Even billionaire moguls like DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg are worried about a possible strike; if the Guilds walk out and Hollywood is crippled by a prolonged work stoppage, he might have to temporarily halt the expensive restoration of the damaged floors in his $28 million Deer Valley chalet, lest his "mad money" savings account come dangerously close to dipping below ten figures. [Reuters]
On a conference call about how much richer Shrek the Third is making him, DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg passes up a perfectly good opportunity to throw Paramount emperor Brad Grey under the bus: "'We feel they have done an outstanding job of marketing and distributing our products to date,' Katzenberg said. 'We continue to have very, very good relationships over there with all of the management from Brad on down.'" [Variety]
LATimes.com uses the occasion of former Warner Bros. head Terry Semel's recent ouster from Yahoo! to assemble a handy, clip-n-save-quality scorecard helping you stay current on how your favorite former studio bigwigs are keeping themselves busy. While the group's fortunes range from Peters' tragically undercelebrated enshrinement on the Walk of Fame to Katzenberg's ogre-enabled DreamWorks Animation moguldom, arguably none of them has enjoyed as fulfilling a second act as erstwhile Disney Grand Mouseketeer Michael Eisner, who is happily sharing his twin passions for low-rated basic cable talk shows and 70s-kitsch trading cards with his old friends.
When we first heard about Jerry Seinfeld's big Bee Movie publicity stunt at Cannes (bee costumes, wires over the beach, mobs of gasping spectators, etc etc), the whole affair seemed incredibly reckless: had a strong gust of wind or a Pixar saboteur interfered with the delicate proceedings, the world easily could have lost its finest, semi-retired observational humorist and Porsche collector. As it turns out, our fears were at least partially unnecessary, as THR notes that a far more expendable member of the Bee Movie team volunteered for zip-line-test-dummy duty to ensure the star's safety:
Perhaps depressed that his evil, publicity-boosting plan to cut Jerry Seinfeld's zip-line with a comically oversized pair of scissors and send the Bee Movie star hurtling into the sea was foiled by a last-second bout of conscience, DreamWorks Animation head cheerleader Jeffrey Katzenberg refrained from making any bold predictions about Shrek the Third's shot at topping Spider-Man 3's box office record this weekend:
As a follow-up to yesterday's story about how studios will spare no expense in creating Hollywood-quality promotional spectacles at Cannes, we present this photo of Bee Movie star Jerry Seinfeld, who gamely donned a bee costume, was affixed to a zip line, and then thrown off the roof of the eight-story Carlton Hotel, eventually alighting on a pier prominently displaying the movie's logo. While the stunt apparently was carried off without incident, there has to be a part of DreamWorks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg that secretly, selfishly hoped the cord would snap and send Seinfeld crashing into the sea (Just enough to make a little splash. Oh, come on, don't be like that! It's not like he was going to cut the rope himself. If it happened, it happened.), creating an even more intense buzz for their upcoming film.
At some point during American Idol's recent blockbuster-pimping Shrek-tacular, in which DreamWorks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and incomprehensibly accented sidekick Antonio Banderas consumed a puzzling amount of screen time in plugging their upcoming animated product, virtually every one of the show's millions of teenage fans probably found him or herself wondering, "Hey, who's this awkward little bald man trying to sell me on a movie I'm going to go see anyway?" Slate's Kim Masters claims to have solved the mystery: Katzenberg was supposed to drag Shrek star Justin Timberlake onto the show, but perhaps still feeling a little dirty from whoring himself out for a duet at the Grammys, the singer escaped the country, avoiding the promotional duty. All in all, we're pleased that's the way things turned out; had Timberlake shown, we might've been denied the wonderful moment (at about 43 seconds in the above clip) when Katzenberg—just moments after showing off his Oscar—somewhat bitterly remarks that the Idol hopefuls are achieving their dreams much faster than he did, stopping just short of adding, "But, you know, hard work and stuff like that takes a lot of time. You can't karaoke your way to running a studio. Just sayin'."
Just in case your assistant has forgotten to pencil it into your calendar, tonight is the $2,300 per person fundraiser/pre-coronation ceremony for Barack Obama that begins at the Beverly Hilton and ends at David Geffen's Malibu compound (the parade from the hotel to the beach, during which kingmaking DreamWorks billionaires Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Steven Spielberg will take turns carrying the senator on their shoulders, is expected to be spectacular), where Hollywood's hottest presidential hopeful will officially receive his much-anticipated reacharound from industry players who were able to scare up 20 well-monied Friends of Barry for the event. In an effort to keep out undesirables, only those who've ponied up their tribute will be allowed to join in the festivities. Reports the NY Times:
It's been a day full of big wins for the billionaires of DreamWorks SKG. Earlier, we pointed out that the California Coastal Commission granted David Geffen a much-needed ten-foot buffer between his Malibu Gay Mafia stronghold and the sun-worshipping Untouchables who dare to splay their unsightly forms upon his beloved, but distressingly public, stretch of Carbon Beach. Now word comes that bite-sized mogul and two-time intramural DreamWorks Animation wet t-shirt champion Jeffrey Katzenberg has tasted $2.17 million worth of bittersweet victory in a lawsuit against the rubber-pushing villains of Goodyear, whose faulty, leaking heating hoses did grievous damage to his Park City-adjacent vacation home:
It's a question threatening to tear Hollywood's most prominent, liberal-kingmaking billionaires apart at the gilded seams: Do they throw a fabulous fund-raiser aimed at continuing the spread Obamamania, the sensation sweeping the industry, or do they fall back into the calming, emasculating embrace of longtime Democratic stalwart Hillary Clinton, a tragically unsexy, but arguably safer, choice? The answer, of course, is, "Why can't we do both? We have so much fucking money that no one can tell us to make up our minds until we're good and ready," but Slate notes that a recent Robert Novak column seemed to imply that the officially unbetrothed Steven Spielberg's hosting of a Clinton event means that he's already decided to abandon DreamWorks partners David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg's desire to call forth from the heavens a deluge of showbiz cash that will carry their beloved Obama to an easy nomination:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in obsessively. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and impress everyone by breaking Fabio down to his fashion-nightmare fundamentals.
While presidential hopeful Barack Obama seems to have all but locked up the endorsement of DreamWorks' Hollywood kingmaking troika with the announcement of an upcoming fundraiser aimed at perpetuating the spread of Obamamania through the entertainment industry community, Hillary "The Experienced Alternative" Clinton is far from conceding the town to her adversary, setting up her own local opportunity to circle a luxury hotel ballroom, tossing show business blood money in a burlap sack as wealthy diners consume their dinner. Reports Var on the rapidly approaching orgies of political starfuckery:
When our network of nightvision-goggle-equipped multiplex spies last reported back to us about the moviegoing activities of two-time intramural DreamWorks wet t-shirt competition winner Jeffrey Katzenberg, the bite-sized, permanently V-neck-rocking mogul was helping Tom Cruise boost his opening weekend gross for M:i:III. Last night, one of our operatives spotted him forsaking his company's own, third-place product, Flushed Away, to take in a screening of the eventual box office champion. Our reporter's tale of conspicuous seat-saving, the audience's possibly self-conscious overreaction to Mel Gibson's image, and Katzenberg's obvious enjoyment of the movie's signature moment follows: [Warning: Mild spoiler included]
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are now posted several times a week—so start sending them in more often! Send yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and let everyone know about the time you saw Reese Witherspoon surreptitiously digging into a plate of Vive La French Toast at your neighborhood IHOP.
· Oh yeah, Nicole Kidman got engaged to that country music guy, but this one seems a little more hetero solid than the one Renee Zellweger married for ten minutes not too long ago.
· We didn't get around to getting our Trump fix last night, but apparently Jeffrey Katzenberg showed up to whore for Over the Hedge on The Apprentice, and in return for his cameo got a major reacharound from one of the contestants.
· Here's a list of male celebrities with varying degrees of facial hair growth (with facial hair commentary!) as compiled by USA Today. If you actually click on the link and view the list we will probably lose all respect for you.
· Anyone to whom the phrase "You're with me, leather" means anything in a non-BDSM context should immediately watch this video at Deadspin and be amazed and delighted.
Even with all the hand-wringing about M:i:III's disappointing $48 million opening, it's a little too high a box office total for us to track every person who turned out for it this weekend. Still, we feel compelled to pass along this reader report about a notable moviegoer paying his respects:
The faceless multimedia conglomerates behind your favorite movie factories are on edge about an SEC proposal that would require that they disclose the staggering amount of money that they pay out to to their stars and studio heads, as they prefer to keep shareholders blissfully ignorant of, say, how many millions Viacom will really hand over to Tom Cruise to save Paramount's summer with M:i:III. Variety details other reasons why the studios don't want their paychecks on the record:
Radar Online reports on unbearable tensions in the production of Shrek 3, where Cameron Diaz helpfully "suggested" casting songbird boyfriend (and aspiring horrible actor) Justin Timberlake in a major, tricky role. Timberlake promptly repaid his lady's kindness by "ruining the movie," leaving screwed DreamWorks Animation chief pompom tipJeffrey Katzenberg to muse about ways to rectify the situation and save his money-printing franchise:
With DreamWorks Animation stock price in the toilet, six shareholder lawsuits pending against the company, and an upcoming "informal inquiry" by the SEC, things have looked better for The House That Shrek Built. The NY Times reports on the plight facing bite-sized CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, whose relentless enthusiasm for his movies may have harmed his credibility with the money people:
