So I've read The Hollywood Reporter's annual list of highest earning actresses and about some in the Top 10 all I can say is: ON WHAT PLANET? Here are my reasons:

1. Nicole Kidman, makes $16 mil-$17 mil. What she should be earning: -$1 mil. That's right, I'm saying that Nicole should be paying film companies to hire her, not the other way around. That's because she's poison at the box office, the female equivalent of Sean Penn. Women dislike her, men don't think she's sexy, and those Chanel ads induce nausea. My guess is Nicole's rate dates back to Sony Pictures overpaying her for that bomb Bewitched. Since then, she's been doing smaller films, but is signing for studio projects right now. Note to majors: save your $$$ and hire Reese or Angelina.

2. Reese Witherspoon, $15 mil. What she should be earning: $25 mil. Reese can do no wrong. Women love her, men love her, the camera loves her. And she's smart: when she was looking for a new agency, she lamented not owning her Legally Blonde character because it'll be Broadway bound. Which doesn't mean all her films are great, but she's always great in them. She opens a movie. 'Nuff said.

3. Renee Zellweger, $15 mil. What she should be earning: $5 mil. Renee doesn't open movies, unless the material is Bridget Jones-cloned. She's fine as the wife or girlfriend, but then her price needs to be cut by a third. Worse, audiences are getting sick of her changing hair color whenever she changes parts. That's a dye job, not an acting job. Sadly, she's lost her once winning girl-next-door quality; now she's trying to be a fashion diva. Ugh.

4. Drew Barrymore, $15 mil. What she should be asking: $3 mil. Drew has never been able to open a movie, and she never will. That doesn't mean she isn't sweet onscreen, but lately her roles have been too saccharine. If only she'd bring back that Poison Ivy edginess she once had. Women like her but they don't want to be her (or even briefly married to Tom Green), whereas men don't think she's hot anymore. Drew's price should go up when she grows up.

5. Cameron Diaz, $15 mil. What she should be asking: $7 mil. Put her in a bikini, and she's worth it. Put her in a chick flick (In Her Shoes, The Holiday), and she's not. Everyone finds her sexy, but women don't like her. (It's jealousy. And not just because of Justin.) Plus, she simply doesn't have much range as an actress from the neck up.

6. Halle Berry, $14 mil. What she should be asking: $5 mil. Once she lost her shot at launching a new franchise as 007's Jinx, she lost what should have been her biggest paydays. Alas, she's now the wrong side of 40, and Hollywood is cruel that way.

7. Charlize Theron, $10 mil. What she should be asking: $10 mil. A smart actress, surrounded by smart people, doing smart roles. Just don't fuck it up with too many vanity projects like North Country.

8. Angelina Jolie, $10 mil. What she should be asking: $25 mil. There's no one hotter and cooler right now than Angelina onscreen and off (just ask the stalkarazzi), but that could change if she starts auditioning for sainthood by making too many message movies. Let's hope she's too bad-ass for that.

9. Kirsten Dunst, $8 mil-$10 mil. What she should be asking: $1 mil. Eventually, the Spider-Man franchise will end. Marie Antoinette dying in theaters didn't help her price. She was an idiot not to star in Bring It On sequels for big bucks. She's not sexy enough and she won't age well with audiences. This is a career about to end.

10. Jennifer Aniston, $8 mil. What she should be asking: $1 mil. She's not a movie star. She's a TV star. Big difference. Most of all, she's not an interesting actress. She can't open a movie, and her choice of material is abysmal. Sure, The Break-Up did okay business, but that was because of Vince and in spite of her. Soon she'll be lucky to score the next Lifetime movie. 

Beyoncé, Kate Hudson, Hugh Grant -- all have left CAA within days. True, Jim Carrey recently moved from UTA to CAA, but so far his new agency not only can't keep his old projects from blowing up either, but he's still not cast in anything new. (Indeed, CAA went back to Fox to try to restart his Used Guys, just like UTA did, and the studio said no, just like it did to UTA. So much for the CAA mystique.) And don't forget that CAA recently was powerless to keep Microsoft's much-hyped Halo from being deep-sized by the studios. While this isn't yet a "CAA tripping up" trend, it's certainly an interesting development for an agency that hasn't shaken loose many clients in recent years. After all, CAA still poaches agents with tempting offers of 5-year, $5 mil contracts that aren't dependent on bringing over old clients or signing new ones. But let's face it, that kind of largesse can't go on ad infinitum, either. But I've said it before, and I'll say it again: in my opinion, CAA's philosophy of agenting runs contrary to the best interests of talent. After all, president Richard Lovett has always embraced two essential guiding principles: first, that the company is always more important than the clients; and, second, that it doesn't matter if the clients are working because it's better to have them than not have them. The result is that Lovett at times has tangled with his partners Bryan Lourd, Kevin Huvane and others who grew up inside Ovitz’s CAA thinking the agency should represent fewer clients and give them more personal attention, than try to sustain a volume business. But Lovett keeps winning every battle because his mantra is market share, market share, market share. As Lovett likes to argue, there won’t be a need for any other agency if CAA has everyone. Well, judging from recent days, not quite everyone. Stay tuned.

Among the incredible reactions to my latest  column, Screenwriters In The Shit, come these two astute comments:

"An interesting side note is how well some of the New York based scribblers are doing. Tony Gilroy, David Koepp, John Hamburg, Richard LaGravenese, the team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien, are all among the highest paid, constantly working writers. Don't know why it is, if somehow their lack of proximity makes them more desirable."

And this: "One thing that caught my eye: of your list of the top screenwriters not one was a woman. Not a single one. Which isn't you - it's just the facts. And I got to thinking - because the list is clearly correct (we all know the names). Not really sure (I think not) that a single one is a minority either, which falls into the same category."

Here's the lineup for the 2007 Sundance Film Festival (January 18-28). Brett Morgan's docu Chicago 10 will open the fest. A total 64 films have been selected to compete for the best new work categories. A total 122 feature films were selected, representing 25 countries with nearly 60 first- or second-time feature filmmakers. These were selected from 3,287 feature submissions, up from 2006. Said SDF director Geoffrey Gilmore: "This year’s American Competition reflects a newfound awareness and self-expression that results in an engagement by the work that is both political and personal, a collective voice fueled by a steadfast optimism and hope for the future."

My latest  column, Screenwriters In The Shit, examines today's desperate situation in Hollywood: while Akiva Goldsman fiddles, more accomplished movie scribes burn. It puts into context my exclusive last week about Goldsman ("Keevie" to his childhood pals) receiving a record $4 million for a Dan Brown book adaptation that'll be Sony/Imagine's sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Here's how it begins:

"Every year, one of the major Hollywood talent agencies conducts a running tally of all studio jobs snagged by screenwriters. In 2005, there were 10 percent fewer hires than the year before. So far for 2006, there are 15 percent fewer. That’s a big drop in two years. 'These jobs,' said the admittedly depressed literary agent, 'just disappeared.' A manager joins the pity party and describes a litany of givebacks by his scribbling clients: free treatments, free rewrites, free polishes and/or free script-doctoring — all done with the hollow hope that the studio will give schmucks with Underwoods a paying gig sooner rather than never. As for those sparse scribes offered real pay for projects, they’re buckling under studio demands by cutting their usual and customary by 30 percent. 'It’s the bewildering nature of the business right now that nobody has a quote. It’s a quote-free system,' an agent describes. In a word, it stinks out there for screenwriters, worse even than the fetid stench of the usual shit flung at them in previous years. These aren’t wannabes, either. These are some of the top names in the biz. 'I am fucking terrified,' a major scribe tells me about his year of not getting any work. 'I can’t believe my career is ending like this.' Laments a manager: 'I have a giant screenwriter who’s doing everything on spec. Everybody is doing this. They’ve got to get into this mindset.' This is the reality of the screenwriting trade right now, the antithesis of the ridiculously rosy picture that the Los Angeles Times paints week after week in its 'Scriptland' column... Continued

The findings of this report on casting aren't a surprise, but the fact that they justify legal action against the Hollywood caste system is. A new study by the UCLA School of Law and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center finds that Latino, black, Asian American and Native American actors have few acting opportunities available to them. But the study's law professor author challenges the legality of race-specific casting announcements and suggests that actors may have legal recourse in federal law that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Can you spell C-L-A-S-S  A-C-T-I-O-N  L-A-W-S-U-I-T? According to UCLA, the findings are based on a 2006 survey of casting announcements, aka

"breakdowns". The study found that 69%of the roles were reserved for white actors and another 8.5% were open to white actors as well as non-white actors. Actors of color were limited to between .5% and about 8% of the roles, depending on racial background. "Casting directors take into account race and sex in a way that would be blatantly illegal in any other industry,” Robinson said. "Many actors accept this as normal, but depending on the facts of the case, lawsuits can be filed.” He believes that, in many instances, taking race and sex into account for acting roles violates Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination. According to Robinson, many casting breakdowns currently restrict, without any strong narrative justification, the sex and race of the actors who may audition. Robinson believes casting is a form of free speech that may be protected under the Constitution's First Amendment, depending on the circumstances. This extends to race- or gender-based casting when these traits are integral to the storyline. But, Robinson said, there are many exceptions that permit the government to regulate certain speech in certain ways. "I argue that Title VII's regulation of casting announcements falls into an exception,” he said. He added that he did not believe that complying with Title VII would entail using quotas but rather the consideration of actors of color and women in many more roles.

Now the better news: Robinson recommended banning the use of race/sex classification in casting breakdowns except where the casting of an actor of a specific race or sex is truly integral to the narrative. This would require the entertainment industry to conduct an annual comprehensive review of the info obtained from requests to use race/sex in breakdowns. Robinson also recommended studying positive models the diverse casting practices like the film Sideways and ABC's Grey's Anatomy. Robinson's research is featured in the center's Latino Policy & Issues Brief. A longer article will publish in January in Berkeley's California Law Review. The entire brief can be found at here.

Here's what interests me -- well, more like confuses me -- about the Pam Anderson/Kid Rock Borat bust-up: This happened at Ron Meyer's home? Whaaaat? (By the way, Page Six says it took place at the Universal COO's house in Beverly Hills. Everyone else knows he lives in Malibu.) My question is this: Why in the world were those two losers included among the 20 VIPs on what's supposed to be a triple-A screening list? The explanation is rather ordinary: Anderson is a friend of a Meyer neighbor, who asked the studio mogul if Pam and Kid Rock could come over for the screening because new hubby hadn't seen new bride in Borat yet. The way Page Six made it sound, there was a screaming match in the middle of Meyer's screening room. Wrong. None of the guests knew anything happened -- just that the couple left before the movie ended.  

If at first the feds do not succeed, they try, and try, again. So word from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Los Angeles today is that a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against former SBC phone employee Joann Wiggan last Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving…. apparently it fell through the cracks with the holiday). Her arraignment may take place as soon as on Monday, Dec. 4. All three counts in the indictment carry a maximum possible penalty of five years in federal prison. This  is the same woman who went on trial for perjury in September, and a jury returned verdicts acquitting her of four of the five counts. The jury split 6-6 on the third count. At the time, the feds emphasized that the loss of this case had no bearing on the upcoming racketeering and wiretapping trial against celebrity P.I. thug Anthony Pellicano and others scheduled to begin August 22nd. Previous: Pellicano: Feds Lose Wiggan Perjury Case, Pellicano: Phone Employee's Perjury Trial  

007 so far is doing Da Vinci Code-like biz in all 50 countries where it's opened No. 1 (except the U.S. where it opened No. 2). There were 18 new international debuts for Casino Royale (in Paris theater, at left) this week - all #1, including France, Germany, Spain and Scandinavia. So far, that's an overseas total of $66.2 mil from this weekend's haul -- the 6th biggest international weekend of 2006. Last week, the spy pic was #1 in all 27 countries where it opened, earning $42.2 mil from the UK, Russia, India and small territories in the Mideast and Asia. (Last week, it scored the #9 all-time UK opening, and the biggest Bond opening ever in the UK by 46%.) Right before the debut weekend, Sony Pictures was lowering expectations for Casino Royale in the U.S. and counting more on foreign sales. The studio was right: the pic now looks like the biggest Bond ever worldwide, moving up from $82.8 mil last weekend to easily passing $224.5 mil this weekend (including the $128.2 mil foreign and $94.2 mil U.S. cume) with many major foreign territories still to go, including Japan, Korea, Italy and Australia. Box office gurus say Daniel Craig will easily blow past the biggest grosser in the Pierce Brosnan series, 2002's Die Another Day, and its $432 mil global take. Estimate is for Casino Royale to make as much as $575 mil globally. 007 is still #1 its second week out in at least 40 of the 50 territories where it's in play. The $40.4 mil it generated from new openings beat the combined openings of Die Another Day in the same territories ($28 mil) by 44%. It held in the UK with $16.6 mil, just -24% off its launch the week before. Most of the new openings were the biggest for Bond ever. Germany opened to $12 mil, France $8.4 mil, Spain $4 mil, Switzerland $3 mil, Denmark $2.5 mil, Sweden $2.1 mil, Holland $1.8 mil, Austria $1.6 mil, Norway $1.5 mil, Belgium $1.5 mil.  All-time opening rankings include Switzerland #3, Denmark #7, Norway and Finland #8, Sweden #10, Holland #12, Belgium #14. But Happy Feet is about to make major inroads. I hear that in Singapore, where Warner's pengiun pic opened this weekend, holdover Bond moved down to #2. The spy vs spy news coming out of Britain and Russia and dominating global headlines will help Casino Royale's foreign biz. For the latest b.o. news, see my 'Happy Feet' No. 1, 'Casino Royale' No. 2; It's 'Deja Vu' (#3)

SUNDAY AM: Happy T-Bird weekend, and get out of the way for the mall stampede as shoppers try to score one of the hottest toys this holiday season: Happy Feet's Baby Mumbles, on sale for $29.99, which tap dances to any type of music playing. Ah, the commercialism of Xmas! A big moviegoing weekend it has been -- with the top 3 films estimated to do $160 million from Friday through Sunday, and $220 mil from Wednesday through Sunday. (But that's still -5% from last year because of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.) Welcome to déjà vu at the box office. On Thanksgiving Day, Bond traded places with the birds to become America's #1 movie after the penguins triumphed on the T-Bird weekend opener. It was a replay of last weekend on Friday, however: Happy Feet waddling past Casino Royale to be the No. 1 movie thanks to huge kiddie matinees. (That is, if you can even hear the movie above the din of all that whining, "I wanna Baby Mumbles!") Screening in 3,804 theaters, those Warner penguins made another $7.3 million Wed, $6 mil Thurs, $15.7 Fri, $14.3 mil Sat, for what was a $38.1 mil three-day weekend and a $51.5 mil five-day holiday and a cume over $100.7 million by Monday. Sony/MGM's 007 flick in 3,443 playdates raked in $6.5 mil Wed, $7.5 mil Thurs, $13.1 mil Fri, $11.8 mil Sat, and had a $31 mil three-day weekend and a $45.1 mil five-day holiday and a new cume of $94.2 mil. Still, the 007 pic won Week One in the U.S. and is doing Da Vinci Code-like biz in all 50 countries where it opened No. 1. There were 18 new international debuts this week - all #1 including France, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia -- earning $66.2 mil foreign. Casino Royale looks like the biggest Bond ever worldwide, passing $224.5 mil this weekend ($128.2 overseas + $94.2 U.S. cume) with many major foreign territories still to go, including Japan, Korea, Italy and Australia. Box office gurus say Daniel Craig will easily blow past Pierce Brosnan's Die Another Day and its $432 mil previous biggest global take. And my guess is that the spy vs spy news coming out of Britain and Russia will only help Casino Royale's foreign haul. It also beat back direct action competition from the opening of Deja Vu, that Jerry Bruckheimer prod with Denzel Washington looking especially fine (and fine he is). Disney / Buena Vista's action-thriller debuted in 3,108 theaters and took 3rd place with $3.6 mil Wed, $4.6 mil Thurs, $8.1 mil Fri, $8 mil Sat, for what was a healthy 3-day total of $20.4 mil and 5-day total of $28.6 mil. The Fox Xmas opener Deck the Halls with Matthew Broderick & Danny DeVito, and playing in 3,205 theaters, grabbed hold of No. 4. It earned $2 mil Wed, $2.8 mil Thurs, $4.9 mil Fri, $4.6 mil Sat, for a $12 mil for the three-day weekend and $16.9 mil for the five-day holiday. Even its fourth week out, Fox's Borat continues raking in the bucks from 2,552 playdates, making $2.4 mil Wed, $2.5 mill Thurs, $4.4 mil Friday, $4 mil Sat, to stay in 5th place for another $10.3 mil three-day weekend and $16 mil five-day holiday and new cume around $109.2 mil. In 6th place was Disney's Tim Allen and Martin Short starrer, Santa Clause 3, in 3,042 playdates, made $1.7 mil Wed, $2.1 mil Thurs, $4.1 mil Fri, $3.9 mil Sat, for what was a $10.1 mil three-day weekend and a $14 mil five-day holiday for a cume around $67.4 mil. Three-week holdover Stranger than Fiction, Sony's Will Ferrell starrer, took 7th, earning $1.1 mil Wed, $1.3 mil Thurs, $2.4 mil Fri, $2.2 mil Sat, for a $6 mil three-day weekend $8.4 mil five-day holiday and a new cume of $32.8 mil. Fading after 4 weeks out, Paramount / Dreamworks' Flushed Away took 8th place, taking in $1 mil Wed, $820K Thurs, $2.4 mil Fri, $2.2 mil Sat, for what was a $5.8 mil three-day weekend and an $7.6 mil five-day holiday and a new cume close to $57.3 mil. The surprise was Emilo Estevez' Oscar-touted No. 9 Bobby which expanded its theater count from two to 1,667 and took in $1.2 mil Thurs, $1.9 mil Fri, $1.8 mil Sat, for what was a $4.8 mil three-day weekend and a $6.1 mil five-day holiday. Another newcomer, in the 10th spot, was Warner's sci-fi drama The Fountain in 1,472 playdates, earning $1.4 mil Wed, $860K Thurs, $1.4 mil Fri, $1.4 mil Sat, for what was a $3.6 mil three-day weekend and $5.3 mil five-day total. New Line opened Jack Black's Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny to lousy business; it dropped from 7th to 10th to out of the Top 10 entirely. Playing in 1,919 theaters, it earned $1.2 mil Wed, but only $825K Thurs, $1.2 mil Fri, $1.1 mil Sat, for what was a terrible $3.1 mil three-day weekend and $5.2 mil five-day holiday. Paramount Vantage's Babel continues its steady biz; playing in 902 theaters, it earned $297K Wed, $328K Thurs, $742K Fri, and $774K Sat for a $1.9 mil three-day weekend and $2.5 mil five-day holiday Holdover for a new cume of $15.1 mil. Holdover WIP's For Your Consideration: playing in 623 theaters, it made $293K Wed, $370K Thurs, $788K Fri, $710 mil Sat, for what was a $1.9 mil three-day weekend and a $2.6 mil five-day total, or a $3.1 mil cume.  The only other opener this weekend was Fox Searchlight's The History Boys: playing in 7 venues, it earned $36K Fri and $38K Sat, for a $98K three-day weekend and a $130K five-day holiday. (Keep refreshing for the latest weekend figures, which include Sunday estimates.)  

I'm about to give all the Hollywood moguls indigestion before they've even taken a bite of their Thanksgiving meal. That's because I'm told that Akiva Goldsman, who adapted Dan Brown's worldwide bestseller into a $755.6 mil hit pic, is receiving $4 million for the Da Vinci Code sequel in the works by both Imagine Entertainment and Sony Pictures. Not only is that major moola, but agents are telling me this represents a new $$$ high for hiring a screenwriter (not buying a spec script)  -- and not even an original screenplay, but an adaptation of a book. And, no, Goldsman isn't getting a producer credit, so this is for straight scribbling. "That would be a lot for a pure writer's credit," one agent gushed. "It puts Akiva in the absolute top of his profession." (Actually, the first rumor I heard was an astounding $6 mil, but the truth is $2 mil less than that. As for whether the deal also includes gross points, dunno.) Anyway, this is great news for Hollywood screenwriters, who continue to get screwed left and right in the moviemaking process, notwithstanding the WGA's supposedly best but also glacial efforts to prevent that. The terrible news is that it's sad these bucks are going for the sequel to a movie which the critics roundly panned. Generally, the most in-demand screenwriters these days are getting between $2 mil and $2.5 mil per project. And Sony historically has been known to open its wallets a little wider for writers than most studios. "Bob Osher talks a tough game, but when Amy Pascal really wants something, she gets it," one source told me. The reason for the big score is that the studio wants the 2008-slotted sequel, like, yesterday, not only because the first movie did so well, but also because of the expected studio-WGA confrontations next year. Fortunately for Goldsman, when DVC came out, Sony already owned the rights to the Robert Langdon character. Not only is the Harvard symbologist the protagonist in Brown's Angels and Demons, but also featured in a new book the author is penning as we speak that takes off where Da Vinci Code leaves off. In A&D, Goldsman must make sense of a plot crammed with Vatican intrigue and high-tech drama: it thrusts Langdon together with an ancient and shadowy secret brotherhood, the Illuminati, the most powerful underground organization ever to walk the earth. Their enemy is the Catholic Church and they're detemined to carry out the final phase of a legendary vendetta against it. The heroine is a beautiful Italian physicist whose father, a brilliant physicist, has been murdered. There's a frantic quest through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals and a secret vault to find the world's most powerful energy source. I haven't read the book (I can't stand crap like this), but I'm told it's better than DVC, which isn't exactly hard.

Previous: Amy Pascal Made Sony Pic Co-Chairman, Sony Has Da Vinci Sequels

What a shock that Broadcasting & Cable's business editor John M. Higgins is gone at the age of 45 (Monday night, of a heart attack). Like most good journalists, he had a way of establishing an instant and easy intimacy with people, and that extended to colleagues in the scribbling biz. What brought us together, so to speak, was my LA Weekly column (November 2004) spanking the Los Angeles Times' resident brat, Joel Stein. Wrote Higgins: "Hmmm, I'm not sure I've EVER agreed with you more than this column. 'Whoring after youth???' Nah, just whoring. I don't think even youth reads Joel Stein's crap. I totally don't understand the appeal..." Like most journalists who work for trades, John knew a lot more than he ever shared with his readers. He was an astute analyst of journalism as a profession, too, as he wrote me in July: "The media beats of the NY Times, WSJ and LA Times aren't really the prestigious places they once were. They've become pretty awful places to work. Sure, they're great megaphones. But as the financial prospects of newspapers wane, the abused children on the top of the masthead in turn abuse their own children. The big papers have always been intense, competitive places where navigating internal politics was at least as important as developing tremendous sources. The difference today is that there's no promise of a glowing future if you succeed. You get thinned from the herd, even if you're a creative, clever reporter. Name the last media beat reporter at the major dailies to go off to a great job somewhere else, one that you were jealous of?" This is the 2nd journalism colleague I knew pretty well to pass away this year before his time. (Garry Abrams was felled by cancer in August.) The good die too young.

Robert Altman, the director and writer and producer known for his originality and creativity, died at age 81. Who didn't love his movies? I thought, as a tribute, I'd reprint a portion of his speech accepting the Honorary Academy Award during the 78th Oscar broadcast. (He never won an Oscar, but should have): "I've always said

that making a film is like making a sand castle at the beach. You invite your friends, and you get them down there, and you build this beautiful structure, several of you. Then you sit back and watch the tide come in. Have a drink, watch the tide come in, and the ocean just takes it away. And that sand castle remains in your mind. Now I've built about 40 of them, and I never tire of it. No other filmmaker has gotten a better shake than I have. I'm very fortunate in my career. I've never had to direct a film I didn't choose or develop. I love filmmaking. It has given me an entree to the world, and the human condition, and, for that, I'm forever grateful."

U.S. District Court judge federal Dale Fischer today postponed the racketeering and wiretapping trial of Hollywood private eye Anthony Pellicano until August 22. Originally scheduled first for October and then for February, the trial keeps getting delayed. The problem seems to be the interminable discovery process taking place. Pellicano opposed a joint motion by prosecutors and five defense attorneys representing other defendants in the case to postpone the trial until September. According to the AP, 14 people have been charged so far in the case, with six pleading guilty to a variety of charges, including conspiracy and wire fraud. One person has been acquitted.

UPDATE: I'm told arrangements were made by none other than Jerry Seinfeld himself for Michael Richards to go on Letterman via satellite tonight. Video here. "Kramer" made a major apology on Dave's Late Show which had Seinfeld scheduled as a guest already. Richard's appearance during Seinfeld's interview was treated as a surprise. Kramer made a  mea culpa, and sources at the taping told me that both Letterman and Seinfeld seemed to accept what he was saying as remorseful. At times angry, at times frustrated, Richards mostly looked embarrassed. I'm told the Hollywood people around him jumped into action "to avoid a Mel Gibson delay" whereby that apology was not fast or complete enough. Richards said he lost his cool and flew into "a rage" while being heckled and not because he's a bigot. "For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry. I'm not a racist." 

In my opinion, the real news behind Seinfeld's Michael Richards spewing "n"-word racial epithets after being heckled during his Friday night stand-up routine at the Laugh Factory (see video here) is this: many of today's comedy clubs have become a cesspool of hatred. Inside them, racism, ethnic prejudice, religious bigotry, homophobia and sexism all masquerade as humor. Anyone who's been to the clubs and heard the acts knows this to be true. Yet, in most cases, the audiences or the club owners/managers rarely react badly. (Oh, c'mon: At a news conference a short time later, club owner Jamie Masada expressed remorse and said Richards will not be back at the club until he says he's sorry. "This is one thing we don't tolerate. ... I personally apologize. I apologize from my heart," Masada said today. Big deal.) And not just in the clubs: MTV's Yo Momma celebrates jokes about how "yo Momma" is so fat, so stupid, so poor, so ugly, so nasty, so lazy, and whatever other disgusting stuff its contestants can think up. I'm not saying humor in the clubs should be as sanitized as the stand-up pablum on Leno or Letterman or Kimmel. Though it's a fact that, because of the ubiquitousness of profanity-peppered acts with distasteful subject matter, some clubs outside LA and NY are rating their shows G, PG, and R as a marketing tool. (A new trend is the niche market labeled Christian comedy.) Still, in the top clubs, an atmosphere exists where anything goes, so no one should feign surprise that those comedians, much less a network character actor like Richards, could cross the line between what's acceptable and offensive. Jerry Seinfeld has announced he's "sick over this." When it comes to the comedy clubs, too many of them are just sick, period. Heal thyself.