· Delays in a 24 feature script free up Kiefer Sutherland to do some non-terrorism-related work during his TV hiatus, allowing him to star in the supernatural thriller Mirrors from director Alexandre "The Hills Have Eyes" Aja. [Variety]
· OK, now we might have to start caring about Iron Man: Jeff Bridges is on board, joining Robert Downey Jr., et. al. in the cast. [THR]
· A "massive shakeup" at Discovery Networks sees the exit of a handful of top executives, but we find it impossible to care as long as the new regime promises not to fuck with Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl, the single greatest spectacle on basic cable. Whoever came up with the WaterBowlCam deserves his or her own channel to run. [Variety]
· CBS's Super Monday promotion successfully tricks viewers into thinking the Super Bowl is a two-night event, giving the network a Monday night win over strong Deal or No Deal and Heroes performances on NBC. In other ratings news, an estimated 7.2 million people watched Timothy Busfield chase around a coyote, snake, and ferret for an hour on Studio 60. [THR]
· South by Southwest reveals its film festival lineup, which will include Michael "Because I Said So" Lehmann's comedy Flakes and Judd Apatow's Knocked Up. [Variety]

It's been quite a while since we've had the occasion to lend our helpful suggestions to the casting professionals responsible for quickly filling out the talent roster for CBS's inevitable, ripped-from-the-absurdly-sensational-headlines movie of the week (quite frankly, the Law & Order crew lately has been kicking the network's ass on the exploitation front), but yesterday's arrest of Lisa Marie Nowak, the kidnappingest astronaut in NASA, begs for an immediate Sunday night telefilm treatment. (Working title: Breaking Orbit: The Lisa Marie Nowak Story.) We wholeheartedly agree with a reader's recommendation that an offer should immediately go out to Oscar nominee Toni Collette for the Novak role, who may be lured to the small screen by a gritty, yet somehow flamboyant, part requiring a crazy-love-fueled 900 mile drive to intercept a romantic rival while packing a Wile E. Coyote-quality arsenal of a wig, a trenchcoat, adult diapers, BB gun, a steel mallet, some rubber tubing, and garbage bags. As for the role of her spacefaring object of obsession, putting out a call for "a Tony Shaloub type, but cheaper" will probably do the trick for now, as securing Collette's services will probably eat up most of the casting budget.

· British exhibitors yank Night at the Museum from theaters to punish Fox for violating the sacred DVD release window, further threatening to have Ben Stiller drawn and quartered should he attempt to promote the DVD on British soil. [Variety]
· With no American Idol to contend with, ABC makes Thursday night its Nielsen bitch. [THR]
· Penelope Cruz will supplant Scarlett Johansson as Woody Allen's chesty object of age-inappropriate lust in his next film, which will shoot in Barcelona this summer. [Variety]
· After failing to agree to a "workable content-sharing agreement," Viacom demands that 100,000 clips featuring its content be immediately removed from the YouTubes, a move that could make embeddable video of The Hills tragically hard to come by. [THR · Producer Dino De Laurentiis threatens that if his Hannibal Rising prequel is a success, he can take the character even younger in future installments like Hannibal Lecter: Cannibal Baby. [Variety]

Defamer is committed to informing its readers of exciting opportunities to be humiliated by television networks desperately trying to fill out the non-American Idol portions of their primetime schedules with similarly intellectually challenging fare. And in the service of this noble mission, we direct you to Craigslist's virtual casting office, where the drive to recruit those soon to be flummoxed by an inability to retrieve facts once readily recoverable from their ten-year-old minds is in full swing:

· Jennifer Garner seeks to emasculate husband Ben Affleck by proving that at least one person in their household can carry a holiday-themed comedy, signing on to star in the remake of the 1945 movie Christmas in Connecticut for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Warner Bros. and Joel Silver, who have been developing a Wonder Woman movie to be written and directed by fanboy-sainted Buffy creator Joss Whedon, are "quietly" trying to buy another Wonder Woman script, possibly to cover their asses in the event its writers decide to sue because their "getting it on in the invisible jet" scene is too similar to the one in the eventual WB product. [THR]
· Unfaithful co-stars Richard Gere and Diane Lane reunite for the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Nights in Rodanthe for Warner Bros. [Ed.note—Is today Warner Bros. Day at the trades?], in which they hope to recapture the carnal chemistry they enjoyed in their previous collaboration. [Variety]
· American Idol continues to destroy everything in its path. Interestingly, its Nielsen halo effect is now even boosting its lead-ins, bringing Bones its highest ratings in a year. [THR]
· In speculating about how moving beloved, but ratings-challenged, Friday Night Lights to a better timeslot might improve the show's chances of survival, Var invokes the name of Freaks and Geeks, the standard by which all beloved-but-ratings-challenged-series- that-were-killed-off-too-quickly are judged. [Variety]

· Studios aren't as horny as usual to pimp their event movies during the Super Bowl, preferring to spend their ad dollars on hit primetime shows instead of the year's biggest advertising orgy. But for those who change their minds, there's plenty of available space towards the end of the broadcast, when drunken football fans are less likely to pay attention to commercials. [Variety]
· More on the announcement of Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun's BermanBraun, which will either produce multimedia content or high-end kitchen appliances: leaking news about their venture forced them to come clean about their plans a few weeks early. [THR]
· Kiss finds yet another thing upon which to slap its name, planning a Kiss 4k comic book in which the band transforms from aging, whiteface-loving entrepreneurs into "world-protecting warrior spirits." [Variety]
· For reasons we might never understand, Paul Rudd consents to co-star with Seann William Scott in a comedy for Universal. [THR]
· Var invites charges of institutional anti-Sorkinism by pointing out that Studio 60 "retained less than half of its demo lead-in" in last night's Nielsen race. [Variety]

· Sundance hands out its awards, with Padre Nuestro winning the dramatic competition's grand jury prize, the John Cusack-starring Grace is Gone winning the drama audience award, and Brazilian corruption film Manda Bala (Send a Bullet) taking the documentary jury prize. [Variety]
· Will Arnett joins Will Ferrell's ABA basketball comedy Semi-Pro as a "hard-drinking sports commentator," probably reducing the chances that audiences will get to see him in knee-high tube socks and nut-hugging shorts, but increasing the chances he will appear in a mustard-colored sportsjacket while openly swigging from a whiskey bottle at courtside. [THR]
· CBS is forced to cancel Armed and Famous after American Idol's Nielsen death ray disintegrates its audience, while ABC moves fledgling Knights of Prosperity out of Idol's competition-annihilating path. [Variety]
· Night at the Museum holds off Pursuit of Happyness to continue its five-week reign atop the international box office. [THR]
· Hoping to lock up the coveted Ron Silver endorsement, Rudolph Giuliani plans to visit L.A. to raise money for his exploratory committee for a 2008 presidential run. [Variety]

· Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni sign on for two more years of Law & Order: Sexy Victims Unit (that's what it's called, right? We get so confused.), getting pay raises that catapult them into the rarefied territory of Charlie Sheen-level remuneration. [Variety]
· Fox files a subpoena trying to uncover the identity of the scofflaw who posted entire episodes of The Simpsons and 24 on the YouTubes; if successful, parent company News Corp. will petition to have the pirate punished by being locked in a MySpace chat window with a known sexual predator to teach him (or her) a lesson about abusing the power of the internet. [THR]
· Eddie Murphy is in talks to star in the Paramount comedy NowhereLand, though it's unclear from the project's brief description where the star's contractually mandated opportunity to disappear into a latex fat suit will come. [Variety]
· The American Idol Nielsen h-bomb flattens competing network Nagasakis and incinerates the minds of 36.9 million helpless TV victims. [THR]
· Condo-hopping dealmakers compete to make thrilling Sundance acquisitions into the wee hours. [Variety]

Defamer is committed to making its readers aware of exciting opportunities to gain valuable exposure by working with Hollywood's most talented filmmakers on their highest-profile projects, and so we pass along this Craiglist ad trolling for fresh-faced talent for an upcoming gig:

We imagine that a recent Law & Order story-pitching session went something like this: gather around the conference room table, flip open a newspaper, point at the big picture of O.J. Simpson, grunt in satisfaction at a job well done, order in some lunch, then call it a day. A tipster passed along the casting notice generated by the above feat of creative exertion:

· Kicked in the ass by the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated, the MPAA is trying to "demystify" the movie ratings system, making ratings rules public on its web site and disclosing previously guarded information about the composition of its shadowy Classification & Rating Administration. Also: they'll introduce a new way to warn parents that certain R-rated movies contain too many pairs of exposed breasts to ever be viewed by impressionable children. [Variety]
· After wasting valuable pre-production time looking for a "Gwyneth Paltrow type" to play a supporting role in the upcoming Iron Man movie, Marvel Entertainment decides to throw enough money at the real deal to get Paltrow to consent to play a superhero's personal assistant. [THR]
· Embracing its corporate mandate to get cheaper in the first hour of primetime, NBC orders six episodes of celebrity improvisation series Thank God You're Here; to balance its responsible order, president Kevin Reilly plans to announce he's given an Aaron Sorkin-penned drama set behind the scenes at a celebrity-improv comedy show a four-season pick-up. [Variety]
· In further NBC pick-up news, the networks gives The Office, My Name Is Earl, and Law & Order: The Sex Victims One full-season orders for next year. [THR]
· Fox picks up 11 episodes of the reality show When Women Rule the World, in which 12 attractive women are given a society to run, and get to trade insufficiently productive man-slaves for supplies crucial to the expansion of their Amazonian utopia. Fox president Peter Liguori calls the series "an important opportunity to explore the societal implications of allowing a dozen hot, drunk chicks to order around a bunch of shirtless out-of-work actors." [Variety]

· Warner Bros. announces a deal with Fox-owned stations for a daily show based on website TMZ.com. Think an "edgier" Insider or E.T., but with regular segments devoted to video of Brandon "The Firecrotch Guy" Davis entering and exiting Hyde and an onscreen bug devoted to monitoring exactly how much gas is in Paris Hilton's car at any given moment. [Variety]
· Finally, the words we've been patiently awaiting while lamenting a singular talent being wasted on party-hosting and horse-auction gigs: "Tara Reid is attached to star in and executive produce the indie romantic comedy Honestly," the story of "a hard-boiled private eye who works as a temptress to test the fidelity of philandering husbands" (and then, of course, eventually falls for her mistress-diddling quarry) . Even more touching: It's being directed by her brother. [THR]
· The highest-rated Globes in three years earns NBC a Monday night ratings win, a victory that Donald Trump will soon attribute to his frequent appearance on camera due to his Apprentice-promoting placement at The Greatest Golden Globes Table in the World. [Variety]
· Netflix debuts its new online Watch Now video-on-demand program, which lets customers stream movies and TV shows over the internets free of charge. [THR]
· Now you can say it with authority: Germans think Ben Stiller is funnier than Hitler, as Night at the Museum holds off Third Reich yukfest My Fuhrer - The Absolutely Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler at the Teutonic box office. [Variety]

Once again proving there is virtually no ripped-from-the-headlines crime they're unwilling to exploit in the name of easily-syndicated primetime procedural drama, the gang over at Law & Order are already planning an episode based on the tragic murder of Adrienne Shelly, the actress who was killed in November by a construction worker who then tried to make the crime look like a suicide by hanging her. A reader sent in this casting notice for the role of "Julio Contreras":

· Want more Gail Berman stories? Of course you do. [Variety, THR]
· Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson politely responds to New Line co-chairman Bob Shaye's comments to Sci Fi Wire that Jackson (who is suing NL over LOTR money he says he says he's owed) will make The Hobbit or any other movie with his studio (and we paraphrase here) over Shaye's rotting, festering dead body. [Variety]
· Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton and Tilda Swinton are in negotiations to star in Charlie Kaufman's directing debut, Synecdoche, New York, a project whose script was memorably made sweet love to by the LAT back in September. [THR]
· Meryl Streep will star in the film adaptation of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia! [Variety]
· The FBI hosted a screenwriting workshop in Westwood to educate writers in the hopes that their counterterrorism efforts will be more accurately portrayed in future film and television productions. For example, scribes learned that Kiefer Sutherland's beheading of a suspect on 24 does not fall within the guidelines of the government's best vigilante justice practices. [THR]

· Gail BermanWatch:Var reads this morning's LAT story about Berman's imminent departure from Paramount and puts in some calls at the studio, getting a no comment and a promise that a statement about the situation is forthcoming. Meanwhile, the Reporter updates that "a source close to the executive" says Berman is negotiating a separation settlement. We're on pins and needles over here as we await the forwarding of a heartbreaking press release. [Variety, THR]
· Madonna's Maverick Films and HBO Films combine their resources to lock up the highly coveted, non-Johnny Knoxville part of the Jackass collective for the wacky firefighter comedy Hosed, in which we assume Steve-O and the gang do nothing but give each other firehose enemas and test the limits of their genitals' resistance to open flame. [THR]
· Paramount will sell its movies on iTunes. In a statement about their move to exploit the digital platform, studio boss Brad Grey made no comment on Gail Berman's reportedly imminent departure. [Variety]
· Fox House "easily trounced" (is there any other way?) L&O: Criminal Intent and the People's Choice Awards in the ratings last night, giving the network a nice win as it awaits next week's return of Nielsen juggernaut American Idol. [THR]

With Steven Spielberg pushing back his plans for Lincoln in order to get Indiana Jones 4 done before arthritis finally robs Harrison Ford of his whip-cracking abilities, Liam "Honest Abe" Neeson ceases his beard-fittings, freed up to take a job starring in Luc Besson's kidnapping drama Taken. [Variety]
Foreigners love Ben Stiller! Night at the Museum leads the international box office for a second straight weekend with $29.8 million. [THR]
Buoyed by a brief cameo appearance by a convincingly lifelike animatronic version of the show's superannuated namesake, the Ryan Seacrest-hosted Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve trounces Carson Daly, MTV, and Fox's ball-dropping offerings. [Variety]
Eight-year-old Bindi Irwin, precocious offspring of recently deceased Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin, will kick off her American TV career this week, appearing on The Ellen Degeneres Show and The Late Show, where she will grapple with a variety of tiny (but deadly) reptiles to promote her new show, Bindi, the Jungle Girl. [THR]
NBC Universal TV lures Without a Trace creator Hank Steinberg away from Warner Bros. TV with a "pricey" (read: "fuckload of money") overall deal. [THR]

Mexican director Juan Catlett is suing Mel Gibson, claiming that the director lifted scenes from Return to Aztlan, his own, earlier movie about the end of the Mayan empire, for Apocalypto, allegations obviously orchestrated by Gibson's Jewish tormentors to further impede his already dim Oscar hopes. [Variety]
Pilot pick-up mania! NBC greenlights three drama pilots: a dysfunctional cop show from Dennis Leary and pals, a spy dramedy from The O.C.'s Josh Schwartz, and a new, probably ill-advised stab at The Bionic Woman. [THR]
Dancing with the Stars runner-up Mario Lopez is already reaping the impressive career benefits of not winning the high-rated celebrity waltz-off, replacing the guy from Desperate Housewives for the coveted gig of hosting the Miss America pageant on Country Music Television. [Variety]
THR triumphantly declares 2006 the Year of the Comeback at the international theaters, erasing the bitter memories of 2005, the Year That Too Many Sunny Weekends In Germany Sent Hollywood Into An Overseas Box Office Freefall. [THR]
Adult Swim nerds rejoice: The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie is getting a March release date on 800
screens. [Variety]

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry will be the first to host the traveling "The CSI Experience" exhibit, an interactive experience in which children will learn about forensic science by imitating their favorite moments from the TV franchise, like passing a blacklight over a defiled corpse for evidence of sexual battery. [Variety]
ABC greenlights a pilot for a TV version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which will pick up six months after the events of the film and center on the show's married assassins settling in a new 'burb and backsliding into their bickering, fighting-or-fucking ways. No word on casting, but the network and studio hope to find two leads willing to become romantically involved during the pilot shoot and publicly break up their marriages right before the upfronts. [THR]
Cheeky Var topper Peter Bart encourages our hobbled Governator to liberate his previous Caleeforneeyah from the tyranny of American statehood. [Variety]
Time-stopping, "breakout" Heroes star Masi Oka is in talks to play a supporting role in the true-story inspired blackjack card-counting drama, 21. [THR]
CBS locks up Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! through 2012, confident that TV viewers will never tire of watching Alex Trebek chide contestants who make the unforgivable mistake of forgetting to phrase their answers in the form of a question, or of waiting for Vanna White to finally snap and take out everyone on the Wheel set in a hail of gunfire. [Variety]

Paramount/Dreamworks' "roadshow" opening of Dreamgirls was a big success, but will it translate to strong numbers as the film expands to 800 screens, when the studios will need to attract audiences outside of the Gays who jumped at the chance to pay $25 a ticket for a preview during the limited run? [Variety]
Who will star in CBS's untitled legal drama pilot as a quirky, sassy public defender who, despite her quirk and sass, has been hardened by her efforts to make it in a man's world? If you guessed the quirky-n-sassy-yet-hardened Janeane Garofalo, give yourself five dollars. [THR]
Awards Screeners Shocker! The DGA does-repeat, DOES! We know!—allow screeners to be sent out to its members! In a reversal of an apparently nonexistent ban on FYC DVDs, the Guild clarifies its policy on the matter (details too boring to repeat here), leading to much gnashing of teeth and tearing of hair from awards campaigners angry they weren't informed earlier. [Variety]
...And DreamWorks is the first studio to exploit the DGA's new/old policy on screeners for the purpose of pimping Dreamgirls' Bill Condon. See above re: teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing. [THR]
Either it's just a weird typo, or the Reporter was so taken aback that NCIS was the most watched show of the week in primetime that it took eleven question marks to express its disbelief. [THR]

· On the eve of Rocky Balboa's release, Sylvester Stallone once again tries to mine his fading movie star glory for promotional purposes, misting up over a 15-year-old picture of fans worshipping him at Cannes. [Variety]
ABC greenlights a pilot for the U.S. version of the British drama Footballer's Wives, Football Wives, which has been moved to the world of the NFL so that American men can be tricked into watching it at least once should it ever make the network schedule. [THR]
Jimmy Fallon is red-hot, at least for a single Var story: The actor will star with Sharon Stone in the indie drama Eliot Rockett, then will co-write and star in an untitled, top secret comedy for Universal. [Variety]
· NBC wins the Monday night ratings race behind Deal or No Deal and new game show Identity (think of it as "people shouting at other people"), which helped the network overcome a momentum-stopping Studio 60 repeat in the 10 p.m. timeslot. [THR]
Hollywood Out of Ideas, Basic Cable Edition: AMC will remake the 60s sci-fi series The Prisoner, a doubly unimaginative move when one considers Universal is already adapting the show into a feature. [Variety]