TLC announced today that it will relaunch Jon & Kate Plus Eight in November without paunchy hostage Jon Gosselin. The newly rebranded Kate Plus Eight will focus on Kate's travails as a single mother, though Jon, who is attempting to stall the divorce, will still make occasional cameo appearances. TLC also announced that it will be developing another Kate Gosselin project for next year (she's got so much spare time!), though details on that one are scarce. Is it too much to hope for a Bachelorette hybrid with Kate surrounded by burly bodyguards pitching woo? [THR, PopEater]
Sad news for fans of puppy-looking dudes everywhere: American Idol's last winner Kris Allen, Randy Jackson's onetime cherished "tender dog," is having a rough go on iTunes this week with his new single "Live Like We're Dying." The rollicking, campfire-friendly, Gavin Degraw-conjuring song drops to #58 on the singles chart this week, ranking somewhere down there with that godforsaken "You're a Jerk" number and probably the 12-years-strong "My Heart Will Go On." Now, a stillborn Idol single wouldn't necessary be news unless there was also a strange Idol triumph to counteract it, right? Strap on your puffy album-cover dress-thing, because one Idol contestant may be pulling ahead far after the polls have closed.
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Showtime reached series high ratings on Sunday night with Dexter, opening its fourth season to the tune of 1.5 million viewers while Californication kicked off its third season with 821,000 viewers. Dexter was up 25% from its third season premiere and Californication gained 57% from its second season opener. No word on whether Californication's horrifying images of Kathleen Turner seducing Evan Handler should affect next week's ratings.
[Hollywood Reporter]
Head injuries are no laughing matter, even when the victim themselves joke about their own mishaps -- which was exactly the case with Natasha Richardson before she succumbed to the tragic, fatal fall she suffered on a Quebec ski hill earlier this year. So news that Conan O'Brien took a spill Friday during the taping of a Tonight Show segment that was serious enough to land him in Cedars-Sinai and bring production to a halt sent us into our weekends with a lingering unease. (And sure enough, Jay Leno voiced our darkest fears when he made an insensitive joke about the incident on his show last night, telling Kevin Eubanks how they very nearly earned their own timeslot back.)
Thankfully, the old Conan we know and love returned to his perch last night, perhaps a bit shaken and a shade more pallid than usual, if that's possible, as he described his scary experiences.
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After last weekend's successful $77,000, midnight-only bow, Paramount says it has received more than 200,000 "demands" to expand its microbudget experiment Paranormal Activity beyond audiences in the nation's biggest college towns. Thus this weekend's major-market expansion (which was planned all along, but whatever) to New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and 15 other cities. The screenings will remain midnight specials; venues are available at the film's Web site, as are tickets. [LAT]
For those of you who said you'd believe Mel Gibson's lead casting in The Beaver when you saw it, here you go: The man behind Mad Max, Lethal Weapon and Malibu's most dramatic DUI arrest is currently trotting around director Jodie Foster's set, somewhere in New York, with a beaver puppet on his hand. Click through for the full-size image.
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· Having settled into his freshly painted and fumigated production-company bungalow on the Fox lot, former News Corp. president Peter Chernin has gotten to the business of scavenging the grounds for stray projects. He appears to have found one in the mystery The Deep Blue Goodbye, an adaptation of the first novel featuring John D. MacDonald's famous beach-bum gumshoe "salvage consultant" Travis McGee. Leonardo DiCaprio has been attached to star and produce if/when the project ever found a studio champion; Chernin may or may not be it, but he needs something to do over there. [Variety]
After the jump: Olivia Wilde takes off for Days, the Terminator franchise gets ready for the auction block, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· It takes a lot to penetrate Hugh Jackman's Broadway Baby veneer when he's onstage, but a cell phone ring from the audience that keeps going and going...and going...would surely rattle anyone's adamantium-laced skeleton. Still, if you've got the balls to interrupt Wolverine's concentration with an ill-timed cell phone call, at least go all the way and cue up some Black Eyes Peas or Crazy Frog on the ringtone! The video after the jump:
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Ranking somewhere near the bottom of Roman Polanski's current troubles, you'll find his oft-vandalized, recently unlocked Wikipedia article. According to reports this morning, a torrent of revisionists, slanderers and other haters besieged the entry with less-than-official tweaks. Among the most recent found in a browse by Movieline: "First Paedo to be arrested after 30 years," "Polanski is a sicko," and "Roman Raymond Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is a Polish-French rapist currently under arrest in Switzerland." Tough crowd! Assuming Debra Winger's not busy after fest-jurying and petition-circulating in Zurich, maybe she can keep an eye on things at the site. [The Telegraph via Hollywood Elsewhere]
The internet! It's good for so many things: cute animal videos, quizzes about which Fringe character you might be, and, most of all, oversharing by famous film directors on Twitter! First, jean-shorted auteur Kevin Smith set the gold standard in July by posting a very, very NSFW Tweet about his wife's nether regions and their ability to uh, "pOwn" his own equipment. Never one to be outdone in the realm of shock value, Eli Roth took up Smith's unsettling torch this weekend and basically had sex with the internet for twenty-four hours. What went down?
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Mere days after John Travolta acknowledged his late son Jett's autism and the seizure disorder that led to his death last January, Scientology's critics are speculating that the Church's policies toward chronic illness -- policies that may have cost the 16-year-old his life, if he was denied treatment -- may have created an irreparable fissure between Travolta and his faith.
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· In the new issue of Vanity Fair, Penélope Cruz is asked whether she preferred kissing Scarlett Johansson or Charlize Theron. "No matter how I answer that I will be in trouble. Both were pretty beautiful partners."
· George Clooney's set to star in the new thriller The American from director Anton Corbijn (Control).
· Lorne Michaels is helpfully dishing to the Washington Post about Jenny Slate and her foul mouth: "It has to be an actor's worst nightmare. Your first time on Saturday Night Live and this happens. You could sense the mortification in the studio."
· Congratulations to Claire Danes and Hugh Dancy, who married this month in France.
· Did Matthew Weiner orchestrate last week's Mad Men foot mowing as some form of revenge? Let's wait and see who Sally Draper brutally murders in the season finale before we start drawing conclusions.
In a nation where violent torture can be depicted on primetime television and sexually explicit images are as close as a pop-up window, it's a little quaint that Jenny Slate's Saturday Night Live f-bomb has caused such a firestorm of media attention. Quainter still is the depressing realization that while Slate's curse word aired too late at night to cost NBC in fines, if it had appeared in a movie just a few times, it would have automatically merited the film an R rating. Isn't it time the MPAA's fear of this particular four-letter word was called out as the canard it is?
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Former NYT reviewer and current Turner Classic Movies host Elvis Mitchell is experiencing yet another of his notorious financial hiccups, with the IRS having slapped him with two tax liens last month totaling nearly $370,000. That's in addition to the $136,000 lien outstanding from 2007. Mitchell last experienced money troubles in 2008 when he attempted to bring $10,000 in undeclared cash and 15 Cuban cigars across the Canadian border. No one here is judging of course, but still: That's a hell of a tax bracket for a cable movie-show host and NPR personality. Are they hiring? [Detroit News via NYP]
We're about 48 hours removed from Roman Polanski's arrest in Switzerland -- a drop in the bucket of what could be a protracted international battle around the 76-year-old fugitive filmmaker's extradition to the United States, where he fled sentencing after a guilty plea in his notorious child-rape case 31 years ago. And while Polanski prepares his defense (he will contest the extradition), the film world is taking stock -- and taking sides.
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