Baz Luhrmann takes a long time to make a movie. His Australia came out seven years after Moulin Rouge!, which came out five years after Romeo + Juliet. The gestation periods are so long that nothing is ever set in stone, in terms of his future projects, until cameras have started rolling. Which is why we chuckle a bit and scratch our heads when Nikki Finke says that the Aussie is definitely doing a Great Gatsby movie for his next endeavor. Nothing is ever definite with this man! Look at some other Luhrmann rumors that haven't—but may still!—come to fruition.

It took a rumored meeting of superstars like Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep to get us to care again about a potential actors strike, and a hasty bit of rumor-debunking this morning to dash all the intrigue. But after a retraction, a non-retraction, and a few sharp personal jabs between dueling industry journos Nikki Finke and Sharon Waxman, all we know is that this match in their ongoing feud deserves a bit of play-by-play.We amended yesterday's news of a top-secret actor's meeting to reflect Waxman's retraction, which occurred overnight after Nikki revealed how Waxman got punk'd. Except, Waxman noted this morning, she didn't retract the story; she was just correcting her errors and saved the piece to "draft." Right. Still, Waxman emphasizes, "the essence of the story is correct": A high-octane, strike-gauging meeting took place at SAG president Alan Rosenberg's request, though not at the time of federal mediation between SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which would a serious no-no. But what about Finke's allegations?

♦ Roger Ailes (left) has renewed his contract with News Corp., which will keep him by Rupert Murdoch's side for at least five more years (and keep him running the show at Fox News for at least one more presidential election). [NYT]
♦ New York has fired longtime restaurant critic Gael Greene. [Feedbag]
♦ The Runway battle continues: Lifetime has sued NBC over claims it is blocking the cable channel from airing future episodes of the reality TV show. [NYP]

Hollywood gossipmonger Nikke Finke hasn't wasted any time weighing in on Tina Brown's new Barry Diller-back website, The Daily Beast. Her one-sentence assessment? "It sucks." [Deadline Hollywood]

"Weinstein's rep says that once he's verified the authenticity of the Rudin e-mail, he will donate $1 million to the Robin Hood Foundation." [Post, Previously]

What was Harvey Weinstein thinking? The movie mogul is already being dissed by once-pliant reporters and magazines, and struggling to right his company and other investments. Now he's given more ammunition to the haters and socked his pocketbook, all in one fast miscalculation. The Weinstein Company chief reportedly told the Post's Page Six he doubted the authenticity of an email quoted by aggressive Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke, and offered $1 million for charity if Finke could produce the original. The email, from movie producer Scott Rudin, concerned a feud over the release date of Kate Winslet vehicle The Reader. Page Six called Finke tonight and guess what? She has the email, and has already posted it. UPDATE: Rudin told Page Six Finke is lying. UPDATE 2: Rudin admits he lied to Page Six! See below.

· Last night on The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson, John "Leatherheads" Krasinski broke out his heretofore unheralded ability to demonstrate his "Muppet arms." Which, naturally, reminded us of Eric Stoltz's legendary (at least to us) "Muppet walk" from Mr. Jealousy. Whose impression is better? We'll leave that for you to debate in the comments. [CBS, YouTube] · Don't hit the beach this weekend unless your will is up-to-date. Because, if you haven't already heard, sharks are developing legs. [BuzzFeed] · In order to help ensure the Academy Awards don't befall the same fate as the Emmys, burgeoning comedy writer Nikki Finke makes an uproarious recommendation for who should produce next year's Oscars: the Chinese government! With a few more zingers like that, she just might land herself an offer to join Bruce Vilanch's writing team. [DHD] · Aspiring reality show participants, pay heed: Slate has cobbled together nine ways in which you can ensure you're not the first contestant to get kicked off your show. [Slate] · Finally, we can think of no better way for you to end this evening than by spending the next 30 minutes watching Dave Eggers interview Chris Elliott. You are welcome. [Goldenfiddle]

While regular Nikki Finke readers know she don't do geek, you'd be forgiven for assuming from today's column that she occasionally dabbles in dweeb: Watch as she churns a Spidey Wiki's worth of Peter Parker biographical material cross-referenced with the latest villain indexes into the mother of all Spider-Man 4 exclusives, its vital insider information fed to her in the basement of a Century City parking structure by an anonymous figure known only as Deep Flack. The basics: · Spider-Man 4, based on a screenplay by Zodiac writer Jamie Vanderbilt, is a go, with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire on board. · Kirsten Dunst's character is in the script, but hasn't yet signed on. · The "black costume" won't return. · They may shoot 4 and 5 back-to-back. As for villains, well, we'll leave you now to Finke's capable deductive services:

While it's hardly a secret that embattled NBC chief Ben Silverman likes to party, never have his carousing ways received the sort of harsh buzz dealt out this weekend by Nikki Finke, who spent the better part of a blockbuster post detailing how Silverman's antics are about to cost him his job. No, seriously this time! According to a variety of anonymous NBC sources, Silverman is the network's very own Man Who Wasn't There, missing meetings on a regular basis and spending the entire, crucial month of August in Beijing while his colleagues expected him to decamp for a week at most (in all fairness, those Ryan Seacrest remotes weren't going to tape themselves!). However, it seems that the NBC chief's biggest problem is EVP Teri Weinberg, a Silverman protege whose romantic involvement with an NBC showrunner caused upward-failing NBC Universal head Jeff Zucker to step in and terminate that writer's deal:

Meow! Scratch! Or Something: Taking great care to namecheck Ron Grover and Nikki Finke, Sharon Waxman took MGM-sale rumormongerers to task on her blog late Monday, favoring the studio's official word that Goldman Sachs was just dropping by the office for a friendly "capitalization enhancement" lunch. Who to believe? No, really — with Waxman's industry/culture site The Wrap soon to encroach on Finke's daffy dominion, we need to know who to trust, and fast. May we propose a five-match Commissary Wrestling Tour of Hollywood? The series winner gets first right of refusal on MGM spin. David Poland officiates. Who's in? [Waxword]

Yesterday's hearty Defamer welcome of Patrick Goldstein to the blogosphere was one of many around the Web, with Nikki Finke's hat-tip today falling the most conspicuously between "housewarming present" and "gentle kick in the nuts." To wit: "I'm told that, despite heavy promotion by the paper and other media, Goldstein's blog on Monday only received 1,102 page views, placing #35 out of 50 blogs at the LA Times," Finke wrote. "But I'm rooting for you, Patrick, I really am." Awwww! And that headline, Nikki! "Goldstein On Finke; Finke On Goldstein"? Get a room, already. [DHD]

We're receiving our first signals this week that the Jon Favreau Power Index has irrevocably entered "player" levels of awareness. While the global $550 million take for Iron Man says pretty much all the industry needs to know about the viability of the franchise itself, director Favreau bristled recently (and publicly to fans on Iron Man's MySpace message board) at Marvel Studios' sequel announcement — especially that troublesome part about Iron Man 2's scheduled April 30, 2010, release date. Or, as Favreau might say it these days, "Nobody asked Jon Favreau!":

Our item yesterday about the rumored C-word contretemps between CAA agent Dan Aloni and Fox Atomic exec Debbie Liebling — which we heard led to a unilateral CAA ban from the Fox lot — drew quite a bit of interest from all involved. Make that "everyone but CAA," rather, which had Nikki Finke do its dirty work for them. Variety even accused us of "an exceptional Internet smear campaign" — before pulling its story down minutes later. But we'll get to that in a moment. First things first: After the jump, a studio "denial"!

[Photo Credit: X17]

The perenially ratings challenged yet highly adored Friday Night Lights has been on life support ever since the WGA Strike shut production down on the show's second season. First, Peacock Emperor Ben Silverman gave the show the Diss Of Death ("Unfortunately, no one watches it. That's the thing with shows. People have to watch them.") in an interview with Radar. Then, the good people over at Bestweekever.tv launched a spirited internet campaign in an attempt to save the show, only to be shut down days later by the shortsighted suits at Viacom. But just when it appeared that the guillotine was ready to fall, Nikki Finke is reporting that the show is set to be picked up for a third season, thanks to a unique partnership formed between NBC and DirectTV.

This is what happens when onetime mailroom trainees eff with The Oprah. Will they never learn? Nikki Finke is spreading the news about a hotshot CAA agent named Michael Camacho who thought he'd out-Oprah Ms. Winfrey by engineering the deal for OWN, her new TV network and then finagling a way to run it himself. Naturally, he is now in very very small pieces buried somewhere in Chicago with Oprah's other victims-erm, former business partners. [Deadline Hollywood]

The Voltaire of the WGA strike Nikki Finke is back on the frontlines after her mini-burnout. Turns out is an insulin-dependent diabetic which "which greatly complicates [her] health." You know who else had diabetes? Winny Mandela and Ernest Hemingway! Anyway, Finke is back now though she won't be fully up to steam until January 25th before which time the writers better not come to any sort of accord with anyone since Finke totally has dibs on the story. [DHD]

The Observer declared occasionally nutty but totally must-read WGA strike chronicler and studio nemesis Deadline Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke their "media mensch of the year." ALSO they found an ultra-rare kinda recent photo of her! Finke, who used to be the Observer's West Coast editor, is unapologetically on the side of the striking writers, though she has well-placed sources on both sides of the fight. Also this strike will never ever end, so we get to read a million passionate words from her about the bullshit-spewing hordes of soulless corporate ninnies at the AMPTP every day until the end of time, currently scheduled for January '09. [NYO]

New York Times media beat wunderkind Brian Stelter ever so gingerly puffs out 700 words today on how Nikki Finke owns the writers strike story and everyone knows it. Of course, when your subject's this good at tooting her own horn, you might start to wonder why you're bothering to toot it for her: "Since the strike began, Ms. Finke has published 142 posts about it. She said she had worked almost around the clock for three weeks, and had fallen asleep at the computer four times. She estimated she had received 2,000 e-mail messages a day." Quantity is the new quality!

The Hollywood Reporter has chosen former Variety editor-at-large Elizabeth Guider as its new editor. How does spitemeistress Nikki Finke rate the hire? "[A] joke... an unimpressive choice who sources tell me was passed over and demoted at Variety... [THR] was looking for a softball editor, someone who wouldn't ruffle advertisers' feathers." [DHD]