Last we checked, a rumor making the rounds insisted that Moneyball stalled because it didn't have Major League Baseball's stamp of approval. Today, meanwhile, Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal opened up a bit about the problems with the Steven Soderbergh/Brad Pitt film that infamously imploded last week just before shooting was to begin. In a separate report, the NY Times offers some of the perspective that we've heard at Movieline HQ as well. Like that whole Soderbergh-vs.-Pascal script issue? I don't doubt it, but I'm not getting the warmest, fuzziest feeling about the project from Major League Baseball, either.
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After setting the record straight to Vanity Fair about her Knocked Up experience -- pressed as she was under the cruel thumb of its Apatowian patriarchal hierarchy -- it's something of a relief to see Katherine Heigl using her newfound box office clout to forward empowering images of women in the roles she chooses. Take for example The Ugly Truth, a Columbia romantic comedy coming out later this month in which she proves a worthy foe to Spartan warrior Gerard Butler in a war of the sexes.
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The trailer for celebrated Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's tenth film, Ponyo (originally called Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea), has gone live on Disney's website, where the director's surreal, ecological artistry -- this time telling the damp tale of a young mermaid who longs to become a human girl -- is on lush display.
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Liza warned us. As the world still grieves openly for Michael Jackson, bizarre and unsettling details continue to bubble to the surface. This one, however, could prove to be the most crucial: AP reports that the surgical anesthetic Propofol was found at Jackson's leased Holmby Hills residence.
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· High Art and Laurel Canyon director Lisa Cholodenko is returning to the lesbian plot well, beginning production this week on The Kids Are All Right. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore star as longtime partners, each with kids by the same sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo); their lives are upended when the kids want to meet the father and he winds up involved with Moore's character. Could be a riot, right? Except Anne Thompson reports it's a drama with a sexy script, and now I'm just kind of baffled. Only about seven months to wait until it probably bows at Sundance, though; we'll report back then. [Variety]
The recycling of a sci-fi quasi-classic, a big studio three-way, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· Megan Fox stopped by The Early Show today, where she said this to Harry Smith, who had just seen Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: "I don't know how you saw it in IMAX without having a brain aneurysm or at least a migraine headache... I'm in the movie, and I read the script, and I watched the movie, and I still didn't know what was happening. So I think if you haven't read the script and you go and you see it and you understand it, I think you might be a genius. This is a movie for geniuses." If her career ends tomorrow, at least this foxy unicorn will never look back and regret having played by Hollywood's rules.
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Though Brüno won't hit theaters until July 11, the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy has already prompted extensive debate about whether it's well-intended satire or a joke that's poised to blow up in the face of the gay community. As polarizing as the movie has already turned out to be, Movieline has learned that the original cut of the film featured an ending that doubtlessly would have been even more controversial.
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Just when you thought the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had made enough seismic changes for June, Sid Ganis and Co. today welcomed 134 new members into the Oscar-voting fold. Among them, find a few clues revealing some new-generation upstarts the Academy might have in mind for its broad new Best Picture class. And, regrettably, not nearly enough women.
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George Clooney and Grant Heslov are loading up a moving van, headed one-way from Burbank to Culver City. Sony coaxed the producing/writing duo away from Warner Bros. (or Warners let them go, depending on who you listen to), announcing today a new two-year development deal for their Smokehouse Pictures shingle. A few projects fell out the back en route, but hopefully nothing the pair can't make up for with a shopping trip for their new place. Or maybe not: How hard is it to replace an Aaron Sorkin legal drama these days?
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· Looks like Mariah Carey has followed up her wispy Precious mustache with a full-on chin beard for her new video.
· Cloverfield director Matt Reeves has revealed that his Let the Right One In remake will be set in 80's Colorado and be retitled Let Me In.
· Tatum O'Neal has been cast as Dakota Fanning's mother in The Runaways. Perfect.
· Oh hey, those children Michael Jackson had with Debbie Rowe? TMZ claims that neither Jackson nor Rowe were the biological parents, creating a bit of legal drama (Can I use the word "foofaraw"? OK, I will: We have a foofaraw on our hands here, people).
· Also, Jackson's family is reportedly planning for a public viewing of his body at Neverland. I hope Joe Jackson can find some coffin sponsors!
You spend your entire life eschewing adult relationships for the comforts of chimpanzees, llamas, and aging Hollywood divas, and what happens? The monkeys and camelids go on Larry King to talk about what an amazing friend you were, but the divas diss you to high holy hell on your flight up to the Dance Floor in the Sky.
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We'll admit to having had a knee-jerk reaction to some of the early teaser footage released by Disney of their forthcoming and much-ballyhooed return to hand-drawn animation, The Princess and the Frog, which struck us as hopping a little too close to the outdated-caricature pond for our tastes.
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As the American Idol machinery flickers back to life, pulling its talent-search circus from town to town in a billion-dollar quest for the next global music phenomenon, its single most essential ingredient -- the catty and callous judge Simon Cowell -- has yet to renew his contract.
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· Fox took one look at the lagging grosses for The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, and then a look at the sizable budget for Tony Scott and Denzel Washington's next runaway-train project Unstoppable (also featuring breakout star Chris Pine). Then the studio laughed, urging the principals to come back when they meant business. Think of it like Moneyball redux, but with an even tougher studio sniffing at an much more marketable concept. Can we just end the recession, already? This is getting depressing. [THR]
Amy Adams goes to the fights, Dicks adds a pair, and much more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· In this deleted scene from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the inspiration for the original T-800 model Terminator lay in Chief Master Sergeant William Candy -- who looks a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger, but sounds a lot like Forrest Gump.
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