· This counts as breaking news, if you care at all about the British film industry: Someone we've never heard of takes over the UK Film Council's Premiere Fund, taking on the responsibility for investing—now wait for it—the equivalent of Tom Cruise's annual motorcycle-and-matching-leather-jacket budget in British films. [Variety]
· Lasse Hallstrom will direct Hoax, the story of the man who perpetrated a media um, hoax, by selling a fake Howard Hughes biography. Richard Gere is in talks to play the huckster. That thing about Hughes urinating into milk bottles, that's still true, right? Right? [Variety]
· Yesterday was FCC Supernanny Michael Powell's last, tearful day. We're sure he'll rebound, but in the meantime, he plans on wandering the streets of DC and fining tourists for naughty language, collecting a nickel per infraction in his swear jar. [THR]
· Sally Field, Heather Graham, Robert Patrick, and Colm Meaney all obtain acting work in shows that will make one episode, then be reviewed by television network executives who will decide based on that single episode if the production of additional episodes is warranted. [THR]
· Variety maintains its dominance in alliterative trade paper headlines, demoralizing the THR with this gem: "Disney Dissidents Dis Disney." Fuck, they're good. [Variety]

A reader risks grievous bodily harm by sharing her experiences behind the gray door of Club 33, Disneyland's shadowy inner sanctum, where the rich and powerful drink the blood of the gods and bring Beelzebub's infernal reign ever closer:

Disney.com's whistle-blowing Disney Insider throws back the curtain on the park's ultra-secret Club 33, a location so shrouded in mystery that the mere mention of the place by a non-member carries the harshest of Magic Kingdom reprisals, the public chewing off of the genitals by Pluto at a Character Brunch. But how does one gain entry to this inner sanctum, which, incidentally, is the only place in the park that serves booze?

· The feel-good Hollywood story of the year: top execs at MGM make out like bandits with multi-million dollar severance packages while their underlings brace for unemployment. [Variety]
· "Stevens brushed aside constitutional questions about whether the government has the right to regulate indecent speech on pay TV services." Rights? Constitution? Fuck that, there are naked titties and swear words on HBO that need them some good old-fashioned indecency finin'! [THR]
· The overall Oscar ratings were down, but at least Chris Rock delivered some extra eyeballs from the 18-34 demographic. Repeated Cuba Gooding references by Rock also increased viewership significantly in the coveted Gooding demo. [Variety]
· SAG CEO Bob Pisano to resign, AFTRA executive director Greg Hessinger will take his place. Ask your waiter to explain the implications. [Variety]
· Everybody works during pilot season: David Arquette, Marilu Henner, Kristen Johnson, and Laura San Giacomo cast in pilots, may reclaim valuable items from local pawn shops. [THR]
· Antione Fuqua, fresh of off not directing American Gangster, will direct the Messiah-ass-whupping-free Under and Alone, starring Mel Gibson. Gibson contract, however, contains a rider allowing him to act like he's God's gift to man. [Variety]

Here's the latest incremental report from the Disney/Miramax divorce talks, courtesy of the LAT: After weeks of Harvey and Bob Weinstein leaving scrawled, lovelorn notes underneath Disney CEO Michael Eisner's windshield wiper, pretending to have headaches and rolling over to go to sleep without any good-night nookie, and calling Eisner in the middle of the night and hanging up, the two sides have inched ever closer to finally splitting. The Weinsteins will reportedly get $100 million and will keep the Dimension Films banner, while Disney will retain Miramax, the studio famously named after the Weinsteins' parents. Some lament that the Weinsteins have to sacrifice their parents' namesake in the deal, but for a settlement that large, we imagine that the brothers would have presented their mother's severed head to Disney in a hatbox.

· The Disney CEO search is so secretive that the candidates might not even know they're being considered for the gig. Candidates will discover they're up for the top Mouse spot only after being struck on the head and regaining consciousness in a secret bunker underneath Space Mountain. And please, never speak of what Michael Eisner's going to do with that flashlight. [Variety]
· The new, talent-friendly, free-spending Paramount obtains the rights to the yet-to-be published novel Love Walked In for Sarah Jessica Parker. [THR]
· Jamie Foxx hasn't even given his obnoxious Oscar acceptance speech, and already studios are elbowing each other for the movie release spots for next year's awards. [Variety]
· Peter Fonda and Donal Logue will join Nicolas Cage in the cast of the Marvel comics movie adaptation of Ghost Rider. Someone obviously tricked Fonda into believing this is a sequel to Easy Rider. [THR]
· In the future, all television pilots will be produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. We suggest self-immolation before that day arrives. [Variety]

· Jennifer Lopez cancels her European tour, succumbing to the celebrity mystery plague that's also delayed the Michael Jackson trial and caused countless problems on the set of Lindsay Lohan's movie in New Orleans.
· For just under two, glorious, Disney-slamming minutes, Robin Williams revives his once-mighty powers of comic improvisation. Did he rediscover coke? [via BoingBoing]
· Don't be fooled by the rocks that they got...even if they finally make it to the altar, their marriages won't last a year.
· We really want to believe that Dave Chappelle blew his $50 million from Comedy Central on weed and nearly wets himself laughing every time an executive calls to ask how the writing is going.
· Not exactly breaking news: In Hollywood, the Rich Get Richer for Free

· Jon Stewart is hot, HOT I tells ya: While Jon Stewart is tied to his The Daily Show anchor chair through 2008, Comedy Central will finance the development of other projects through Stewart's Busboy Productions. [Variety]
· Meg Ryan's agents have a sense of humor, signing her on to star in the romantic comedy Role of a Lifetime, when everyone knows she cashed in her "role of a lifetime" by having that on-screen orgasm in a restaurant an eon ago. [THR]
· Freddie Prinze Jr. works! (At least for a little while.) ABC helps Prinze silence Sarah Michelle Gellar's whining about how he sits on the couch all day by greenlighting a pilot for him. [Variety]
· Showtime to adapt British comedy Manchild for American audiences. Guys, the Brits don't work here, stick with the gays. [THR]
· Knowing that "logistical difficulties" would make getting Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines into a Running Scared sequel impossible (at least without prohibitively expensive CGI), New Line merely recycles the title for Paul Walker. [Variety]

Variety reports that copies of DisneyWar, which was rushed to market three weeks ahead of schedule, are flying off the shelves of west side bookstores:

With the end of their movie partnership looming, Pixar head Steve Jobs isn't going to take any smack-talk by Disney CEO Michael Eisner like a bitch. Watch out, Big Mike, this CGI kitten's got claws:

· 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]

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":

· 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]

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]

· 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]

· Lion's Gate ponies up $4 million for the Sundance jailbait revenge drama Hard Candy. [Variety, THR]
· Miramax's 17 Oscar nominations and double Best Picture chances may be the Weinstein's final "fuck you" to Disney. Well, metaphorically at least. Harvey Weinstein will still probably make the occasional expletive-filled prank phonecall to a retired Michael Eisner. [Variety]
· Michael Mann reflects on how his movies (he produced The Aviator and directed Collateral) snagged 13 Oscar noms, but stops short of proclaiming himself the King of Hollywood. [THR]
· The Tonight Show's weepy Johnny Carson tribute special does predictably enormous ratings numbers. [THR]
· American Idol's huge Nielsens keep Fox from backsliding into WB/UPN territory. [THR]

Both Disney CEO Michael Eisner and former president/erstwhile "Most Powerful Man in Hollywood" Michael Ovitz hoped to come out of the Hollywood Trial of the Century with their reputations intact, if not restored. That didn't exactly work out now, did it? With the trial ending yesterday, we're left with images of their comically dysfunctional relationship, with Eisner undermining his "psychopath" "soulmate" Ovitz at every turn, and Ovitz whispering in his ear, willing to do anything to get back in his good graces. Denying he was jockeying for some image rehab, Ovitz desperately clings to the idea that "the facts" will set him free: