· Gerard Butler, still red-hot following his career-making, washboard-ab-spotlighting turn in 300, will join Jodie Foster and Abigail "Im in Dakota's career, steelin her rolez" Breslin in the family adventure film Nim's Island, based on the popular children's book. [Variety]
· Out-of-work and aspiring comedy writers, it might finally be time to pull the ripcord and float to the safety of law school: the networks ordered precious few comedies for the new season, are terrified of the expense of still-faddish single-camera shows, and want to squeeze the life out of established sitcoms for fear of a writers strike. Get out while your LSAT scores are still valid. [THR]
· MGM is dangerously close to getting into the Rob Schneider business. [Variety]
· ABC declined to pick up their Mr & Mrs Smith adaptation, triggering a contractual option that will allow studio Regency TV to start shopping the Alphabet's sloppy pilot seconds to other networks. [THR]
· Mexican filmmaking BFFs Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro, and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu have signed on to do five movies with Universal and Focus Features, establishing a production company called (really) cha cha cha. [Variety]

· Oh, right: The CW also announced its Fall schedule. Veronica Mars fans, grab your pitchforks and torches, because your favorite show's not on it. But maybe the pick-up of Gossip Girl will make you feel better about things? [Variety]
· 300's Gerard Butler will star in Game, a near-future dystopian thriller in which people control other people in "mass-scale, multiplayer online" games, with Butler playing a warrior who tries to "regain his identity and bring down the system that has imprisoned him." Pitch: The Running Man meets The Matrix meets Second Life, sort of. [THR]
· Remember those scenes in Heat where Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro appeared together? If that gave you a moviegasm, you're probably not going to be able to handle Righteous Kill, a feature-length act-off between the stars of Two for the Money and Meet the Fockers. [Variety]
· David Fincher circumvented his "no more serial killer movies" rule for Zodiac by thinking of it as a "newspaper movie in which I get to torture Jake Gyllenhaal for the last two hours." [THR]
· Cannes attempts to spice up its opening night by eschewing its usual sit-down dinner in favor of allowing guests to roam the room with their cocktails, ingesting finger foods as needed to avoid passing out. [Variety]

· Fox reaches into a hat containing slips of paper with the names of actors, wacky situations, and clichéd expressions written on them, producing the Cameron Diaz/Ashton Kutcher project What Happens in Vegas, the story of two people who wake up to discover they've gotten married—and won a huge jackpot!—following a night of debauchery. [Variety]
· Get on the phone with your friends and figure out who's going to host the viewing party: The The Hollywood Reporter's 36th Annual Key Art Awards are coming! [THR]
· Elijah Wood playing Iggy Pop? Sure, why not? After yesterday's announced Tim Allen/David Mamet project, we're open to anything. [Variety]
· Fox signs up 24 for two more seasons, keeping Kiefer Sutherland in beer money through 2009. [THR]
· Cannes kicks off today! Obviously we're not there, so we feel we can be bitterly dismissive of all the Rivieria-side orgies we're missing out on. [Variety]

· Tim Allen? David Mamet? Together on a "mixed martial arts drama"? Has the world gone totally fucking insane? [Variety]
· TV casting crisis! Close the borders! Foreigners are stealing roles on new Fall series that could be going to American actors. [THR]
· Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson team up to produce three digital 3-D features based on the Belgian cartoon Tintin. They'll direct one installment each, with the last going to Brett Ratner, guaranteeing the franchise will not live past their original vision for a trilogy. (Relax, we're kidding about Ratner. But in a world where Tim Allen and Mamet can collaborate, nothing seems impossible.) [Variety]
· The success of Ugly Betty earns budding TV mogul Salma Hayek a 2-year overall deal with ABC Studios. [THR]
· Adorable netlet The CW makes like the big-people channels, picking up the dramas Gossip Girl, Reaper, and Wild at Heart; Veronica Mars, however, remains on the bubble. [Variety]

· Maria Bello has been cast in the role of "Much Cheaper Alternative to Oscar-Winning Actress No Longer Willing to Slum It in a Mindless Sequel" in the next Mummy installment, replacing Rachel Weisz. [Variety]
· Spider-Man 3 pulled in another $85.5 million internationally, bringing its worldwide box office to $622.1 million. [THR]
· NBC demotes Law & Order: Criminal Intent to its USA Network (with second-run episodes appearing on the network mothership), while the Original Recipe L&O will stay on the Peacock, avoiding a possible banishment to TNT. [Variety]
· CBS goes pre-upfront pick-up crazy, bringing pilot dramas Twilight (about a vampire P.I.) and Laughlin (guy dreams of opening a shitty casino in Laughlin, NV!) to series. [THR]
· Madonna's husband is finally getting back into directing incomprehensible, low-budget gangster films, and will team with Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment on the "action comedy" RockNRolla this summer. [Variety]

· In case you haven't heard about the whole Chris Albrecht mess, a recap: arrested in Vegas Sunday, news breaks Monday, heads off to rehab Tuesday, new shit comes to light Wednesday morning, fired Wednesday afternoon, HBO in turmoil Thursday. There, that about gets you up to speed. [Variety, THR]
· With his shocking Dreamgirls Oscar loss solidifying the dissociative identity disorder that drives him to take roles in terrible comedies demanding he portray multiple characters, Eddie Murphy signs on for a family-friendly big-screen version of Fantasy Island in which he's expected to play a variety of roles. Get ready for some disturbing, Little Man-style FX grafting his face onto a dwarf's body for his Tattoo scenes. [THR]
· You know what the world really needs? Another Terminator movie, but without Schwarzenegger or Cameron or anything that made the first two worth watching. [Variety]
· The pre-upfront buzz says that it's going to be another bad year for comedy, a premise supported by rumors that ABC's Cavemen is gaining pick-up momentum. Please, God, let it make the schedule. [THR]

· The Weinstein Co. (with help from their besties at Lionsgate) will release Michael Moore's documentary Sicko on July 29th, which should do for America's health care system what Bowling for Columbine did for a senile-seeming, rifle-loving Charlton Heston. [Variety]
· Hollywood Out Of Ideas, Even In The Prehistoric Past And Distant Future Edition: Robert Rodriguez is in talks to direct a live-action feature adaptation of The Jetsons, and has also met with Universal about Will Ferrell's adaptation of Land of the Lost. [THR]
· Universal lands its second Serious Actor for its The Incredible Hulk project, as Tim Roth is in negotiations to play Hulk antagonist Abomination and spend long hours discussing how best to portray the emotional torment of gamma-wave-poisoning sufferers in the context of a superhero film. [Variety]
· FX may pay up to $40 million for the TV rights to Spider-Man 3 for five years, but only once it completes it pay-cable run on Starz. [THR]
· Var TV critic and Entourage nemesis Brian Lowry is amused that his HBO stand-in, who'll be harassed by an aggrieved Johnny Drama in an upcomnig episode shot in the paper's offices, has an assistant. [Variety]

· Aging, erstwhile megastar Kevin Costner will produce and star in the "indie election comedy" Swing Vote, in which he'll play a guy who, through the kind of incredible plot contrivance from which hilarity will inevitably ensue, discovers he will cast the deciding vote in the presidential race. Also: Does anyone have any idea what Mr. Brooks is about? We keep zoning out during the commercials before we can figure it out. [Variety]
· Rapper Common's acting career is, as we're told the kids like to say, "blowing up." He'll join Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie in Universal's Wanted, and is in talks to outact Keanu Reeves in The Night Watchman. [THR]
· Superstar legal pundit Nancy Grace jettisons her Court TV show so that she can focus all of her crazy energy on being shrill on her higher-profile CNN showcase. [Variety]
· Roughly 19 million viewers tune in to Dancing with the Stars to simultaneously wonder if Billy Ray Cyrus's moves might be improved if he had a prosthetic leg. [[THR]
· Veronica Mars showrunner Rob "Not the Matchbox 20 Guy, We Think" Thomas poo-poos chatter that his show's already been given up for dead by The CW. [Variety]

· Here's comes Spider-Man 3! But how much will it make on its domestic opening weekend, after breaking records in 10 of the 16 territories in which it's already playing? Experts agree: a fucking shitload. [[Variety]
· But! Is THR playing the hype card? We're reminded that the beginning of the summer blockbuster season is always accompanied by the loss of "all sense of perspective." Whatever. This movie's doing $400 million in three days, we can feel it. [THR]
· Reese Witherspoon's Type A Films is developing an adaptation of Rebecca Godfrey's Under the Bridge, the "true-crime account of a brutal high school murder." With no superhero angle to speak of and no prospects of breaking Pirates 2's box office record, why are we wasting time on this? Our theory: Witherspoon is in talks to play Mary Jane in Spidey-4. [Variety]
· Liv Tyler will star opposite Edward Norton in next summer's The Incredible Hulk. Opening weekend prediction: a disappointing $37 million. Hey, no Spider-Man cameo. [THR]
· Thursday night's special, two-hour, spinoff-introducing Grey's Anatomy holds the show's usual viewership, so get ready to enjoy Dr. Addison's romantic misadventures on a weekly basis this Fall. (Did we really hear Tim Daly say, "I'm going to kiss you with tongue?" Maybe they're saving the snappier, "I'm going to place my penis inside you. Then move it around" banter for the actual series.) [Variety]

· After shattering a number of box office records in Asia, Spider-Man 3 is now making a mockery of European ticket-buying benchmarks. Based on this preliminary data, we now predict a $400 million opening weekend in America, kicking off an eventual $3 billion domestic run. [Variety]
· We much prefer THR's "Tom Poston, master of sidekicks" obit headline to yesterday's weak "clueless everyman" effort. [THR]
· Emma Roberts will star "as a spoiled Malibu princess" in the Universal comedy Wild Child; accusations that Auntie Julia somehow got her the role by promising Universal a favor to follow. [Variety]
· NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg honors late MPAA copyright enforcer Jack Valenti's legacy by announcing a "three-pronged" attack on the city's movie pirates. [THR]
· Still giddy over the huge piles of cash Frank Miller's 300 generated for them, Warner Bros. options the rights to his graphic novel Ronin. They plan to shoot in the same CGI-heavy way, hoping that hordes of well-muscled "gangs of mutants and thugs" with computer-enhanced six-packs will prove as wildly popular as the first project's sweaty, ripped Greeks. [Variety]

· 3,000 attend the Spider-Man 3 Tribeca Film Festival premiere in Astoria, Queens, uncharitably described as "roughly the east coast equivalent of Van Nuys." We hope nobody from Var is planning any trips to that borough in the near future, as we fear for their safety after that slight. [Variety]
· The U.S. Trade Representative puts China and Russia on notice, naming the two nations as the world-leaders in copyright theft, and threatening them with visits from DVD-sniffing wonderdogs Lucky and Flo should they not demonstrate a commitment to stopping movie piracy. [THR]
· "Magic" screen test chemistry lands 26-year-old Australian unknown Luke Ford a key role in the next Mummy movie, a casting move that may allow Universal to jettison Brendan Fraser after this installment and continue the franchise with cheaper talent. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Fox's Peter Chernin, Disney's Bob Iger, and dozens of others pull honorary pallbearer duty at Jack Valenti's Washington, DC funeral. [THR]
· Peter Jackson is shopping around his spec adaptation of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones; predictably left out of the bidding war fun: New Line, whom Jackson is suing for untold millions in Lord of the Rings royalties he claims to be owed. [Variety]
· In a move meant to recognize the breadth and quality of the original programming that plays above its famous scrolling grid of television listings, the TV Guide Channel boldly rebrands as TV Guide Network. [THR]

· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Special 80s Possession-Comedy Edition: Queen Latifah will star in a remake of Lily Tomlin/Steve Martin farce All of Me for New Line, though it's unclear from the story if their reimagination of the material will call for Latifah to play the possessing spirit or the showier role of host body. Either way, we hope they keep the bit where the guru flushes a toilet each time the telephone rings. That really cracked us up when we were ten. [Variety]
· Last night's two-hour Idol Gives Back special eradicates world poverty, network competition. [THR]
· The FCC declares War on TV Violence, threatening that if networks don't clean up their acts, the government will do it for them. [Variety]
· A puff of pink smoke rises from a chimney atop Lifetime's headquarters, indicating that the company has chosen a new spiritual leader to preside over its housewife-narcotizing slate of eating-disorder-related MOWs. [THR]
· The highly successful, industry-wide Agent Literacy Program continues to pay impresive dividends, as Gersh joins Endeavor in starting a new book division. [Variety]

· No, sillies! His name is Gay! LOL! CMT would never hire a real Gay! [Variety]
· We thought that Disney could never top itself after casting John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence together in Wild Hogs, but they've just officially blown our minds by getting Travolta and Robin Williams into Old Dogs, the story of "two best friends and business partners whose lives are turned upside down when they find themselves in the care of 7-year-old twins." This one could do $300 million, easy. [THR]
· With no more female-friendly MOW worlds to conquer after landing both Jennie Garth and Lacey Chabert for upcoming projects, Lifetime president/CEO Betty Cohen "steps down" barely 24 hours after the network's upfront presentations. [Variety]
· Following yesterday's (possibly premature) reports that Spiderman: 3 may have already been pirated in Beijing, enraged MPAA head Dan Glickman stops just short of announcing an immediate Hollywood-led nuclear strike against China. [THR]
· In happier MPAA news, pirate-hunter emeritus Jack Valenti is out of the hospital after a recent stroke, but could suffer a setback should he be updated on this troubling China/Spider-Man situation. [Variety]

· Realizing that he's only played a lawyer once (Fatal Attraction), Michael Douglas quickly signs on to fill the courtroom-drama-shaped hole in his career by starring in Tragic Indifference, based on a landmark case against Ford over its "indifference to flaws in its SUVs." Scene-chewing delivery of a stirring closing statement to follow. [Variety]
· Chinese Pirates 1, Sony 0: China's camcording brigade has already made pirated copies of Spider-Man 3 available on the streets of Beijing, nearly two weeks ahead of the movie's U.S. debut. Didn't that flashy Tokyo premiere teach the scofflaws anything about respecting copyrights? The MPAA's next step: dispatching piracy-hating stuntman Manny Perry to smash some black market DVD stalls with a Louisville slugger. [THR]
· The Coen Brothers will make the Fargoesque dark comedy A Serious Man for Working Title and Focus Features. Lantern-jawed muse George Clooney has yet to be attached. [Variety]
· Should ABC pick up the much-discussed Grey's Anatomy spin-off for the fall, creator Shonda Rhimes has selected Krista Vernoff to run the Grey's mothership and Marti Noxon for the satellite; Rhimes will oversee both, which will primarily involve ensuring that both shows' characters have properly overwrought speeches about their impossibly complicated love-lives to deliver and collecting enormous paychecks [THR]
· Lifetime proves its admirable commitment to keeping the female television drama stars of the 90's off the streets, signing up 90210's Jennie Garth and Party of Five's Lacey Chabert for made-for-TV movie gigs. [Variety]

· Warner Bros. is in talks with American Ferrara, Blake Lively, Amber Tamblyn and Alexis Bledel to reprise their roles in a much-clamored for sequel to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which will finally provide some answers to the many unanswered, peripatetic-jeans-related questions posed by the original. [Variety]
· But wait! Scandal! THR says that Ferrara, whose Ugly Betty stardom has made her outgrow her humble, traveling pants beginnings, is being forced back into the project by a sequel option. [THR]
· Warner Bros. buys the feature remake rights to the documentary Our Brand Is Crisis, about how James Carville's political consulting firm helped changed the course of the 2002 Bolivian presidential election, for George Clooney's Smoke House shingle to produce as one of the smallish directing and/or starring vehicles in which the actor likes to dabble between Ocean's 11 sequels. [Variety]
· ABC wins Sunday night despite Desperate Housewives hitting an all-time viewership low. Time to kill off Eva Longoria during sweeps? Probably couldn't hurt! [THR]
· Lindsay Lohan loses her job in the Dylan Thomas biopic The Best Time of Our Lives to Sienna Miller, whose inevitable tabloid misadventures will probably be somewhat less damaging to the production than Lohan's. [Variety]

· Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington considerately spares the TV Academy the trouble of ignoring him come Emmy nomination time by withdrawing his name from awards consideration. His time in gayhab obviously taught him an important lesson about transparent expressions of publicist-encouraged humility. [Variety]
· More Speed Racer casting news we can't really get excited about: Matthew Fox is close to signing on to join the project as nemesis Racer X. [THR ]
· The lineup for the Cannes Film Festival is jam-packed with U.S. movies both in competition (with entries by Tarantino, David Fincher, and the Coen Brothers) and on the premiere schedule (Ocean's 13), giving the French ample opportunity to alternately boo American cultural imperialism and offer standing ovations inspired by the sight of George Clooney in a tuxedo. [Variety]
· Hitch and I Now Pronounce You Fake Gay Husbands, Now Punch Out That Guy Before Someone Thinks You're Really A Homo star Kevin James embraces his typecasting as a lovable schlub, entering negotiations to play an "average guy" who inherits some land that turns out to be its own country in One Nation Under Bob. [THR]
· Rumors are circulating that NBC might not renew the original Law & Order unless creator Dick Wolf figures out a way to fire his entire cast and produce each episode on a budget of $100 or less. [Variety]

· ABC acquires the rights to a "special" described as a "real-life version of The Queen" drawn from "hundreds of hours of footage" of the monarch and royal family, or as such a project was once called, a "documentary." [Variety]
· King of Queens' Leah Remini will star in the "groundbreaking" web series In the Motherhood, the story of three mom girlfriends who struggle to find novel ways to incorporate the fine personal grooming and telecommunications products of joint sponsors Suave and Sprint into their hilarious adventures in advertainment. [THR]
· Var rounds up how the various networks reacted to yesterday's Virginia Tech massacre, including the fact that an unexpectedly sensitive Fox has yanked a new Bones episode that dealt with "human remains being uncovered on a college campus." [Variety]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Irene Cara Edition: MGM will sink $25 million into a remake of Fame, hoping that a generation being raised to believe that success is achieved through serial vagina-flashing and assiduous nightclub attendance can relate to an old-fashioned story about people trying to achieve recognition through actual talent and hard work. [THR]
· Dancing with the Stars: One-Legged Tango Edition and The Bachelor: Another Boring, Horny Guy Who's Never Going To Marry Any Of These Fame-Hungry Skanks lead ABC to a Monday night Nielsen win. [Variety]

· Reality TV juggernaut Endemol and video game monolith Electronic Arts are partnering up in cyberspace with the lofty interactive aim of allowing users to create lifelike avatars that can scream at virtual briefcases or endure prolonged confinement in Ikea-furnished online dwellings, bringing the magic of hits like Deal or No Deal and Big Brother to your computer screen. [Variety]
· For the first time in history, the words "bona fide boxoffice force" are used to describe Disturbia's Shia LeBeouf. [THR]
· Revolution's Joe Roth, now an independent producer, has 10 pics lined up, including a live-action Alice in Wonderland, a Meryl Streep 9/11 project called Ann's List, and two projects with Julia Roberts attached. [Variety]
· Ted Danson joins the cast of Mad Money, best known as the project that will make us forget about all the Tom Cruise weirdness and re-establish Katie Holmes as the leading star of her generation. [THR]
· If NBC picks up another season of low-rated critical darling Friday Night Lights, its producers promise to de-emphasize the football-related plotlines which may be scaring sportsphobic viewers away. [Variety]

In what is easily the most unexpected superhero casting news since it was announced in September that Robert Downey, Jr. would be donning Iron Man's exoskeleton, Variety reports that fellow card-carrying Serious Actor Edward Norton has signed on for an Incredible Hulk sequel planned for release next summer:

· Directors Bryan Singer and Gus Van Sant race to be first into production with their competing biopics about Harvey Milk (The Mayor of Castro Street and The Untitled Fuck Bryan Singer, I'm Doing This Anyway Project, respectively), the first openly gay elected official in America. [Variety]
· Appropriately cartoon-like actress Christina Ricci joins the cast of Warner Bros.' Speed
Racer adaptation, joining Susan Sarandon, John Goodman, and Emile "The Wachowskis Were Big Fans Of My Understated Work In 'The Girl Next Door'" Hirsch. [THR]
· A pick-up happy Showtime renews The Tudors and This American Life for second seasons, then greenlights a new Tracey Ullman series, State of the Union, in which the semichameleonic actress could disguise herself as "Arianna Huffington in her Los Angeles boudoir, David Beckham and wife Victoria with the L.A. Galaxy or Nancy Pelosi at her D.C. dermatologist" in any given episode. [Variety]
· NBC cleans house on its returning summer-schedule-filler competition shows, jettisoning the old faces of America's Got Talent, The Biggest Loser, and Last Comic Standing in favor of fresh hosting meat. [THR]
· Var philosopher-king Peter Bart asks deceptively "trivial" questions of Hollywood designed to melt the industry's collective, underutilized mind. [Variety]