· Brendan Fraser is happy to cash a huge paycheck for yet another Mummy sequel, but heroine Rachel Weisz abandons the franchise, realizing that her Oscar affords her the chance to do some projects that don't involve her screaming at a tennis ball at the end of a stick representing the giant scarab that will be added months later by an effects house. [Variety]

· Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are in "final negotiations" to return for the Da Vinci Code prequel Angels and Demons, presumably for amounts of money so staggering you would instantly become incontinent upon seeing them discussed in print. [THR]

· Forest Whitaker and Denzel Washington will star in The Great Debaters (think Pride, but with debaters and two Oscar winners instead of swimmers and Terence Howard), which Washington will also direct. [Variety]

· 27.9 million viewers tune in for their last glimpse of Haley Scarnato's legs on Idol; Phil Stacey gets one more week to try and escape elimination by hiding his batlike ears and strangely shaped, clean-shaven cranium under a silly hat. [THR]

· Nielsen discovers a discovers a hidden community of Lost fans who screw up their weekly viewer-tabulation efforts by catching up with the show on the weekends via DVR. [Variety]

· MGM has teamed up with Salma Hayek for Ventanazul, a production label dedicated to Latin-themed and staffed productions. Hayek will be overseeing operations, with MGM COO Rick Sands explaining, "To the extent that it makes sense for her to act, she'll do that; to the extent that it makes sense for her to produce, she'll do that." He then added, "To the extent that it makes sense for her to do a round of P.R. in an extremely low-cut, tight-fitting top, she'll do that, too." [Variety]
· Next week is Mip TV Mart, which brings with it all the glamour you'd expect from an expo in Cannes peopled by international television sales guys. The question remains, however, of whether or not American shows will continue to net record-breaking license fees from a foreign market hungry for the next cheerleading global savior. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. has greenlit Super Max, in which the Green Arrow is thrown into jail and "stripped of his powers." Will he be able to conquer the bad guys without the use of his trusty boxing-glove arrow? We'll just have to wait and see. [Variety]
· More casting news from Lionsgate's The Christmas Cottage, by far Hollywood's most anticipated holiday-painting-inspired movie! Marcia Gay Harden has signed on to play Painter of Light™ Thomas Kinkade's mother. [THR]
· ABC and CBS tie for first place last night, with audiences tuning in for one of their last looks at nine-season under-the-radar staple King of Queens, and mostly uncomfortable improv comedy Thank God You're Here doing "all right" for a trailing NBC. [THR]

· Apparently, The Departed's Best Picture win triggered a clause in all participants' contracts mandating that all of their subsequent movie projects must involve at least two Departed alumni, as Leonardo DiCaprio and screenwriter William Monahan form yet another "reunion" for the adaptation of the novel Body of Lies for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Emboldened by the Easter holiday, Jesus finally serves a cold dish of revenge to Desperate Housewives for its second-season "slutty nun fight" episode, sending the series to its lowest ratings in its three-year history. [THR]
· Harrison Ford will sneak in a stint protecting America from illegal immigrants in the Weinstein Co.'s Crossing Over before reporting for duty this summer as cinema's most beloved, swashbuckling sexagenarian archaeologist. [Variety]
· Jared Padalecki will play the Painter of Light™ himself in Lionsgate's groundbreaking adaptation of Thomas Kinkade's blockbuster "Christmas Cottage" painting. [THR]
· 300 topples Mr. Bean at the foreign box office on its way to a $32 million weekend, boosting the tale of a crazed Persian emperor's ill-fated campaign to give every last soldier in Greece an erotic shoulder-massage to a $367 worldwide gross. [Variety]

· These people and movies will be in the mix at Cannes this year: Martin Scorsese, The Golden Compass, the Coen Brothers, U2. Get excited for all the fun stuff your boss is gonna get to do in France! [Variety]
· Judd Apatow is getting into the David Krumholtz business in a big way, signing up the actor to write and star in Attorneys at Raw and to co-star in Jake Kasdan's musical biopic spoof Walk Hard. [THR]
· This year's Tribeca Film Festival premiere of Spiderman 3 is shaping up to be even bigger n' crasser than last year's M:i:III Tom Cruise city-crossing, multivehicle stuntacular, with simultaneous screenings in all five boroughs and a marching band angering residents of Peter Parker's Queens neighborhood. [Variety]
· An average of 25 million viewers tune in to watch the the hot one with the legs and the bald one with the funny hats outlast the rocker chick whose name we can never remember on American Idol. (It should go without saying that Sanjaya was nowhere near elimination.) [THR]
· Dealing with Pirates 3's dad-snorting PR crisis will be among Buena Vista's Head Flack in Charge Dennis Rice's last acts at Disney, as he's been brainwashed and stolen away by Tom Cruise to trick the world into believing that United Artists is a real movie studio, and not just an elaborate front for producing training films for Celebrity Centre e-meter repairmen. [Variety]

In an interview with Blackfilm.com, Grindhouse actress Sydney Tamiia Poitier reveals how she was cleverly able to exploit Quentin Tarantino's well-documented foot fetish during her audition for the extremity-worshipping, motormouthed auteur:

· Former child actor Jodie Foster and current preteen It-Girl Abigail Breslin near deals to star in Nim's Island for Walden Media, where they will share touching moments on the set discussing the normal, healthy childhoods they could have had if they hadn't answered Hollywood's innocence-stealing siren call. [Variety]
· Feeling that online sweepstakes Gold Rush's trivia questions were too mentally taxing on contestants, AOL plans to just give away a million dollars to a lucky schmuck in its Million Dollar Bill program. [THR]
· Cavemen CastingWatch: Dash Mihok signs on to play the part of Geico-branded Neanderthal "Jamie"; that we couldn't pick him out of a lineup seems unimportant considering he'll be rendered unrecognizable by Cro Magnon prosthetics. [Variety]
· Susan Sarandon and John Goodman are in negotiations to play Emile Hirsch's parents in Speed Racer, the Wachowski Brothers adaptation of the classic anime series we're having a really hard time caring about. [THR]
· The LAT's parent Tribune company accepts a $8.2 billion bid by Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell, unless Imagine superproducer Brian Grazer suddenly emerges to somehow spoil the deal. [Variety]

· Hollywood SwankWatch: Freedom Writers and The Reaping actress Hilary Swank is developing (and likely producing and starring in—she really can do it all!) a remake of Patrick Leconte's Intimate Strangers for Paramount, about an actress whose career seems to have no discernible direction since winning two Oscars. [Variety]
· Spiderman 3 will debut in China a day before its North America premiere in hopes that some Chinese moviegoers will rush to theaters to see it rather than wait for the pirated, 25-cent copies that will be widely available just hours after the release. [THR]
· Keep your stunguns at the ready, put your forensic accountants on speed dial, and lock up your overlong directors cuts, because the Weinsteins are back, baby! [Variety]
· Paula Abdul signs with APA, who hope to "work with her on developing multigenerational, international lifestyle branding opportunities" and who will refuse to take her calls the second she's no longer hosting American Idol. [THR]
· In reflecting upon the ICM/Endeavor Richard Abate defection debacle, Var's Peter Bar proposes that agents hire their own agents to orchestrate their career moves. But what about agents for an agent's agent, and a team of agent-managers to steer the whole ship? Soon, getting anything done will require penetrating fifteen nested levels of rep-representation. Where does the madness end, Mr. Bart? [Variety]

· CAA takes the first steps in building ice-cold new client's Jim Carrey confidence back up, working to book him in the easy comedy gig Me Time, in which he'd play a put-upon, Mr. Mom-style househusband. [Variety]
· Newly minted Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson is in talks for her next acting gig, the ensemble Winged Creatures, which already has a cast including Forest Whitaker, Guy Pearce, Jackie Earle Haley, and Dakota Fanning, with whom Hudson is expected to have daily diva confrontations that even her Dreamgirls experience with Beyonce won't have prepared her for. [THR]
· Helen Mirren takes some time off from demanding, Oscar-worthy performances to go slumming in National Treasure: The Book of Secrets as the MILF who gave birth to Nicolas Cage. [Variety]
· The world needs more movies inspired by guys named Tebucky. [THR]
· Variety salutes Scary Hollywood Lawyers! All your favorites are here: Bert Fields! Marty Singer! That Skip Guy! [Variety]

· Forest Whitaker will put his Oscar-winning talents to the ultimate test by trying to match acting chops with Monosyllabic Method master Keanu Reeves in The Night Watchman. [Variety]
· Professional badass Ray Winstone reportedly signs up to play Harrison Ford's sidekick in the upcoming Indy 4. [THR]
· Paramount promotes Austin Powers second unit guy Marco Schnabel to full-fledged director on Mike Myers' new funny-talking-guru film, perhaps hoping that a trusted, familiar face will keep the actor from freaking out and abandoning the project after a week of shooting. [Variety]
· Jason Alexander takes a role in one of the roughly 6,000 comedy projects ABC has developed this pilot season. (It's about a wacky police station, if you must know.) [THR]
· Oprah anoints Amazing Race creators Bert Van Munster and Elise Doganieri as showrunners for her upcoming reality project, Oprah Winfrey's The Big Give, in which TV's infinitely generous demigod will hand do-gooders a pile of money and challenge them to use it in a way that properly reflects Her beneficence. [Variety]

· Paramount is in talks to let The Fountain's Darren Aronofsky loose on Matt Damon/Mark Wahlberg boxing drama The Fighter, a project with a conventional story that might be able to resist some of the director's more bizarre, artsy impulses. Still, Var cautions: "He isn't necessarily expected to take a traditional approach." [Variety]
· Balloons cascade from the ceiling of her ICM agent's office as Heather Locklear is cast in her 1,000th TV project, the ABC comedy pilot See Jayne Run. [THR]
· Punk'd: Plug Yank'd. Unless, you know, this is just another one of that Kutcher kid's incredibly clever practical jokes! [Variety]
· Dancing with the Stars cleans up against weak competition, pulling in an average of 21 million viewers. Also: We're starting to suspect that Heather Mills if faking the amputee thing. There's no way a prosthetic leg stays on when she does a flip like that. [THR]
· Casino Royale will soon break the still-young record for hi-def DVD sales, as viewers scramble to experience every chiseled contour of Daniel Craig's body in the stunning resolution that only the superior Blu-ray™ format can deliver. [Note: this item sponsored by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment] [Variety]

· Pretty boy shingle fight! Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way defeat Paramount and Brad Pitt's Plan B for the rights to adapt upcoming autobiography The Wolf of Wall Street. The resulting project will allow for the continued collaboration of muse DiCaprio and master Martin Scorsese (is this whole thing creepy yet? Sort of, right?) at an undisclosed future point in the director's busy schedule. [Variety]
· Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson are officially signed to do the last two movies in the franchise, allowing all pervs to feel closure about our their long-held feelings about how hot a (totally legal!) Hermione was going to be by the end of the saga. [THR]
· Short on original programming to celebrate with cheerful posters that might distract their
employees from the drudgery of their half-network existence, The CW has instead decided to commission some artwork to enliven their workplace. Pictured: an installation placed near the development department entitled, "We Will Splatter Your Fucking Brains On Your Cubicle Wall If You Don't Start Coming Up With Some Show Ideas, And Fast." [Variety]
· Bill Clinton admits that TV Land is the only thing that can dull the pain of loneliness while Hils is out on the campaign trail. [THR]
· The cash-strapped, East Coasted Daytime Emmy-givers of NATAS announce that winners will have to pay $350 each for their statuettes if there's more than one recipient in their category, while its West Coast counterpart promises to reimburse any Emmy victors from its jurisdiction unlucky enough to get stuck with a bill from their cheap peers. [Variety]

· After stumbling upon some screeners for its new season, Var's Peter Bart finally discovers The Entourage, which he believes pampers Hollywood's sexy underbelly but neglects the stepchildren. [Variety]
· Starz is suing Disney because it believes that offering its movies for download at places like iTunes and WalMart.com violates their distribution rights, an internet-related legal action that refreshingly does not involve YouTube. (We think?) [THR]
· In a development that all entertainment news outlets will be contractually obligated to refer to as a "Titanic Reunion," Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio will star in a Sam Mendes-directed DreamWorks adaptation of Revolutionary Road, the grandaddy of all suburban angst novels. [Variety]
· While pitching media buyers on his ongoing turnaround plan for his fourth-place network, NBC president Kevin Reilly expresses hope that beloved-but-low-rated series Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock will evolve into this generation's St. Elsewhere and Cheers. However, he had no historical comparison for breakout hit Deal or No Deal, as the brain-smoothing innovations of reality television had not yet arrived to make viewers stupid enough to watch people shouting at briefcases back in the 80s. [THR]
· Grey's Anatomy is still huge on Thursday nights, while Are You Dumber Than This 10-Year-Old We Plucked From A Special-Ed Class? seems to be sliding in popularity. [Variety]

· Famously temperamental thespian Russell Crowe will make his directorial debut on a feature adaptation of the documentary Bra Boys, about three brothers who started an underground surf movement in Sydney, during which the novice helmer will learn precisely how much damage a hurled megaphone can do to a mouthy PA's skull. Imagine's Brian Grazer to superproduce. [Ed.note—Since an update to this morning's Grazergate story is possible at some point today, we're forced to spare you the headshot at this time due to image bandwidth issues that could arise from its repeated posting.] [Variety]
· News Corp. and NBC Universal announce that they will partner with Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL to create a copyright-friendly online video distribution system that will crush the YouTubes. "A game changer!" cackles News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin while high-fiving colleague Jeff Zucker of NBCU, giddy over the untold millions of shareholder dollars they'll spend on an ultimately inferior product. [THR]
· Emboldened by the success of series like Heroes and Deal or No Deal, NBC president Kevin Reilly is confident he'll get more respect in today's meeting with media buyers than he did a year ago, when he was subjected to a humiliating round of wedgies, swirlies, and "Kick Me! My Networks Sux!" signs taped to his back by bullies whose money he was desperate to take. [Variety]
· Jet Li is in negotiations to play the bad guy in the China-set, totally unnecessary third The Mummy movie. [THR]
· The West Coast-based Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (the organization behind the Real Emmys) and East-Coasted National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences (who handle the Daytime, or Fake, Emmys) are at war! At issue: some profoundly boring shit involving who gets to give out broadband awards no one will care about for 10 years. [Variety]

· After careful deliberation, Tom Cruise decides to insert himself into the WWII-set thriller (from The Usual Suspects team of director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie) he acquired for shiny new toy United Artists last week, taking a role in the ensemble piece as a character who struggles to diffuse his blinding star power for the sake of his fellow castmates. [Variety]
· Blockbuster's CEO is stepping down by the end of the year over a dispute about his bonus. Scintillating! [THR]
· New Line wins the rights to make an inevitably terrible movie from the Xbox game Gears of War; CAA ran the auction, which seems to have been free of messengers wearing elaborate costumes, perhaps in hopes of not repeating the Halo debacle. [Variety]
· Today in bad ideas for potential hero franchises: Columbia options the rights to The Green Hornet in an attempt to prove that the kids will go wild for characters originally appearing in 1930s radio plays. [THR]
· Clear four or so hours (not including that all-important red carpet time) off your calendar on Sunday, February 24th of next year, as the Academy has chosen that now hallowed date for next year's 80th Anniversary Oscars telecast. [Variety]

· Angelina Jolie will star in Universal's action flick Wanted opposite Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy. Shooting is scheduled to start in May in Eastern Europe, allowing the child-hoarding actress to finally tap that region's relatively underexploited orphan supply. [Variety]
· Oh, how cute: Jolie's boyfriend also has some news of his own in the trades! [Variety]
· NUTS signs The Office's Jennifer Celotta to a two-year, seven-figure overall deal, which the writer candidly admits may help her avoid being hobbled by the bookie owed a massive gambling debt following a bad NCAA tourney pick. Here's hoping she gets out of that dilemma without lasting physical injury. [THR]
· 21.7 million viewers tune in to the fourth season of premiere of Dancing with the Stars, but are ultimately disappointed when no tango foxtrot-related mishap occurs involving Heather Mills' prosthetic leg. There's always next week, sickies. [THR]
· WGA President Patric Verrone taunts the studios by informing Guild members that there's no evidence their saber-rattling adversaries have been stockpiling scripts to prepare for a possible strike. [Variety]

· John Wells Productions will house the Writers Co-Op, an all-star collective of high-priced screenwriters (David Benioff, Rob Bass, Scott Frank, and a cast of teens) who are willing to sacrifice huge bags of upfront money in exchange for greater creative control over their work and better profit participation. As part of the Co-Op's deal with Warner Bros., these top scribes will receive first-dollar gross, get to be involved as producers on their films, and, should their scripts be put into production, each will be provided with a unicorn that poops out nuggets of 24-carat gold on which to ride during the shoot, majestic steeds that will remind everyone on set of the writer's crucial role in the moviemaking process. [Variety]
· The Gersh Agency makes a bold move into sports representation by opening a baseball division. But before you get too excited, realize that their initial client list includes David Dellucci, Luis Ayala, and Brett Tomko, none of whom will likely be taken in the early rounds of your fantasy draft. [THR]
· Leading fauxteur Michael Bay will explore the possibilities of blowing shit up...five years in the future! Who knows what unnecessary explosion technology will be available to us half a decade hence? [Variety]
· Little Children's Best Supporting Self-Emasculating Child Molester nominee Jackie Earle Haley rides his newfound Oscar heat to three new projects: the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro, the ensemble drama Winged Creatures, and indie drama Bolden!. [THR]
· Cool Hand Luke director Stuart Rosenberg to bet God that even He can't eat fifty hard-boiled eggs, finally settling a theological dilemma that's torn apart the Church for the last forty years. [Variety]

· A stunning reform movement sweeps the Academy of TV Arts & Sciences! Two new Emmy rules have been introduced: The "Lost" Rule, in which potential nominees must provide an up to 250 word essay describing what the hell their show is about to assist lazy Academy staffers in the nomination process, and The Ellen Burstyn Rule, requiring that actors must have appeared in at least 5 percent of a given program to be eligible for awards immortality. [Variety]
· Steven Spielberg is shacking up with Showtime, developing the comedy The United States of Tara, concerning the Weeds-style seriocomic adventures of a suburban housewife afflicted with multiple personality disorder. The leading role is described as "a potential tour de force" for the lucky actress ultimately selected for play the one-woman ensemble. [Variety]
· New Line announces it will remake Escape from New York with star Gerard Butler, an actor so red-hot off 300's huge opening weekend that he has now earned the chance to pick up Kurt Russell's sloppy seconds. [THR]
· Var's Peter Bart weighs in on the Great Critics Vs. Crap-Craving Moviegoers War of Early 2007, suggesting the reviewers are so weary after their losing battles with 300, Norbit, Wild Hogs, and Ghost Rider that they might need to take a vacation until September, when more artiscally minded product finally surfaces. [Variety]

We've been waiting for the perfect moment to share the above, stunning, reader-supplied fan art depicting the CAA Death Star turning its particle cannons on ICM's inferior new headquarters (please notice the wonderful grace notes of the tiny Kevin Huvane and Jeff Berg photos adorning their respective fortresses), and given this morning's various reports on the evil agenting monolith's latest strides toward Hollywood hegemony, we might as well put it up now.

FoxNews.com's Roger Friedman reports that one of the properties in Dick Wolf's primetime kingdom, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (is that the one with Lilith from Cheers? We lost track eight spinoffs ago.) will once again plunder the tabloids—this time, one of the greatest stories of all—for their latest foray into the world of lazily conceived gripping, ripped-from-the-headlines procedural drama:

· Naomi Watts will star in a film adaptation of the book Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the World's Premiere School for Exotic Animal Trainers, which is being developed as a romantic comedy that will inevitably feature much discussion about how men are about as trainable as the average red-assed baboon. [Variety]
· Katt "The Pimp Chronicles" Williams will write and star in and Eddie Murphy will produce and co-star in Marshals, a comedy about the first black marshals in the Old West, for DreamWorks. Both are expected to immediately get to work selecting which bits from Blazing Saddles they'll helpfully "reimagine" for current audiences. [THR]
· Feeling an acute lack of Jenna Elfman in its life since Dharma & Greg went off the air, ABC attempts to fill that empty place by trying to reach a deal for the pilot Literary Superstar, in which Elfman will play an adorably quirky book publicist. [Variety]
· In other ABC pilot casting news involving blonde TV actresses whose careers have cooled, Christina Applegate joins the cast of the comedy Sam I Am, centering on an amensiac's hilarious quest to rediscover her life, a project which we assume will be quickly retitled so as not to be confused with an exploitative sitcom version of Sean Penn's I Am Sam. [THR]
· VH1 Classic spins off some Journey and Whitesnake videos into Rock of Ages, an off-Broadway musical about "a Hollywood rock club circa 1986." [Variety]