Not even Lily Tomlin had seen that three-year-old guerrilla video shot on the set of I Heart Huckabees which showed her and director David O. Russell setting off F-bombs and even the “C” word. My colleague Frank Houston of sister alt-weekly Miami New Times spoke to Tomlin the day after the video -- actually, two snippets of two scenes -- suddenly surfaced this week. Previously, it had made the rounds of Hollywood talent agencies back in 2004 and acquired instant urban legend status because it never went public. (The New York Times' Sharon Waxman chronicled this back then.) This week, Defamer.com got hold of the video, then it quickly migrated to YouTube. “Oh my God, the one in the car is on there?” Tomlin asked. “I’ve never seen it. Is that when I’m sitting in the seat and really going nuts? Oh my God, I’m gonna die when I see that.” The 67-year-old actress laughs about it now.  “I love David,” she said. “There was a lot of pressure in making the movie — even the way it came out you could see it was a very free-associative, crazy movie, and David was under a tremendous amount of pressure. And he’s a very free-form kind of guy anyway.” The second video, shot on the set of the office of Tomlin’s detective character, shows Russell freaking out at Tomlin and, in reaction to her yelling at him, calling her "some fucking cunt". Tomlin said “Adults have fights and go through stuff. I know some people are more dignified in the world, that if you transgress against that kind of professionalism, that it’s some kind of great sin, but I don’t see it that way.” She called the episode “in a way liberating… now it’s all over, and so what. And I don’t have to keep up some great pretention I’m the most dignified, eloquent, elegant, perfect, smart-thinking, kind, generous person. I’m just a plain old human with a whole bunch of flaws.” Hey, I'm not sure what all this fuss is about. In the annals of Hollywood movies, there's been far, far worse behavior, including physical assaults. Maybe the fear of YouTube exposure will have an effect. But where's the fun in that?

UPDATE: Here's a YouTube 2007 video of Tom Cruise trying to dance in London. Did he have a stunt double do his rockin' in Risky Business?

It sounds like one of those hilarious Hollywood moments that you probably had to be there to fully appreciate. So, last night, Mr. United Artists aka Tom Cruise was honored by the nonprofit Mentor LA, do-gooders dedicated to helping schools and neighborhoods in LA's poorer areas. So this Promise Gala held on the 20th Century Fox studio lot was chaired by Megan and News Corp. prez Peter Chernin along with other power players and their wives: Paramount's Brad Grey, Disney's Bob Iger, Sony Pics' Michael Lynton, Warner's Barry Meyer, Universal's Ron Meyer, MGM's Harry Sloan, Yahoo's Terry Semel (ex-Warner's) Why honor Cruise? His "long-standing commitment to working for positive change in the world." Yeah, barf. Anyway, the dinner featured musical performances by both Kanye West and Stevie Wonder. So when Stevie got his groove on, Tom and Katie (no, she wasn't left home) stood up and started clappin' and dancin'. And that meant Peter Chernin and Ron Meyer and Terry Semel who were all sitting at the head table also had to stand up and start clappin' and dancin'. It wasn't a pretty sight, I'm told. Especially Semel's strange contortioning. "They were embarrassing themselves. Not one of these white guys could keep time to the music. It was really painful to watch Hollywood have so little rhythm." Next time these guys act goofy, send me a pic.

Robert Krakoff, president and CEO of Nielsen Business Media which owns The Hollywood Reporter, died unexpectedly last night in his Boston apartment, according to Nielsen chairman and CEO David Calhoun. Among the magazines Krakoff oversaw were Editor & Publisher, Billboard, Adweek, Mediaweek, Brandweek and Photo District News.  Nielsen is expected to name COO Greg Farrar as interim CEO.

Now I'll paint a brief picture of the Los Angeles Times post-Grazergate that's even gloomier than Andres Martinez's. Sanctimonious newsroom reporters and editors acting all holier-than-thou about journalism ethics, even though they never complained about the impropriety of their ousted editor Dean Baquet's behind-the-scenes cozying up to a Billionaire Boys Club of potential local buyers for the LA Times. An editor who supervised opinion and Op-Ed and editorial sections spiralling into irrelevancy, primarily because of bizarre takes on events or issues mostly written or assigned or edited by a small clique of fringe (neo-con, libertarian, thuggish right-wing, self-loathing liberal, feminist-hating female) ideologues all palsy-walsy with each other. And a publisher with a charter membership in the Reagan Republican, friend-of-Donald-Rumsfeld, "we don't admit our mistakes" club, who, as the Tribune Co. toadie, wasn't supposed to drink the LA Times newsroom Kool-Aid yet just demonstrated spinelessness by not standing behind his own judgment calls responsible for Grazergate.

Friday PM: Still more Los Angeles Times roiling, this time from top editor Jim O'Shea who answers outgoing editorial editor Andrez Martinez's "mud-slinging" at the paper's newsroom reporters and editors, including O'Shea. In a memo entitled "What's really important", O'Shea gives a pep talk to the dispirited staff. ("You all should be so proud of yourselves and your paper. We can't get distracted by noise from those on the sidelines." Then he proceeds to list some recent accomplishments, prizes, etc.) But the top editor also squares his shoulders against Martinez's Internet assault. "I'm not going to sit here like some silent lamb while he distorts my record and attacks this newspaper and my newsroom. I am not in charge of the editorial board of this newspaper. The editor of the editorial page reports directly and independently to Publisher David Hiller. That is as it should be. I strongly believe in the principle that separate editors should be in charge of news and opinion. To suggest that I told David Hiller I didn't want the editorial board reporting to me on a "whim" is untrue. He is referring to part of a longer conversation with Nikki Finke, and to take my remarks out of context is unprofessional and sloppy. Moreover, no one in this newsroom is on a campaign to 'storm the editorial page and bring it back into lockstep with the newsroom.' It is true that we have journalists in the newsroom who don't agree with Andres' views on the ethical problems that led to his resignation. I count myself among them. But these are legitimate, genuine differences of opinion held by people with a passion for the news and this newspaper. To suggest otherwise is pitiful... Lastly, Andres suggests I came to Los Angeles as some sort of agent of Tribune Company to quell an 'uprising by the imperial subjects'. To refer to the journalists at this newspaper in such a manner in an insult to hard-working people who happen to disagree with Andres. I came here because it was an honor to be selected to lead a great newspaper with an excellent staff in one of the most interesting cities in the world. I will stand on my record and credentials as a newsman and journalist. The suggestion that I make decisions simply to curry favor with the staff is also simply untrue. We face hard times. If I have to make decisions that are unpopular with the staff but in the best long-term interest of this newspaper, I will not hesitate to do make them. That is what leadership is about. I've said that openly from the day that I walked into this newsroom. I believe in full disclosure."

Friday AM: Here's another update on the chaos inside the Los Angeles Times post-Grazergate: Andrés Martinez (photo right) may have left the newspaper, but he is not slinking away quietly and he's not surrendering to accusations of ethical violations. Instead, he's using the Internet to attack not only the decisions and actions of the two Chicago Tribune guys sent in by embattled parent Tribune Co. to run the Los Angeles Times, publisher David Hiller and top editor Jim O'Shea, but also those of individual newsroom editors and reporters still smarting from their hero Dean Baquet's unpopular ouster by the Chicago bosses. Martinez's main charge is that the newsroom has been trying to dictate to the supposedly independent editorial/opinion/Op-Ed pages. The gloomy picture he paints is of a paper in the throes of internal turmoil, with Hiller (photo left) on one side, the newsroom on the other, and Martinez trapped inbetween. (Here's my brief opinion.)  My own new reporting shows that Martinez tried to bridge this gap Wednesday after the paper's media reporter Jim Rainey was tipped to the potential scandal and started nosing around the editorial editor's personal life. So Martinez took the unusual step of contacting the newsroom's leader, LAT managing editor Doug Frantz, and explaining every step that led to Hollywood producer Brian Grazer's selection as the first Current guest editor, including details on Martinez dating Grazer's PRwoman. Frantz at first agreed with Martinez there was no story for Rainey to pursue. But instead of quelling the internal controversy, that resulted in even more newsroom consternation that the paper's management would engage in a cover-up of the supposed scandal. Soon after Wednesday, not uncoincidentally, details about Grazergate were leaked onto the Internet via LAObserved.com (where LA Times newsroom staffers had also gone to complain about the Tribune Co. vs Baquet drama.) And Rainey's story was going forward with Frantz on board now. (Martinez after his resignation used LAObserved.com today to fight back.

Fascinating how old media is using new media. (more...)

AP is reporting that former New York Post gossip Jared Paul Stern today sued Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle in connection with that alleged 2006 shakedown scandal. Among those included as defendants in the lawsuit are the New York Daily News and -- huh? -- ex-President Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton. So now this has devolved into one of those politically motivated lawsuits? Uh-oh. Stern accuses the Democratic political couple of attacking him in an effort to suppress negative stories about themselves. The AP quotes the complaint as saying, "This was intended as a prelude to Hillary Clinton's run for the presidency in 2008 as Page Six and the New York Post, owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch, were perceived as significant impediments to a successful candidacy and the Clintons' return to the White House." Grocery magnate and private investor Burkle is known to be the Clintons' close pal and a big-time Democratic donor. But Stern's lawyer Larry Klayman just happens to be a long-time critic of the Clintons and a founder of Judicial Watch which played a major legal role in both the Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers lawsuits against the Clintons that went on and on and on. Stern alleges all the defendants defamed and inflicted emotional distress on him and wrecked his job as a Page Six contributor. Stern was suspended after Burkle went public with accusations that Stern had demanded big bucks ($100,000 and a $10,000 monthly stipend) in exchange for good press coverage. The Feds investigated Burkle's claim of an extortion attempt but declined to file charges. Stern is asking for unspecified damages. Burkle spokesman Michael Sitrick called the lawsuit "preposterous".

Adam's pic Reign Over Me is opening nationwide this Friday. It's the opposite of a comedy and it has Sandler playing drama, so it's near-impossible to market. Yet few actors have enjoyed a promotional ride like Sandler has this week, most of it just like the film's tagline "Let In The Unexpected". On Tuesday, Letterman went home sick with the stomach flu, so Sandler was recruited as a last-minute fill-in for Dave. This was believed to be the first time the Late Show host had shown up for work and couldn't go on. No, Sony Pictures didn't poison Letterman to give Adam some national TV face-time much less a full-hour on a high-profile show. So there was Sandler lovin' it. He did a pretty decent opening monologue. He plopped his bulldog Matzoball down comfortably in the guest chair for an interview. He brought on Don Cheadle, his co-star in Reign Over Me and together, they sang Endless Love to one another. (Clip of the singing here. Sandler's opening monologue here.) After Letterman, Adam went to New York University's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts where the cast of his movie got a standing ovation from an audience that included Tim Robbins, Salman Rushdie and Chris Rock. (Suddenly, people were winning bar bets that pigs would fly before that ever happened.) Now the film got a great New Yorker review despite its downer subject: a guy who loses his family in 9/11. The only problem I see after a Perfect 10 week of movie marketing for Sandler is that Reign Over Me, which was made on the cheap, is gonna be hard-pressed to see much theater love given this weekend's very crowded field of Ninja Turtles, horror hills with eyes, Mark Wahlberg, and those 300 hardbodies. My box office gurus expect Adam's pic to make around $10 mil since it's playing in just 1,600+ venues. 

UPDATE: I'm told there was just a meeting among the staff of the Los Angeles Times' editorial/opinion/Op-Ed pages which editor Andres Martinez supervises and he told them he has just quit. This follows publisher David Hiller's decision this morning to kill this Sunday's Current section guest-edited by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer to "avoid the appearance" that a conflict of interest led to his selection because of a romance between Martinez and the PR woman repping Grazer's Imagine Entertainment. The paper's newsroom was up in arms over so-called Grazergate -- and Martinez snaps back at the news reporters and editors via the LAT Opinion blog where he explains his decision to take a hike. Now the LA Times has posted its own updated story about today's fast-breaking developments on its website here.

See my previous detailed account of what happened: An LA Times Affair: Romance Between Editorial Editor And Hollywood Flack Helps Showbiz Producer Grazer Get Guest-Edit Gig; Now Publisher May Not Print This Sunday's Opinion Section 

FRIDAY AM AND PM UPDATE

THURSDAY AM UPDATE

WEDNESDAY PM: The Los Angeles Times is supposed to report entertainment news. Now it's making the news with its own Hollywood scandal. A lot of eyebrows were raised recently when powerful entertainment mogul Brian Grazer was tapped as the first of what would be quarterly "guest editors" of the Sunday LA Times' classy Current opinion section. Well, woo-hoo. It turns out there was a romantic relationship between Andrés Martinez, the paper's editorial pages editor who assigned the gig to Grazer, and Kelly Mullens, an exec for the Hollywood PR firm 42West which just happens to represent Grazer's production company Imagine Entertainment. I'm told that publisher David Hiller knew all about it and still didn't pull the plug -- even though the girlfriend's PR boss Allan Mayer was the person who flacked Grazer to Martinez in the first place. Now Hiller has killed this Sunday's Current that was put together by the producer rather than run a mortifying editor's note. And a furious Martinez has quit in protest. Granted, it's not news that a pushy Hollywood PR firm had considerable influence with the local paper. This is a case of unusual influence. But was it improper influence? And, really, isn't the Current mess the publisher's fault since he was making the final decisions after all?

Now the LA Times' opinion section is embarrassed, the paper's news side horrified, the Hollywood mogul humiliated, the PR company spinning. Media critics already beating up on the Tribune Co.-controlled LA Times are gonna have a field day with the latest contretemps. (I'm sure ousted editor Dean Baquet is enjoying it. After all, Hiller fired him.) If all this isn't enough to get Hollywood and media circles buzzing, consider that, irony of ironies, Grazer and his Imagine partner, director Ron Howard, made the 1994 pic The Paper about journalism ethics at a big city daily. (more...)

The Internet has been buzzing about who made that "1984" anti-Hillary Clinton political video posted on YouTube on March 5th under the username ParkRidge47. (Hillary Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois in 1947). There was even a suggestion that Hollywood mogul David Geffen commissioned it to help that other Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The Huffington Post claims to have solved the mystery: "We have learned the video was the work of Philip de Vellis, who was the Internet communications director for the successful 2006 U.S. Senate campaign for the Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown, and who now works at Blue State Digital, a company created by members of Howard Dean's Internet Team." Read his post here. The anti-Clinton video, dubbed "Vote Different," has been splashed across the television news and viewed almost 1.4 million times on YouTube. Three days later, an anti-Obama clip, "Barack 1984," posted on the same site three days ago but so far has had only 250,000 viewings.

There's never enough written about Pedro Almodóvar. Who knew that his three favorite films are All About Eve, Some Like It Hot, and John Ford's The Searchers? That he hates every movie with John Wayne and Spencer Tracy? That he likes Clint Eastwood and Quentin Tarantino? So the latest issue of GQ has the director of the high kitsch/low cleavage Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, the sweet sadism of Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and the most recent Volver, talking about why gays make sexier movies than heteros, and disses Marty Scorsese in the process."It’s true that when heterosexual men make movies -- I’m not talking about pornos -- they pay less attention to the power and sexual beauty of women. The goal should be simple: to create a wonderful woman. Just pay attention to a woman. It doesn’t matter whether you are gay or straight—if you pay attention, you will discover how rich they are. I don’t like when journalists, usually heterosexual, say, “Oh, you understand women better because you are gay.” That’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m gay, but I don’t want to become a woman. I understand women because I’m interested in them. I like them personally. I like them as dramatic subjects. And I have to say, as dramatic subjects, they are richer than men. But male directors today aren’t interested. I don’t want to reproach Martin Scorsese, but Scorsese never portrays women as full characters in his movies—he’ll only use them in secondary roles. In his case, I don’t mind, because he makes wonderful movies with a world of male characters."

What a mess surrounding Revolution Studios' Across the Universe thanks to the idiocy of hiring director Julie Taymor, who may be lauded as a visual iconoclast in the pages of The New York Times but also derided as a cinematic loon based on what Hollywood sources tell me. So now this musical romance pic has dissipated into two warring versions, and its scheduled September playdate hangs in limbo. (See the trailer here.) Meanwhile, distributor Sony Pictures is tiptoeing around the issue of not releasing the pic, especially with a full frills marketing campaign, unless Taymor compromises; the studio is supposed to distribute all of Revolution's film product under Joe Roth's about-to-end deal there. In a perfect world, Sony would love to get behind Across The Universe because it's synergistic. Told mainly through numerous Beatles tunes performed by the characters, it takes advantage of that Sony/ATV music publishing catalog owned with Michael Jackson that boasts some 250 Fab Four songs. Of course, Roth has only himself to blame for his fight with Taymor. This is just the latest of the many missteps he's made at Revolution whose films have mostly bombed at the box office despite expensive Sony marketing campaigns. He is, after all, the one who hired Taymor in the first place even knowing her notorious Hollywood reputation for directorial pretension and indulgence, which is exactly how people describe her impossibly artsy-fartsy cut of this pic which audiences dislike. When Taymor wouldn't listen to reason, Roth (himself a pretty lame film director) went in with an editor to cut his own version which is not just shorter but more commercial. So I can't understand why Taymor isn't kicked to the curb since she doesn't have final cut. And I'm perplexed why The New York Times took Taymor's side in this squabble and ignored the terrible truths people have told me about what a disaster she was on this project. Today's article compares Taymor to Orson Welles. Ridiculous. The article fails to mention Sony's Beatles biz synergy. Good grief. And there's not a word about Taymor's history of awful fights over length and content as the director on Titus (with producers and the MPAA over a possible NC-17 adults-only rating for too much sex and violence and gore, and with Anthony Hopkins who threatened to walk) and on Frida (with Harvey Weinstein, culminating in a loud expletive-filled fight in the lobby of NYC's Sony Lincoln Square as shocked preview-goers filed past.) The NYT must have let its Nexis research account expire. Also, the paper of record implies that Across The Universe has been "taken away" from the director. Not yet. Now the details. (more...)

Sony has optioned the rights to the Green Hornet for a feature film. I'm underwhelmed. Not just because there are already way too many comic book pics. But more because this one's notion of crusading newspapers is such a quaint relic from the distant past. According to today's press release, Neal H. Moritz and his Original Film snagged the rights and will produce. Already the studio is talking new franchise just as Spider-Man 3 comes out May 4th and Spider-Man 4's script is underway. (But don't count your Hornets until they've hatched... Sony's two Spider-Men have made $1.6 bil at the box office and its Ghost Rider just passed $200 mil.) The Green Hornet made his debut on January 31, 1936 on WXYZ Detroit; he was the creation of the station’s George W. Trendle and Fran Striker, who also came up with the Lone Ranger. The series ran until 1952, then moved to comic books. In 1966, the character debuted on TV for one ABC season, catapulting Bruce Lee to stardom as Kato. The Hornet series follows the adventures of Britt Reid, a bored playboy whose life is changed when he inherits his father’s crusading newspaper, The Daily Sentinel. He saves the life of Kato, a Japanese man with incredible technical and martial-arts skills who becomes Britt’s closest ally. (Ah, now I get the Sony connection.) So there's a cool car -- the supercharged Black Beauty, which is their ride as they search for evidence to expose the city’s underworld in the newspaper. When Britt and Kato witness a brutal mob hit, Britt invents his secret identity – taking his name from his powerful car’s defective horn. A skilled fighter and expert marksman, the Green Hornet uses two non-lethal guns to subdue criminals: one fires a potent knock-out gas while the other produces the “Hornet’s Sting” – an electric shock. (Doesn't every good reporter carry one of these?)

In my opinion, the only interesting aspect of the Phil Spector trial which opened today is whether yet another Los Angeles jury is stupid enough to let yet another entertainment personality get away with murder. There'll be jury selection nonsense for the next few weeks until around April 30th. And then taxpayers get to foot the bill for a trial that never seems to come to the proper conclusion. Instead, it falls to civil suits -- against Robert Blake, O.J. -- to mete out financial justice, if not legal. (Does anyone ever collect on those judgments? Apparently, not in L.A.) Even with TV cameras rolling throughout this trial, chances are slim we'll ever know what really happened in the early hours of Feb. 3, 2003, when failed actress Lana Clarkson (Amazon Women On The Moon) died in Spector's castle-like Alhambra mansion. As Court TV pointed out, "a recently unsealed deposition transcript reveals that the once-powerful music man has struggled with crippling depression for years, is under the regular care of a psychiatrist, and still disavows any responsibility for an alleged history of trouble when it comes to guns and women." Spector fired L.A. attorney Robert Shapiro (of O.J. infamy) amid considerable acrimony, and then hired NYC mob lawyer Bruce Cutler. The 60s music producer famous for his "Wall Of Sound" recording technique has pleaded not guilty, suggesting that Clarkson "kissed the gun" and shot herself in a bizarre suicide. If the past is prologue, Spector's defense will surely convince the L.A. jury to ignore testimony from a police officer dispatched to the crime scene who heard Spector blurt out: "I didn't mean to shoot her, it was an accident." Or disregard the claim by Spector's driver that the producer emerged from his home holding a gun and saying: "I think I killed somebody." Some 50 news organizations applied for a seat in the L.A. courtroom, guaranteeing the usual media spectacle surrounding these tragic Hollywood trials. But the real message is that L.A. itself is a tragedy where, again and again, celebrities get one free murder. Please prove me wrong this time.

How grotesque that Dancing With The Stars debuted tonight amid a plethora of distasteful promos wondering if Heather Mills could keep her prosthetic leg on during a high kick. Look, I have no idea why this show attracts an audience beyond mouthbreathers. But the soon-to-be-ex Mrs. Paul McCartney managed to dance the fox-trot without losing her false limb. Judge Bruno Tonioli gushed over Mills, who's currently among the most hated women in the UK: “You’ve got more guts than Rambo.” She also received praise as an "inspiration to people to get out and dance". So now everyone please breathe a sigh of relief and turn off the show en masse because this sequin-fest is pure crap. (And I wouldn't put it past ABC later in the contest to make Mills dislodge her artificial leg as a sweeps stunt.)  

There's more to indie marketing than just Sundance and Toronto. Just because that rotten actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is the state's governor is no reason not to enter or attend one of Southern California's many film festivals. Sponsored by corporate donors and produced by local nonprofit film societies and volunteers, these usually grassroots events have a better-than-average chance of getting your indie or documentary seen by people who matter in the motion picture industry. Sure, A-list movie stars and directors sometimes show up, but so do development people and studio executives and top tier agents if for no other reason than that they live nearby. Here are 14 local film festivals listed according to the calendar and touted by local filmmaker David Geffner in the latest Westways magazine.

1. Palm Springs International Film Festival (early January): launched in 1990 by the late Sonny Bono, this desert fest 2 1/2-hours outside LA is held at multiple venues in the city of Palm Springs. Lately, big name actors have attended the Gala Awards because of timing so close to Oscars. (A healthy percentage of Academy voters live out here.) Entries include 250 films from 74 countries.

2. Santa Barbara International Film Festival (late January): Everything's in walking proximity. A lot of films here go on to earn Oscar nods. Big-name actor always honored. Top thesps also hold audience conversations.

3. Pan African Film & Arts Festival (mid-February): Global event showcases about 150 films about people of African descent. Runs during Black History Month in the U.S. based at the Magic Johnson Theaters and the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in Los Angeles.

4. The Other Venice Film Festival (March 15-18): Showcases local work from the eclectic Venice Beach arts and music scene in LA. Lots of celebs and dealmaking.

5. Malibu Film Festival (April 13-16): Indies, shorts and documentaries debut from around the world. A lot of major players who live in the neighborhood stop by. (more...)

I'm told today that one of the biggest audiences for Warner Bros.' 300 is gay men. Because of these amazing 8-pack abs on those big-screen actors. Yummy.

There have been these ongoing meetings of the Writer's Guild Of America -- actually informational luncheons for groups of 15-to-20 that are supposed to remain hush-hush between the guild's members -- to set what it's calling "a list of priorities" for the imminent contract negotiations. I'm told that, at a recent meal, the WGA says its new strategy is to join with the Screen Actors Guild and with the Directors Guild Of America and all together "go after" New Media revenues. This is news which I haven't seen printed anywhere, especially concerning the possibility that the DGA may finally play ball with the other two guilds. Only today does Variety report that the leaders of WGA and SAG, without the DGA, met Friday to plot strategy in "what's likely to be several such confabs". The two unions, plus the DGA, were notoriously not in sync during 2004's negotiations. The WGA starts bargaining with the studios and networks this summer in advance of its contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture & telecvision producers expiring on October 31st. Contracts for SAG and the DGA expire in mid-2008. Not since 2001 have the WGA and SAG been closely aligned during contract talks. But the DGA for a long time has been seen as the guild of appeasement rather than assertiveness. Still a source of WGA consternation is that the DGA in 2004 undermined the writers' bid to raise DVD residual rates by being the first of the three guilds to agree to a 3-year deal that left the status quo intact on that issue. Within six months, the WGA and SAG followed suit. But, so far at least, there's been no public indication that the DGA, whose bargaining team is led by Gil Cates, will support either the WGA's and SAG's self-described hard line. Hmm.

SUNDAY AM: That heavy snowstorm and its clean-up in the U.S. Northeast depressed Friday's and Saturday's ticket receipts. Nevertheless, box office was still up again over last year because of blockbuster 300. Warner's bloodbath marched into 1st place with a big $31.6 million from 3,270 theaters, or -58% from last week's haul. The CGI extravaganza made $10.3 mil Friday, $12.5 mil Saturday and an estimated $8.8 mil Sunday (not quite the $38 mil expected before the white stuff came down in major moviegoing metropolitans like New York and Boston). Its new cume is an amazing $127.8 mil after only one week out -- meaning this $60 million epic-on-the-cheap shot in two months with no stars will turn a hefty profit for Warner Bros. Disney's Wild Hogs was the surprise No. 2 in its third week in 3,360 theaters, finishing this Fri-Sat-Sun with $19 mil and a new cume of $104.1 mil. That high placement lends more fuel to fiery allegations that teens were circumventing 300's 'R' rating by buying tickets to this PG-13 motorcycle ride and then sneaking in to the battle pic. In a nice bit of counter-programming (especially with college basketball's March Madness underway), Sony's Premonition gave Sandra Bullock her best opening ever, #3 with $18 mil for the weekend from 2,831 venues. Sony said the thriller's audience composition was 66% female and 34% male, with 61% of the moviegoers 25 and older. The studio also touted that the film, made for only $20 mil, recovered its negative cost in nearly its first three days of release. 

Universal debuted its ghost story Dead Silence in 4th place at only 1,805 venues for a so-so $7.7 mil for the weekend. But Chris Rock's I Think I Love My Wife from Fox Searchlight, in 5th place at 1,776 theaters, eked out even less -- only $5.5 mil for Fri-Sat-Sun despite heavy media attention and promotion. The comedian may be a hit on TV but not at the movies; he's had bomb after bomb after bomb. No. 6 was Walden/Disney's Bridge To Terabithia, still playing in 3,091 dates its 5th week out; the kiddie pic had another $5.2 mil weekend thanks to the usual Saturday matinee bounce. Its new cume is $74.9 mil. As 7th place Ghost Rider, Marvel/Sony's comic book pic should hit $200 mil workwide this week after grossing $110.2 mil in the U.S. and $87.5 mil overseas. It made $4 mil this weekend from 2,824 playdates. (more...)

I need to correct Gawker.com's posting this week about Hollywood. Listing "New York's Worst Bosses", the website names Scott Rudin as "today's 4,000 pound ahi tuna" with the usual -- yawn -- allegations about his gross behavior. But Gawker claims Rudin was "purportedly the model for the evil producer played by Kevin Spacey in Swimming With Sharks". Not so! (Though it's an easy mistake to make.) 1994's Swimming With Sharks was directed by George Huang, who penned it while working as an assistant for Barry Josephson. Then a high-ranking and ambitious Columbia movie exec, Josephson was infamous for treating not only Huang but almost everyone like shit. (On the other hand, that does not necessarily make Barry a bad person in Hollywood, right? After all, he's been very successful.) So it was Josephson, not Rudin, who was the thinly veiled model for the Kevin Spacey character, Buddy Ackerman. (Notice how the names are similar?) Barry even received "special thanks" in the film's credits. As for the pic itself, it's one of my personal favorites. Because it's cinéma vérité.

My box office gurus are telling me this past weekend's gory blockbuster 300 still has lots of momentum for this coming Friday + Saturday + Sunday. The cheapo Warner's epic should march to 1st place for another big $37 mil, followed by Sony's Sandra Bullock thriller Premonition with $18 mil. (Nice counter-programming.) For the weekend of March 23rd, another Warner's pic, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) is sure to debut #1 because of the obvious nostalgia factor, with Paramount's engaging assassin thriller Shooter starring Mark Walhberg (fresh off his Oscar nod) in 2nd place and 300 dropping to 3rd. For more on the #1 movie, director Zach Snyder answers 30 questions on 300 here. And my box office report for last weekend is here.

Fresh off his Oscar nominations, Alejandro González Iñárritu, who directed and produced Golden Globe winner Babel and helmed 21 Grams, jumped from Endeavor to CAA last night. The war between those two agencies is really, truly on. Also, James McTeigue, director of V for Vendetta, left ICM for CAA this week. That said, I hear CAA's field marshall Richard Lovett is bitching to Hollywood that his uberagency has too many out of work clients and he's begging buyers for any jobs. That's what happens when 1) your goal is "100% market share" and 2) your overspending has led to pinching pennies. Let's all feel his pain. 

Those lazy editors at the Los Angeles Times: now they're getting outsiders to do their work for them. I'm told the reporting staff is snickering about it, as well they should. But Hollywood is curious how Brian Grazer wound up editing the LAT' Sunday "Current" section for March 25th. I'm told that LA Times editorial page and opinion czar Andres Martinez called up the Imagine Entertainment founder/CEO out of the blue about six weeks ago and described a new quarterly "guest editor" program aimed at making the paper's largely ignored opinion pages "more of a must-read destination". Then Martinez and LAT colleague Nick Goldberg (and another LATer whom nobody can remember) met with Mr. Eclectic in his Imagine offices and asked to tap into his "creative vision." I'm told Grazer's reaction was "This is so cool". Explains an insider: "After all, Brian has been on this 20-year curiosity journey. They wanted him to pick the subjects and pick the writers and pick topics that were fresh and different and exciting. Sure enough, Brian loved it." Grazer communicated with the paper by phone and enjoyed total freedom. There wasn't even any theme. "They never gave him any boundaries," I'm told. So here's who and what he put together (and, no, Brian's favorite scribbler Akiva Goldsman isn't being paid $500,000 a week to rewrite everybody): Pitbull entertainment litigator Marty Singer wrote a piece about the "power of allegations"; Eric Kandel, the 2000 Nobel prizewinner in psychotherapy and psychiatry, wrote about the "new biology of the mind"; psychologist Paul Ekman who's a facial interpretation expert wrote about the subject of "catching liars"; Dalton Connelly, an NYU professor wrote about "race and gender in politics"; André Leon Talley, an editor at large at Vogue, wrote about "fashion and status"; and, finally, contemporary graphic designer Shepard Fairey created a drawing to illustrate the package. The LA Times paid all the writers but didn't even offer to compensate Grazer. (All I can say is: you get what you pay for -- though I imagine that Hollywood will especially enjoy the article about catching liars.) Now, before every showbiz flack starts lobbying on behalf of clients/bosses, take note: I'm told Grazer will be the only Hollywood type asked to guest-edit "Current", at least for 2007. Too bad, because already I've received suggestions that Michael Bay or Simon Cowell should follow.

It's not often that Big Media companies do the right thing, and it often takes them years, but occasionally it does happen. So it is with HBO and Michael Fuchs. Almost 11 1/2 years after Fuchs was unceremoniously fired from Time Warner, the corporate giant is finally recognizing his singular contribution to the success of HBO. I'm told that HBO just made an internal announcement that, on June 11th, the state of the art theater atop HBO's headquarters will be renamed the Michael Fuchs Theater. There'll be a nice event in Fuchs' honor, complete with HBO veterans from inside and outside the company as well as a clip reel. It's easy to look at HBO now and to think that Jeff Bewkes and then Chris Albrecht were responsible for all that success. But before them, and mentoring them, was Fuchs who ran HBO at the old Time Inc. and then at Time Warner, serving as HBO's chairman and CEO starting in October 1984 until November 1995. Long before The Sopranos and Sex In The City and Sacha Baron Cohen, Fuchs had the idea for HBO to do more than just run threatrical films. He was responsible for greenlighting HBO's first waves of celebrated comedy specials (he started Chris Rock on HBO), sports spectaculars and original programming (like The Larry Sanders Show and Oz). It was under Fuch that HBO began competing with the networks for Emmy wins. For those keeping score, Fuchs in May 1995 added the chairmanship of Warner Music Group to his portfolio, becoming responsible for the overall management of the two divisions for the world's leading entertainment conglomerate. But Fuchs tripped on the corporate tightrope act when his rat bastard boss and pal Jerry Levin betrayed him. So Fuchs took a tragic Wallenda-like fall in November 1995. After more than 20 years in the entertainment industry, he bid it goodbye; since then, he has been overseeing investments and pursuing philanthropy. I say Fuchs should be lured back to showbiz to run something big or interesting.

When Hollywood options this (and you will), remember you heard about it here first. The New York Times is holding its second annual contest for an all-expenses-paid "reporting odyssey" to the African continent this summer with its Pulitzer Prize-winning Op-Ed columnist Nick Kristof for one university student and one schoolteacher. "Don’t expect comfort so much as diarrhea," Kristof says, describing this "rugged, tiring and emotionally draining journey [as] a bedbug-infested mattress in a malarial jungle as hungry jackals yelp outside". The winners will be chosen on the basis of 700-word essays explaining why they're the right candidates for this trip. According to NYTimes.com: "What you see on this rugged journey will open your eyes in a way that will quite possibly change your own life and priorities forever — and if you are an educator, those of the students you teach. You won't merely be Nick's traveling companion - you may bring a fresh perspective to his reporting via your very own blog or vlog on NYTimes.com and MySpace. Don't miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Hint to Hollywood: Pitch this project as Animal House meets Blood Diamond, American Pie Meets Apocalypse Now, etc.