There's something surreal/delightful about a swishy dressmaking contest provoking such a momentous battle between a couple of bald, middle-aged, Jewish heterosexuals. Yes, Harvey Weinstein and NBC's Jeff Zucker are still squabbling about Project Runway, and, to the chagrin of the show's many devoted fans, seem no closer to kissing and making up. For those of us who haven't managed to quite grasp the intricacies of this particular catfight, today's Times breaks it down: Weinstein, whose company produces the series, tried to move it from NBC-owned Bravo to Lifetime, because he hates Bravo's president Lauren Zalaznick. But Zucker said, hold on, NBC has the right of first refusal to keep the show on one of its channels, and filed suit.

The Tribeca Film Institute hosted a benefit screening for the Quantum of Solace last night, which was followed by an afterparty at Tavern on the Green. Attendees included Daniel Craig, Becki Newton, Chris Diamantopoulos, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, Craig Hatkoff and Jane Rosenthal, Julia Stiles, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Jeffrey Wright, Debra Messing, Andre Balazs, Andrew Saffir and Daniel Benedict, Hoda Kotb, Jill Stuart, John Sykes, Judy McGrath, Howard Stringer, Rob Wiesenthal, Liya Kebede, Stewart Rahr, Molly Sims, and Serena Altschul. [PMc, Wireimage, GoaG]

The successful Cheech and Chong reunion tour has found precisely the messiah you'd expect to bring the pot-culture icons to the wider audience that slipped away from them almost 30 years ago: The Weinstein Company. Harvey and Bob today announced they are clearing space on their cluttered basement shelf for The Cheech and Chong Concert Movie, which the brothers acquired for worldwide theatrical, DVD and TV release in 2009. And the really funny thing? This may turn out to be their most profitable release of the year.And not just because TWC picked it up for roughly $500 and a tank of gas to San Diego, where the film will shoot next March. That won't hurt, but compared to the rest of the Weinstein slate — most notably the high-end gambles Inglourious Basterds [sic] and Nine— the The Cheech and Chong Concert Movie is the only place the Weinsteins make money these days: Cheaply acquired genre-cult junk. And we mean that as a good thing; the comedians' manager told Variety that the tour has "already grossed in eight figures, and a licensing deal has netted roughly $9 per concertgoer" — rock concert numbers, not 70-year-old burnout numbers. Roll that over to the DVD/cable/streaming markets where both the audience that pushed them to equally strong numbers in the '70s and '80s and their stoner kids are watching? Back up the Brinks truck! Who needs Fergie's labia, anyway?

After we covered the first promotional photo from Nine last week, this follow-up email from the Weinstein Company seemed simple enough: "Attached is a high res version of the shot you put up on the site Friday. Do you mind replacing it with this one?" Sure, we thought. After all, who wouldn't want a closer look at the film's eclectic cast, which includes Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Judi Dench, and Fergie's labia? Strangely, though, one of those performers appears to have gone missing thanks to an industrious Weinstein Co. photoshop. Check out the shocking evidence, after the jump!

• While you were merely voting and watching television or whatever, Kirsten Dunst was personally investigating the voting process, in North Dakota. She was asking America why it's terrible at voting, and hoping the answer has nothing to do with movies. [Daily Star]

♦ You weren't the only one who stayed up to watch election results. Brad Pitt and Oprah watched the festivities from Grant Park in Chicago. Harvey Weinstein had a party at Public House attended by James Franco, Josh Lucas and Jessica Alba. Robin Williams and Billy Crystal watched Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert live. And in LA, Courteney Cox and David Arquette hosted an Obama victory party attended by Jennifer Aniston, John Mayer and Sacha Baron Cohen, among others. [R&M, E!]
♦ Star is standing by its Jennifer Aniston pregnancy story. The mag claims she's undergoing fertility treatments so she can get pregnant by her 40th birthday in February. [Star]
♦ Are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes planning to have another baby? [OK!]

Two weeks ago the news surfaced that Viacom chief Sumner Redstone and his second wife, Paula Fortunato, were divorcing after five years of marriage. Much was made of Redstone and Fortunato's 39-year age gap and the couple's pre-nup, which will provide Fortunato with a $5 million fortuno for the five years she spent by the not-so-healthy billionaire's side. But she's hardly the only one who has been married to someone who could easily pass for her father or granddad. After the jump, a list of famous New York couples and their equally famous age gaps.

The Reader may still require a month's worth of round-the-clock editing under armed guard, but the Kate Winslet drama has at last yielded a trailer to remind us that there is an Oscar-hopeful under all those layers of Harvey Weinstein-Scott Rudin ego-crisis. And like last week's not-embarrassing Valkyrie teaser, the preview assures us that its prestige creds are in place, thus setting the table for the next phase of its awards campaign, "Getting Winslet to Say Anything Positive About It At All." Though the Rudin loyalist spends most of her time in a new interview with Vanity Fair promoting her and Leonardo DiCaprio's Revolutionary Road, there is the modest admission that "you bet your fucking ass" she wants an Oscar this year:

The only words you'll hear more than "It's your fault" today at Weinstein Company HQ: "It could have been worse," the unofficial new TWC battle cry after Zack and Miri Make a Porno opened over the weekend to a disappointing $10.7 million. Indeed, it probably will be worse — Universal and Lionsgate accused the Weinsteins of inflating their gross by as much as a million dollars, and just for fun, another potential lawsuit threatens the brothers' follow-up this week. So who is to blame, anyway, and what's next?As director Kevin Smith told the LA Times today, "If [Zack and Miri] dies at the box office, I don't think we'll see another porn-related comedy for a long time." We have a better idea: Make all the porn comedies you want, just don't release them on Halloween behind a campaign featuring sanitized TV spots and stick figures of Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. While the latter star still remains a relatively unknown box-office quanity, Rogen has done nothing but open one R-rated comedy after another since last year. Zack and Miri, not so much: It's Rogen's worst opening by far, collecting less than a third of Knocked Up's $30.7 million draw in May '07 and contorting his agent into insisting Rogen doesn't need fellow UTA-er Judd Apatow behind him — as with Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express — to deliver a hit. Smith, meanwhile, probably won't even beat his opening for Clerks 2, triggering critics to ask how much demand — if any — remains for his digressive brand of raunch. But don't take our word for it: He anticipated it himself, pushing the script for his terrorism drama Red State during the press rounds for Zack and Miri. The Weinsteins didn't want it then and definitely won't take it now; their parting ways with the filmmaker (for now) has less to do with taste than insolvency, particularly with the backlog of films piling up next to the mop in their utility closet. It was fun while it lasted. Except the Jersey Girl part, of course, but they're over it.

The early returns on Zack and Miri Make A Porno aren't what Harvey Weinstein was hoping for. After fighting over how explicit the film's promotional materials and title could be, the Seth Rogen-Elizabeth Banks romantic comedy didn't explode at the box office this weekend. The film netted an underwhelming projected $10.6 million even after a really slow Friday night opening. It looks like all the free publicity and feel-good endings in the world couldn't turn a frog into an Apatovian prince.Apatow's R-rated fare usually does a decent job crossing over to younger audiences, and Smith may have been hoping that pattern would continue with so many recognizable actors from Judd's films in Zack and Miri. Parents may have been especially wary of their teens seeing a film with 'Porno' in the title. Even the dour Changeling might have more legs than Zack and Miri, as Nikki Finke argues. In any case, the film's gross so far is more in line with Smith's past results than Apatow's: even Forgetting Sarah Marshall brought in $17.7 million on its opening weekend. Good word of mouth could help, but the film hasn't been a critical favorite so far either. Update: That early estimate may be a tad high. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Kevin Smith wants what Judd Apatow has. Using elements of the New Jersey director's brilliant comedies Clerks and Chasing Amy, Apatow built a foul-mouthed comedy empire where Smith's films always fell short of major box-office success. As the film opens this weekend, does Zack and Miri Make a Porno belong to Kevin Smith, or Judd Apatow?From the moment The Weinstein Company logo opens on Kevin Smith's latest, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, there's considerable question as to whose film this exactly is. Does the film belong to Smith's pantheon of grungy comedies, or Judd Apatow's free range of Seth Rogen-based stoner adventure stories? You can't really tell by the supporting cast. As with all of these recent comedies, the familiar milieu of Zack and Miri is more designed to make the audience say, "Look, there's the guy from The Office! Look, there's the chick from that porn you showed me!" than to revel in the performances themselves. This is also true of the industry that is satirized in Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

The Weinstein Co. has a few issues at the moment. Including—but not limited to!—the hasty departure of top executives; an ongoing struggle with Bravo over Project Runway, the company's strongest TV property; and a consistently weak outlook for Harvey Weinstein's myriad businesses. The one thing Weinstein's investors really have to look forward to is the possible success of the company's upcoming Kevin Smith/ Seth Rogen flick, Zack And Miri Make A Porno. But has the Weinstein Co. managed to screw up the film's prospects before it's even released? Last month the MPAA banned the movie's poster for being too raunchy. That was a huge red flag. The company responded by thumbing its nose with a cute little riff on the controversy, and continued on its merry way, marketing-wise. But ads for the film were still getting banned across the country. Now it seems to be sinking in that the very title of the movie could prevent it from being properly marketed and advertised, dooming it to box office failure:

The Weinsteins are continuing their world-record pace for industry alienation this week, now leveling a lawsuit against Bravo alleging the network deliberately sabotaged season five of Project Runway. It's roughly the 22nd chapter in this year's tortured history between the brothers and Bravo's parent company at NBC Universal since the pair attempted to sneak PR off to Lifetime (a judge issued an injunction against the move last month following Bravo's own suit), yet wielding all the climactic juice that last week's season finale seemed to lack. Which is exactly the problem, according to Harvey and Bob.Recalling our own concerns from earlier this summer, when it looked like Bravo had handed the hit show's marketing campaign to an intern and the night janitor, the Weinsteins filed papers last Friday saying the network went out of its way to torpedo the franchise rather than see it flourish elsewhere. We can vouch for that on one hand — this season's competitor crop was no doubt the messiest of hot tranny messes to befall the series — but Weinstein Co. lawyers plan to unpack the real faux pas in court:

♦ The battle over Project Runway rages on: Harvey Weinstein is now claiming that Bravo intentionally undermined the success of Season 5 by changing the show's airtime, running "mundane and unappealing" ads, and "revealing spoilers about future episodes." [THR]
♦ Barack Obama will appear on The Daily Show tomorrow night. [AP]
♦ The New York Times is not running out of money, say execs at the paper. [NYO]
♦ MSNBC moved into second place in the primetime cable news race, beating CNN for the month of October. [THR]

The neverending battle between Bravo and the Weinstein Company continues. We crowed about this particular bit a few months ago, and now Harvey Weinstein, whose company produces the series, is jumping on the bandwagon: didn't it seem like Bravo totally tried to sabotage the latest season of Project Runway? The claim is that, having sour grapes over Weinstein's decision to air the show on Lifetime for the sixth season, Bravo decided to bury the fifth season of the fashion design competition show with poor promotion. Weinstein has filed a counterclaim to Bravo's lawsuit to get the show off of Lifetime, stating that the network ran nothing but "mundane and unappealing" ads for the the season, and that they provided news outlets with little compelling information in the lead up to the premiere. All of which seems sort of true. Except, maybe it didn't matter anyway. The show had its highest ratings ever this season! The show averaged close to 4 million viewers per episode, which is a lot for a conspicuously gay fashion show on basic cable. We agree, Harve, that the promos were lacking, but so was the season. Maybe the Bravo marketing people just couldn't find a damn thing worth touting. There really weren't any interesting contestants, challenges, or designs. It was just a rehash muddle of seasons past. Or maybe they did consciously sabotage, but if so, it certainly didn't work. Given that the show actually did perform well, we (and NBC Universal, which own Bravo) just don't think that there's a case here. But if for some reason Weinstein does win his 'unspecified damages,' we think we should get a cut of it. Because we said this months ago! Months! Though, ruh roh, it looks like Harvey could really use the money. We'll just a take a small amount, we promise.

♦ Amy Poehler and husband Will Arnett became parents for the first time on Saturday when Amy gave birth to a son, Archie. [Us]
♦ Madonna is in "meltdown mode," and asked her assistant to gather all the items she received from Guy Ritchie so she can "bury them." Guy, meanwhile, has reportedly said the couple's marriage began to disintegrate when she started planning their sex life around her workout schedule. [MSNBC, Daily Mail]
♦ Jennifer Hudson is offering a $100,000 reward for the return of her nephew, who went missing on Friday when her mother and brother were fatally shot. [People, Access Hollywood]
♦ Lindsay Lohan doesn't want people thinking she's a lesbian just because she's dating a girl. [NYDN]

Harvey Weinstein today passed along the not-so-surprising word that four Weinstein Company films slated for release this fall — Crossing Over, Fanboys, Shanghai and Killshot — will in fact be pushed back to 2009. Harvey's Friday News-Dump Massacre came by way of a phone call to Patrick Goldstein, to whom the schmogul spilled the details with all the crystalline logic we've come to expect — none of which, of course, has anything to do with the fact that he's broke. Find Defamer's handy Weinstein Excuse-to-English Guide™ for your convenience after the jump.· Fanboys: Harvey says the movie has been moved to January "so we can do a major promotion with Comcast, who's arranging for a big advertising tie-in for us on the film." (TRANSLATION: "Bob's a little behind burning DVD's, so we're letting Comcast customers rip their own for a limited time only.") · Crossing Over: "We're moving it to January. The market is just too crowded. Every week there are five more movies coming out. It's too crazy. Spring is much better—there are a lot more wide-open dates. The most important thing is to do well by the movie. Having it out in January gives us the opportunity to play the film at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals, which will be a big help to the movie." (TRANSLATION: "We're gonna try a pay-per-view premiere for festival guests at the Park City Marriott. Fresh ideas, Patrick! Hello?") · Killshot: "Everyone has said that Mickey Rourke is amazing in The Wrestler and will be up for all sorts of awards, so we decided to move Killshot to a date a few weeks before the Oscars. That way we can capitalize on all the heat that's going to be around Mickey." (TRANSLATION: "Do you know anyone who might wanna buy a Mickey Rourke movie? Never been opened.") · Shanghai: "It just couldn't be ready in time. The movie wasn't finished shooting until August and the director, Mikael Hafstrom, doesn't even deliver his cut until early November. He doesn't want it out now and neither do we. He needs time to make it as great as possible." (TRANSLATION: "Holy fucking shit, this sucks.") Meanwhile, Goldstein also quotes an anonymous industry heckler who said, "Whenever I'm tempted to take a project to Harvey, I lie down and take a nap and hope that when I wake up, I'm sober again." It's probably safe at this point to cross that "Weinstein-resurgence" prediction off our list for the season.

Fashion Group International hosted its "Night of the Stars" gala at Cipriani Wall Street last night, where Kate Bosworth, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, Prince, Karl Lagerfeld, Ashley Olsen, Anna Wintour, Isaac Mizrahi, Donatella Versace, Allegra Versace, Georgina Chapman and Harvey Weinstein (left), Debra Messing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Francisco Costa, André Leon Talley, Stephanie Seymour, Stefano Tonchi, Blake Lively, Penn Badgley, Alexander Wang, Bobbi Brown, Lindsay Price, Tom Florio, Christopher Bailey, Behnaz Sarafpour, Zani Gugelmann, Chanel Iman, Cindi Leive, Julianna Margulies, Christian Louboutin, Peter Som, Philippe Starck, Nina Garcia, Roopal Patel, Glenda Bailey, Tim Gunn, Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan, Ruben Toledo and Isabel Toledo, Justine and Jeff Koons, Jonathan Newhouse, John Varvatos, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Patrick Demarchelier, Linda Fargo, Phillip Lim, Leigh Lezark and Max Minghella, Mary Alice Stephenson, and Mamie Gummer celebrated the industry. [InStyle, Wireimage, PMc]

When NBC Universal poached executive producers from TV fashion competition Project Runway in May, we wrote the move would "enable [NBC's] Bravo to create something very similar to Runway," which producer Harvey Weinstein was in the midst of moving to Lifetime. That seems to be precisely what has happened, per a Bravo casting call on Craigslist for "talented designers where the winner will win a large cash prize." The likes of Weinstein are none too happy that NBC is moving ahead with a copycat show while the Weinstein Company is enjoined by court order from doing anything with Runway. Poor Harvey is going to get clobbered! Says Page Six:

You know, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein may have his problems, involving Project Runway, a fashion line, a video distributor, an internet company, his wife's fashion company — they're endless, really. But the brash executive will be damned if he's going to feel ashamed to be losing four executives in the span of about six weeks. Because what that turnover really means is that he's an excellent people person! The departing staff, you see, started at entry level and were "groom[ed]" into "great executives," according to a statement sent to us by a PR firm representing the Weinstein Company. And what do great executives do? Get as far as possible from Harvey Weinstein, obviously. Click the icon to read the full statement.