudging the Euro-to-dollar conversion rates. [THR]
· Unafraid of the Curse of Jeff Zucker, TV production unit Tollins/Robbins sets up a deal to develop and produce for NBC Universal TV Studio. [Variety]
