Here's how you know that actor Stellan Skarsgard is European (besides, y'know, the name): instead of just reading the studio coverage of Dan Brown's novel Angels & Demons before accepting a role in the film it spawned, he actually read the book. The Dan Brown book. And he has a couple of words on the subject:
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· Comedy Central is developing a workplace comedy based on Jamie Foxx's radio show. It will be like Frasier, if Frasier had told Roz's daughter to catch chlamydia from a bicycle seat.
· Jay Leno will welcome Conan O'Brien as his final guest on The Tonight Show.
· Yes, it's true: Kristin Cavallari (who? Oh, Laguna Beach) is joining MTV's long-running, critically beloved sitcom The Hills. At least she's completely up front about the fact that she's willing to do whatever producers tell her. A threesome with Justin Bobby and Kelly Cutrone, you say? Well, change her bedsheets and call her Shirley -- she's game!
· Neil Patrick Harris has been tapped to host the Tonys.
· Survivor winner Richard Hatch has been released from prison after four years behind bars. Is it too late for a nude berth on Dancing with the Stars?
Screw Cannes: The most historic movie news of the week is unfolding here at home, where Abel Ferrara is reportedly planning to direct an adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde with Forest Whitaker and Curtis Jackson as the warring split personalities. I repeat: Abel Ferrara. Will direct 50 Cent. As Mr. Hyde. And of course it gets even more mindblowing than that.
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· Sony announced a net loss of 98.9 billion ($1.03 billion) yen versus a profit of 369.4 billion yen ($3.88 billion) last year, due mostly to losses in their electronics and games sectors. The movie division fell 16.4%. CEO of Sony Films Michael Lynton blames the internet: "I am a guy who hasn't seen any good come out of the internet. It seems to have done damage to every (part) of the entertainment business." The producers of Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus would beg to differ. [Variety, THR]
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· Fox has passed on the U.S. version of Absolutely Fabulous. Our morbid curiosity weeps!
· In more dream-dashing news, Nicole Kidman has exited the next Woody Allen film after scheduling conflicts arose with her role in the John Cameron Mitchell-helmed Rabbit Hole. The Allen film would have teamed her with Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto; guess she'll have to console herself with soda-kidnapping the mini Pinto.
· McG accepts full responsibility for Christian Bale's temper (if not for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle).
· Nip/Tuck will shoot its series finale this month, having exhausted every shocking sex act, facial deformity, and incestuous supervillain it could cram into seven seasons.
· Jon and Kate (plus 8) hate what the public eye is doing to their family...they said in an unnecessary interview with EW.
I think I can safely say that there are two things I never expected to see today:
1) A news story about Victoria Principal maybe, kinda, sorta trying to kill her housekeeper
and
2) The smooth, half-naked body of NBC head Ben Silverman
Luckily (?), we've got video of the latter.
Maybe it's a new annual tradition: Just before the anniversary of Frank Sinatra's death on May 14, 1998, the legend's family blasts the trades with news that Martin Scorsese will direct the troubled, long-gestating, untitled Sinatra biopic. Or maybe it's just coincidence that today -- right on cue a year after Tina Sinatra last blurted out the director's attachment -- the impossible Scorsese/Sinatra dream is back on the front page.
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Most comedians can handle a heckle or two, but there's something about the anonymous nature of online feedback that seems to drive Saturday Night Live alums to distraction. Casey Wilson is the latest SNLer to rebut her harshest critics (and tape it for our intended amusement), but there's something awfully familiar about this Funny or Die sketch:
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· Ausiello's got the new key art poster for the upcoming second season of True Blood. There are no silhouette-y shenanigans in this version, but if you look closely enough, you can see how excited HBO is to finally have a hit again.
· By the by, here's a whole mess of new photos from Inglourious Basterds. I am not embarrassed to say that a single screenshot of Daniel Brühl makes me forgive that Eli Roth poster.
· Shanna Moakler has resigned as the pageant director for Miss California, despite the fact that she just held a press conference about the pageant yesterday.
· Judge Paulina Porizkova has been fired by America's Next Top Model.
· The LAPD is excited to tell you that Lindsay Lohan has a very messy house. Looks like Ali's not getting her allowance this week!
We're thrilled to introduce you to a new member of the Movieline family: David Bourgeois has spent the last 24 hours with his knees hiked up to his forehead in Air France Rat classe, that he might bring you just a taste of the Cannes International Film Festival experience straight from the topless beaches and thumping discotheques of the French Riviera.
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"That's a pretty expensive joke!" writes a commenter at MTV Movies, which this week unleashed the trailer for a Z-grade monster flick known as Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus. The mini-sensation has grown formidably on the strength (or, rather, the weakness) of spellbindingly primitive CGI and a redoubtable power-tandem of Lorenzo Lamas and Deborah Gibson. And while there can be no doubt about the inspiration-by-the-ounce that went into the rendering of a great white gnawing on the Golden Gate Bridge, are we in the minority who will doubt it's anything but an MTV stunt? But for what?
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For those of you keeping the faint flame of hope alive, I've got bad news for you: McG and Michael Bay, those 'bot-fetishizing legends of contemporary film, will not square off in a naked, studio-lot battle for manhood supremacy. The Terminator director confirmed as much in a recent interview with E!, but offered a worthy token in consolation. It concerns another violent showdown -- this one actually in the film, and bearing some strong spoiler potential about Arnold Schwarzenegger's cameo. An explanation is after the jump.
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· Fox picked up two new pilots to series: Human Target, which stars Jackie Earle Haley and Chi McBride, is based on a DC comic about a man who assumes the identities of people targeted for assassination. The other is Sons of Tucson, a comedy with a very Arrested Development premise of three brothers who hire a hustler to play their dad while their real one serves out his sentence for a white-collar crime. Lie to Me, meanwhile has been given a full-season renewal, with The Shield creator/EP Shawn Ryan coming on board as that show's showrunner. (He's also running The Unit simultaneously.) [THR]
More Hollywood Ink after the jump.
Grayskull, the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie currently in development at Warners, is getting a script revision from a complete unknown: Evan Daugherty. How did he go from anonymity to fanboy Messiah (or possible pariah, if he screws up Orko's origin myth enough) in just one step? On the strength of an unproduced screenplay called Shrapnel that he entered into Script Pimp, a screenwriting contest we've never heard of.
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Factory Girl director George Hickenlooper is about to start shooting Casino Jack, a biopic about disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, starring Kevin Spacey in the title role and Hayden Christensen as his associate, Mike Scanlon. Deadline Hollywood already toldjus!™ that Hickenlooper and Spacey had visited Abramoff in prison to discuss the project. Since then, via Facebook, we're getting incremental updates on his progress. Let's relive them, with commentary:
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