The Dept. of Forgone Conclusions forwarded a memo this morning confirming that DreamWorks has settled with Universal as its new distribution partner for the next five years, officially ending months of speculation and finally slicing the last thread connecting the 'Works to its exes at Paramount. The partnership reinstates Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider's working relationship with their old friends at the studio, but far more more importantly, it sets up a potential blood feud with a nemesis no one dares face when push comes to shove.After all, it's hard enough facing a happy Brian Grazer, whose Imagine Entertainment is also headquartered on the Uni lot, where it cranks its own fistful of prestige titles every year. Imagine evil Grazer, suspiciously adapting a Jokeresque grin and pitting his own interns versus DreamWorks assistants in a climactic time-bomb face-off after Snider usurps yet another plum release date for Untitled Shia LaBeouf Sequel. It could happen, reports The New York Times:

Today in Foregone Conclusions: "Sources" are telling Sharon Waxman that DreamWorks has "all-but-officially closed" a distribution deal with Universal; an announcement could be forthcoming in days, along with the requisite TOLDJA! from Nikki Finke, and David Poland and Variety explaining how inaccurate and premature the reports actually are. [WaxWord]

♦ Sean Hannity has signed a new "multi-year" deal with Fox News. [THR]
♦ Cutbacks at the Wall Street Journal: Reporters will only get one laptop now, not two. [Gawker]
♦ Ratings for Meet the Press have dropped since Tim Russert's passing. [NYP]
♦ The New York Times is shutting down the website for the International Herald Tribune. [E&P]
♦ People is rushing to market a 96-page, soft-cover book commemorating Paul Newman. [Folio]
♦ Dan Rather is seeking to expand his suit against CBS. And he's "only" making $1.5 million a year at HDNet, in case you were wondering. [Bloomberg]
♦ Dreamworks is downsizing. [Nikki Finke]
♦ The Natalee Holloway made-for-TV movie is on the way. To Lifetime, naturally. [NYP]
♦ Ryan Seacrest's radio show is coming to New York. And some people wonder why radio is dying. [NYP]

Today in Deadpan Hyperbole: "Why Revolutionary Road is going to be a big, practically zeitgeist-defining, hit," wherein Glenn Kenny deduces that because Mad Men is a hit (though not quite), the show's viewers will race to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as an ad man and his wife splintering in early 1960s Connecticut. Titanic isn't mentioned. If he isn't serious, then it's the best poker face we've seen in a long, long time. [Some Came Running]

As connoisseurs of Hollywood and its related spiritual practices, we at Defamer would expect you to be familiar with the traditions of American Jewry, so here's a pop quiz: is Rosh Hashanah a multi-day event commemorating the start of the Jewish New Year, meant to celebrate the creation of the world? Or is it what this DreamWorks assistant thinks it is? Her leaked email (embarrassing goyem all over the industry), after the jump:

· DreamWorks has finally closed their financing deal with India-based Reliance. Meanwhile, in a surprise maneuver, Paramount waived all of their former executives' commitments to the studio. A sovereign DreamWorks is born. [Variety] · ABC bought Flash Forward, a pilot for a possible companion show to Lost about what happens after the entire world blacks out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds. Cue Tara Reid shouting, "I'd be perfect for that show!"-joke in 3...2...1... [THR] · Let's Play Name the Cherry-Picked Influences: Sci Fi Channel has picked up Warehouse 13, a dramedy about two bickering FBI agents with great chemistry who are relocated to a government warehouse that stores supernatural objects. Score 10 points if you said X-Files, 25 if you got Indiana Jones, and 100 if you also happened to mention Moonlighting. [THR] · Jude Law is in final negotiations to play Watson opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. [Variety] · Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman , and Who's Your Caddy? star Faizon Love will star in Couples Retreat, a comedy written by Favreau and to be directed by Ralphie Parker. [Variety]

♦ The Emmy Awards will take place on Sunday evening; AMC's Mad Men is the "overwhelming favorite" to win for best drama series. [Reuters]
♦ What's happening with the New York Sun, which said it will shut down on September 29th without additional funding? It's a "very fluid situation," according to Ira Stoll. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey's SNL imitation of Sarah Palin earned NBC its most-watched web clip in history. [THR]
♦ According to a new research study, Survivor is the most addictive show on TV. [NYP]
♦ MSNBC is expanding to India and Indonesia, among other places. [THR]
♦ The founders of Dreamworks have sealed their pact India's Reliance, a deal that will provide them with $1.2 billion to set up a new film company. [WSJ]

To Catch a Thief: When you're done parsing the genetic heritage of Dane Cook's slightly doppelgangy new film, we've got another, bigger provenance for you to deduce: Steven Spielberg is one of several defendants named in a new lawsuit accusing the creators of the 2006 hit Disturbia of stealing the idea from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. Of course, they pretty much did; the Shia LaBeouf voyeurism thriller tied up a two-quadrant crowd-pleaser with a black ribbon of 21st-century paranoia, all on the way to grossing nearly $80 million domestically. The estate of Window source author Cornell Woolrich finally Netflixed the film over the weekend, it appears, alleging both copyright infringement and breach of contract in a suit filed today in New York. "What the defendants have been unwilling to do openly, legitimately and legally, (they) have done surreptitiously, by their back-door use of the Rear Window story without paying compensation," the suit claims, also citing DreamWorks, Viacom and Universal among the offending parties. And here you thought Fox took its sweet time torching Warner Bros. over Watchmen. Expect a settlement by 2014, probably around the time that DreamWorks/Reliance deal closes. [Reuters]

From the Dept. of Mildly Pressing Questions Worth Asking on A Slow Wednesday Afternoon comes this new query: "Why Is This DreamWorks-Reliance Deal Taking So Long?" It features an accompanying clock and everything — 63 Days, 18 Hours, 34 Minutes and counting! — to emphasize the hold-up since Indian conglom Reliance Big Entertainment was reported to be within weeks of saving Steven Spielberg and co. from Paramount. Indeed, what is taking so long, and why do so many sources supposedly in the know keep jumping the gun?The timekeeper cites three news sources in as many weeks that have noted that the $500 million Reliance/DreamWorks deal is "a week" away from closing. The Wall Street Journal was a little more vague when breaking the story last June, reporting only that the parties were "close" to a deal. A fun theory floated at the time suggested outgoing 'Works partner David Geffen fed the story to the Journal to entice a bid from Rupert Murdoch himself, whose 20th Century Fox is on the short (if unlikely) list of potential DreamWorks distributors:

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your bulletproof one-stop resource for the weekend in new moviegoing. Or sort of bulletproof — Pineapple Express burned us last week with a late slowdown, but we're preparing to bet the farm on The Dark Knight's fall from box-office supremacy by Sunday night. But is what's replacing it even any good? Yes and no, but we'll get to that, as we will with this week's best release off the beaten path and a look-see at new DVD releases for the tired, cheap and/or agoraphobic among us. As always, our opinions are our own, but as long they're right, what's to argue? WHAT'S NEW: We're avowedly Team Tropic Thunder, a genuinely funny (if perhaps too-close-for-comfort) satire that nevertheless looks likelier and likelier to slide softly into history as DreamWorks' last noble misfire. We'll discuss that more below, but our skepticism doesn't mean it can't finish on top for one happy weekend — the question is, How happy? Opening opposite Star Wars: The Clone Wars and still facing a formidable money magnet in The Dark Knight, we could see Thunder surmounting the new Harry Knowles favorite with around $25 million. Clone Wars will finish close to $19 million, with TDK wielding enough juice to creep as far north as maybe even $18 million. Pineapple Express will holdover nicely around $13 million.Also opening: The disposable Kiefer Sutherland thriller Mirrors; the Luke Wilson disease-of-the-week dramedy Henry Poole is Here; the 3-D housefly-in-space adventure Fly Me to the Moon; the seedy, acclaimed LA saga Falling; the Argentinean hermaphrodite coming-of-age story XXY and finally! In the city limits! At the Nuart! Lionsgate's dump-and-run splatter flick The Midnight Meat Train. See it while you can. THE BIG LOSER: Can a film finish in first place at the box office but still be considered a disappointment at Defamer Attractions? Sure — especially Tropic Thunder. It's turned into a bit of a headache for DreamWorks, which has saturated the media to the point of overexposure — literally to a place where the casual viewer they so desperately need for a $90 million R-rated comedy (especially women) is dead to the stimulus. Some folks we've talked to are avoiding it on principle alone, arguing they've already seen the movie via its infamous redband trailer and on about 50 billboards flanking Santa Monica Blvd. Love it though we do, we can't really argue with them.

Attribute it to whatever phenomena you want — the potheads stayed away, the groupies weren't interested, RetardGate '08 — but Tropic Thunder opened softer than planned on Wednesday. Ben Stiller's Hollywood satire pulled in around $7.5 million, prompting observers to downgrade their weekend estimates that should nevertheless keep the film in first place above Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Dark Knight this weekend. The turnout looked that much worse when compared to that of Pineapple Express, which drew more than $12 million last Wednesday — the best midweek, R-rated comedy opening in ages.That didn't discourage the gang at DreamWorks, however, who argued that their $90 million raunchfest has what it takes to measure up eventually: "We will play to a little older audience than Pineapple Express, so we should do better on Saturday and get to about the same box office," a "source" told Nikki Finke, apparently overlooking the lack of a pot subplot or panty-soaking James Franco to buttress Thunder's run. We're a little more skeptical and think this calls for more desperate measures: If ever the 'Works needed to reinstate its gold mine at SImpleJackMovie.com, now is the hour.

After two consecutive close calls, The Dark Knight's stunning box-office reign faces
another formidable challenger this week with Tropic Thunder. Not that Ben Stiller's film is necessarily favored to knock the blockbuster off — at least not with its R-rating, its meta-Vietnam theme, and definitely not with Tropic Thunder RetardGate threatening to capsize the film on its maiden voyage.

Well, that was fast: Mere days after first drawing attention on a disability issues blog (and eventually going under magnifying glasses at the NY Times and here at Defamer HQ), DreamWorks's mock Web site for Simple Jack is gone. The site had been part of the studio's complex interweaving of Tropic Thunder tie-ins, with its "Once upon a time... there was a retard" tagline tipping the story of a disabled farmhand whom Ben Stiller's character portrays in pursuit of an Oscar. But activist Patricia Bauer's vigil continued, culminating late Monday with a handy restitution checklist for Stiller, DreamWorks and their distribution partners at Paramount:

While we refuse to believe Nielsen actually spent money to discover that R-ratings hinder comedies more than horror films, the results of its recent survey dovetail interestingly today with a companion piece about Tropic Thunder's potential for August domination. We've seen Tropic and can vouch for it living up to most of its hype, from Tom Cruise's sociopath studio boss to Robert Downey Jr.'s otherworldly, meta-Method blackface turn. But rating and timing are everything, as always, prompting The Hollywood Reporter to foretell a relatively floppy future:

Theories abound in the NY Times recently as to why Steven Spielberg had to go all the way to India for a new and improved DreamWorks deal: Wall Street is skittish! DVD revenue is slipping! Spielberg is overpriced! So on and so forth — all and none of which are true at the same time. What's buried waaay at the end of Brooks Barnes's users guide to Spielberg 2.0, however, is the key chapter explaining his quest for the one backer in the world who will just give him a half-billion dollars already and leave him alone:

On one hand, we're sort of ashamed to have doubled our knowledge of Chinese culture today with one glance at the Los Angeles Times. On the other, a spoonful of sugar — or, more specifically, of Kung Fu Panda — made the medicine go down that much easier as we learned the deep angst gripping China in the wake of the film's success. It's not frustrating enough, evidently, that DreamWorks usurped Chinese authority over everything from animation to the sacred panda itself; rather, the hero Po's abject laziness and mild prurience has an angry 1.2 billion souls searching as we speak:

For every blockbuster this summer with Paramount's name attached — from Iron Man to Indy 4 to Kung Fu Panda — there's been a looming crisis to greet it at the studio gate. The latest wake-up call comes from Deutsche Bank, from whom we're learning the 'Mount split recently after the the studio balked at the conditions of a $450 million financing deal. This follows word that unhappy Wall Streeters wanted free-spender Brad Grey's head and that DreamWorks' Indian-funded defection was imminent. Mix The Love Guru in just for fun, and it's enough to almost make you forget Paramount is supposedly on a roll.

· Disney may have another "bankable tyke-and-tween franchise" (why does that phrase sound vaguely offensive and child-pornish?) in Camp Rock, says Variety, with 8.9 million viewers tuning in to watch the Jonas Brothers sing their newest hit, "(Yuck!) There's A Mosquito in My S'mores." [Variety]
· DreamWorks bought a comedy pitch called Home Schooled, about a 30-year-old man who was home schooled and is now heading off to college. The clash of cultures is sure to yield hilarious results! [THR]
· Tom Hanks sides with AFTRA in the escalating SAG-AFTRA feud. [Variety]
· Plastic pony fetishist Sloane Crosley's book of short, personal essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, was purchased by HBO for development into a possible series. [Variety]
· Supernatural EP Eric Kripke has signed a two-year deal with Warner Bros.TV, which—get ready to be spooked out—secures his showrunner duties on the shows upcoming fourth season on The CW. [Variety]

Steven Spielberg and David Geffen are offering Indian conglomerate Reliance ADA a large stake in their production company Dreamworks in exchange for $600 million. What none of the press has mentioned? That Reliance was accused by Universal of selling pirated DVDs. Universal, though, is a rival of Dreamworks parent company Paramount, which in turn is a division of Viacom — who are busy suing Google for $1 billion in copyright infringement damages. Your move, MPAA. [Current] (Photo by AP/Kevork Djansezian)

Despite the defiant source who today told the LA Times the DreamWorks/Reliance deal could yet fall apart, we think we'll just go about retrofitting our office anyway in preparation for the worst. Like "custody battle" worst, as Claudia Eller mentions in parsing the 'Works divorce from Viacom/Paramount: Who gets Ben Stiller? Who gets Eddie Murphy? Who gets the retiring David Geffen's parking space and the office's unparalleled catalog of faxable lunch menus? And who gets the movies?