Testifying today in the trial of two Bahamians accused in a $25 million extortion plot against his family, John Travolta for the first time acknowledged his late son Jett's autism. The actor further testified that the disease prompted seizures in the 16-year-old every five to 10 days, usually lasting 45 minutes each. Jett had suffered such a seizure on the morning of Jan. 2; his father unsuccessfully administered CPR before medics arrived. Matters got uglier from there, prosecutors say, when the ambulance drivers attempted to strike a deal to take Travolta and family to the airport instead of the hospital. Travolta will retake the stand Thursday; the trial is expected to last three weeks. [E!]
For anyone who spent the Saturday mornings of their youths camped out in front of their parents' 28-inch RCA television sets and daydreaming of battling the forces of evil from invading distant planets like Eternia and Anus Arus, this pressing update:
After a disastrous development run at Warners, where it fell under the stewardship of Joel Silver, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe has found new life, Variety reports, this time at Sony. The rights returned to Mattel, and so now it will be developed from the ground up for Columbia Pictures. By the power of Grayskull -- don't f**k it up.
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We're not even past the three day Dancing With the Stars season premiere extravaganza and one of the celebrities has already suffered an injury. After a particularly "cruel and sadistic" 30 second fox trot last night, straight-shooting actress Debi Mazar banged out a cryptic tweet: "after premiere.hospital." At some point during the dance, Access Hollywood reports that the actress tore a muscle in her neck. It is assumed that Mazar will not drop out of the reality show. [Access Hollywood]
Mackenzie Phillips, who just confessed on Oprah to having been raped by her father, Mamas and the Papas frontman John Phillips, will return to the show on Friday to discuss her family's past alongside sister Chynna Phillips. Valerie Bertinelli also spilled to Oprah how "guilty" she felt during Mackenzie's drug-addled heyday for "ignoring the needs of my sister." And just in time for the announcement of her own new book! Coming up: Mackenzie's actual sister Chynna discusses her own horrifying tryst with the floppy hat of Carnie Wilson.
There was a time in the 1990s when Joel Shumacher (The Lost Boys, Falling Down, Batman Forever) was one of the biggest directors around, but the times, they are a-changin'. In a reception quite unlike Schumacher's last small-scaled film, the 2000 Colin Farrell drama Tigerland, the director's new Lionsgate thriller Blood Creek was contractually dumped into a few theaters this past weekend with nary a whiff of press or promotion -- hell, there's not even a trailer.
Schumacher's moved on (he just wrapped the Chace Crawford vehicle Twelve) and Blood Creek's up-and-comers like Michael Fassbender and Henry Cavill will survive this indignity, but they're hardly the only ones to suffer this fate in 2009. Here's a healthy helping of big Hollywood stars who've seen their once-anticipated projects dumped into quiet release this year:
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Behold the poster for The Princess and the Frog, Disney's greatly hyped return to 2D animation. As you can see, it's a busy little thing, full of characters great and small, Mardi Gras decorations, spooky -- uh, we mean scary -- shadow puppets, retarded Cajuns, blackjack accoutrements and voodoo products ... basically everything you could hope for in an enduring family classic. As happens from time to time around Movieline HQ, however, things began to resemble other things. Debate ensued. Staffers were divided over whether the titular amphibian resembled Michigan J. Frog or the lesser-known, direct-to-video frog Jean-Bob from The Swan Princess. Jean-Bob won out. Eventually, we landed upon a consensus. The result is after the jump.
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· Virtual unknown Stephanie Szostak, who played the editor of French Runway in The Devil Wears Prada, has been cast as the female lead opposite Paul Rudd and Steve Carell in Jay Roach's Dinner for Schmucks. I sense Miranda Priestly's conniving hand in this!
· So you think you can Xerox: Simon Cowell has plans to create his own dance show.
· Dev Patel and Freida Pinto are bringing their Slum love out of the shadows, if their arm-in-arm fashion show appearance this week is any indication.
· Congratulations to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze Jr., who welcomed baby daughter Charlotte Grace into the world this weekend.
· Martin Short and Lily Tomlin are joining Damages next season. You've got some unlikely competition, Darrell Hammond.
Perhaps Bryan Singer got the message about his Battlestar Galactica remake, because THR reports that his next project will be Jack the Giant Killer, a fantasy adventure based on the classic fairy tale. Might Singer let his Valkyrie star Tom Cruise play the giant? Let's see who'd lord over who then, Katie Holmes. [THR]
Last night's CBS premiere block of NCIS and two new series NCIS: Los Angeles and The Good Wife racked up the night's highest ratings per timeslot, besting ABC's two-hour episode of Dancing With the Stars and NBC's two-hour edition of The Biggest Loser. The figures, as well as the scarily low-rated CW entry, after the jump.
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Before I begin this post, in which I attempt to cast Diablo Cody's Sweet Valley High, I have a confession to make: I, a man, maaaaay have read some of these books. Wait, I can explain! I have a twin sister, and she had all of them laying around when I was a kid. Also, I was a completely voracious reader back then, and I was like, "Hey, I'm a twin, and so are these characters! Perhaps I'll read one of these on a Sunday afternoon now that I've finished Dostoevsky." OK, also, I was gay. There's that.
Anyway, now that we've gotten that preface out of the way, let's own our quirks and attempt to cast this thing:
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Steven Spielberg is following up his Emmy-decorated United States of Tara with another Showtime scripted venture that will chronicle the development of an original Broadway musical. To see whether the Hollywood legend is recruiting Mickey Rooney, a rag tag group of underprivileged urban youths or musical vets to carry Spielberg's tuner from inception to an actual Broadway debut, join us after the jump!
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Fun Fact about network medical dramas: We apparently need more of them! Did you know? I didn't, but NBC had an inkling and will premiere its new nurse-focused hospital show Mercy tonight. A majority of critics have noted how Mercy pales in comparison to Showtime's compelling Nurse Jackie, but the only real problems with this watchable melodrama are its complacency with piling on cliches (prepare thy jazz-hands for... a defibrillator mishap!) and its shameless retooling of Grey's Anatomy characters as homogenized, dysfunctional romantics.
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Before this week, Twilight series author Stephenie Meyer had rejected numerous studio inquiries about her first "adult" novel The Host. Finally a trio of producers realized that Andrew Niccol happened to write and/or direct two of her favorite films -- Gattaca and The Truman Show. Thus an introduction was made and a deal struck: Niccol will adapt and likely direct Meyer's romance (seriously) about a race of alien parasites searching for the last surviving humans on Earth. Just your average parasite-meets-dying girl love story, in other words, with slightly more revealing interspecial one-night stands than those in Twilight. [Variety]
Last anyone heard about The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin's story of Facebook's founding and meteoric rise, David Fincher was looking likely as the project's director. Apparently that deal is done, however, and the filmmaker has moved on to the casting stage, recruiting Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield as the central trio of Facebook founders, movers and shakers. Network begins shooting next month, and we all know what that means: One of these young actors will be completely alienated by Fincher's brash, uncompromising style by November. But who will it be? Place your bets after the jump.
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· Diablo Cody has never made much of a secret about her affection for the Sweet Valley High series of books. And it's a good thing, because this totally would have blown her cover: The screenwriter is set up to adapt Francine Pascal's mega-popular young-adult series at Universal, which is presently negotiating for rights to the 150-book collection. That's right: 150 books, which amounts to no fewer than 16,230 new catchphrases that Cody is on the hook for by the time the franchise is through. Wish her luck! [THR]
Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson are The Other Guys' other guys, Kurtzman/Orci play with the undead, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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