Today's bombshell announcement about Sandra Bullock's secret adopted baby was an absolute master class in controlling the narrative, locking up a Hey, Look Over There! Award for her publicist at this year's Flackies. (What, you want to talk more about the unfathomable heartbreak of having your Oscar afterglow brutally extinguished by a loutish husband's extramarital appetite for garishly tattooed, Nazi-fetishizing McGees? Sure, we'll get to that in a second, but have you seen this super adorbs widdle baaaby?)
As no good idea can go unappropriated in Hollywood for more than 48 hours, we expect squadrons of PR storks to take to the skies dangling plump, precariously swaddled orphans from their beaks, ready to drop their crisis-deflecting bundles of joy into the laps of clients in desperate need of a feel-good story. Here are our suggestions about who might benefit from a surprise announcement about an unexpected expansion to their families.
Jennifer Lopez
There was a time -- not very long ago at all, really! -- when Lopez was considered a huge star. Just huge. She sang (sort of), danced, made J Lo-branded scents in her basement perfume lab, opened restaurants. That time, sadly, has passed, as her comeback from a four year cinematic hiatus in CBS Films' Made-For-TV-Movie-Plus release of The Back-Up Plan, a project shamefully displaying its diminished expectations in its title, thudded to a $12 million opening. Though Lopez has attempted the baby gambit before, even gamely producing twins two years ago, it's time to refresh her narrative with an adoption -- tending to biological offspring exhausted by the demands of private jet travel isn't going to distract anyone long enough to forget about her failed Plan.
Gerard Butler
Hollywood continues to strenuously insist that Butler, outgunned last summer by a pair of vibrating panties, is an A-list attraction. The public, however, has plugged its ears and hummed loud enough to avoid yet another pitch about how this time he's really going to come through. Wait until you see the chemistry between him and Jen Aniston! they crowed about The Bounty Hunter, but all moviegoers heard was the buzzing chorus of "Bad Romance" as they bought tickets to see Alice in Wonderland a second time. So what's a single, ostensibly-rakish-but-not-in-an-endearing-Clooney-way dude with a spotty box office track record to do? Bjorn a pudgy infant to his chest, stroll into CAA, and tell them he's serious about taking things up a notch.
Roman Polanksi
America's most beloved Oscar-winning fugitive has what those in the industry call a "slight image problem," with the three decades of hiding out in Europe and the statutory rape conviction and whatnot. Though Polanski just lost a tough round in his extradition fight and there's been overheated talk of wanting to see him dragged back to the United States "in shackles," perhaps Lady Justice would be moved by the sight of Polanski, having finally surrendered to his long-delayed punishment, stepping off a plane at LAX while holding aloft in his cuffed hands a chubby baby hastily rescued from a Swiss orphanage, an image soon splashed across the front pages of both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. ("D*ckhead Rapist Criminal Chickensh*t Tries To Buy Sympathy," says the simultaneous Deadline Hollywood headline.) With a lengthy prison stint staring him in the face should he be returned to the States, it's worth the adoptive Hail Mary.
Lost's Smoke Monster
He's a cold-blooded, shape-shifting, darkly motivated mass-murderer with image issues worse even than Polanski's, and possibly The Devil Himself trying to exploit a celestial loophole in a bid to enslave the world. But what if that massacre-happy, smoggy pillar of pure evil were gently changing the poopy diaper of a baby abandoned by a hippie coward fleeing the destruction of the Temple? Maybe then Sawyer, Jack and the gang would rethink what side to take in the upcoming, series-ending war, unable to resist the heart-meltingly delicate way Smokey extends a misty tendril to wipe away the drool on the cooing infant's chin.
Universal Pictures
Can a Hollywood studio actually adopt a baby? We'll leave that question to the lawyers. But after a run of disasters including Green Zone and The Wolfman, it might be time to explore the possibility of grabbing some positive headlines by revealing that Uni's recent failures occurred because the entire development, marketing and production staffs were too busy secretly changing diapers in the middle of the night to properly nurture a blockbuster. Even if the upcoming Robin Hood fizzles, all anyone will be able to talk about is what great, attentive parents the Universal crew seem to be, forgetting all about how they neglected to open movies with Matt Damon and Russell Crowe.