Halloween is arriving awfully early this year, but moviegoers have flocked to this franchise ever since 1978 when Michael Myers first began causing havoc. (I doubt they'll care that this weekend is the wrong holiday.) My box office gurus expect the R-rated Halloween 9, directed by the aptly named Rob Zombie, to treat more than trick the box office over Labor Day weekend with $20+ million from 3,472 theaters. Finally, The Weinstein Co's long drought hit-wise should ease modestly thanks to this reimagined horror pic from its Dimension Films. (What a relief to distributor MGM.) Sony's low-cost coming of age laugher Superbad from mogul Judd Apatow's comedy wheel expands into 3,002 venues (+54%) and should finish in 2nd place; its cume is already $75.1 mil going into its third weekend in release. My analysts expect Rogue Pictures' extreme sports spoof Balls Of Fury opening in 3,052 runs to occupy 3rd despite some of the unfunniest ads I've ever seen. Universal's The Bourne Ultimatum and New Line's Rush Hour 3 should place 4th and 5th respectively.

Reminder: DHD will be posting box office this holiday weekend but little else.

Then Hollywood producer Dominick Dunne claims Anthony Pellicano talked him out of arranging a hit on the life of the man who murdered his daughter Dominique. So the Vanity Fair special correspondent tells Kim Masters about those well-chronicled dark years after his daughter was strangled by her former boyfriend in 1982. Dunne hired Pellicano to keep tabs on the killer. But Dunne also reached out to the P.I. to help him put out a contract on the guy. "I was nuts at that time with rage and hate that the guy who strangled my daughter for five minutes until she was dead got out in two and a half years," Dunne claims. "I truly went through a period of wanting to hire somebody. I wanted harm to come to him." Dunne didn't expect Pellicano to do the deed but to arrange it.  "He said something to the effect of, 'Dominick, you don't want to do this.' I was willing to be talked out of it." Years later, on the night before Pellicano went to prison for wiretapping and recketeering charges, Dunne, now a victims' rights advocate, got an unexpected goodbye call from the P.I..

 

On the second anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, film director Spike Lee and CNN special correspondent Soledad O’Brien present "Children Of The Storm" tonight on the all-news channel. The duo gave cameras to 11 New Orleans area students back in January to record their lives in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Spike told the kids to "just go out and shoot, tape is cheap." Lee, of course, did the Katrina documentary When The Levees Broke. Here's part of the column I wrote that Labor Day weekend, They Shoot News Anchors: Part II:

 "For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer’s biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America’s worst natural disaster). All of a sudden, broadcasters narrated disturbing images of the poor, the minority, the aged, the sick and the dead, and discussed complex issues like poverty, race, class, infirmity and ecology that never make it on the air in this swift-boat / anti-gay-marriage / Michael Jackson media-sideshow era. So began a perfect storm of controversy. Contrary to the scripture so often quoted in these areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, the TV newscasters knew the truth, but the truth did not set them free. Because once the crisis point had passed, most TV journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked by no-longer-inattentive parent-company bosses who, fearful of fallout, decided yet again to sacrifice community need for corporate greed."

I felt that the future held the real test of pathos vs. profit: whether the TV newscasters would spend the fresh reservoir of truth and trust they had earned with the public to start snarling at the proliferation of lies and the lying liars who tell them not just about the glacial pace of rebuilding of New Orleans but on other issues as well. Now we know that the TV journos flunked that exam, as most left the Katrina story to go about Big Media's business as usual, choke chain intact. The only difference is that now, instead of Michael Jackson, they're spending hours upon hours on Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.

"I look at that contract and I think I agree to most of that stuff on the back of my ticket to Disneyland." ...Kid Nation exec producer Tom Forman to TV Week about the draconian 22-page participation agreement which parents had to sign. It was just a matter of time before CBS found a way to blame Kid Nation on someone else.

I'm going to take advantage of the long holiday weekend to file all the loose papers in my office, clean up my email accounts, and sort through all the tips you've given me (keep them coming!) in order to start next week refreshed and reorganized. So postings will be lighter than usual. But there'll be weekend box office as always.

So you're a mogul, and you and the wife have split. She stays in the big Brentwood or Beverly Hills home with the kids. You could bunk at the Malibu manse but that's an awfully long commute from Broad Beach or Point Dume. So if you're Paramount boss Brad Grey, United Talent Agency chairman Jim Berkus, actor / writer Larry David, music producer David Foster, and manager / producer on hiatus Brian Medavoy, you move into Santa Monica's Pad-O-Moguls, better known as The Hollywood Halfway House. That white building on Ocean Avenue right near Wilshire Blvd -- I'm withholding the exact address -- is an apartment house specializing in short-term rentals. Short-term because these guys are recently separated or divorced and have put off buying a new house. "It's just a bunch of rich guys walking around a very expensive, well-run place right on the ocean," one of them tells me. "We don't hang out. I wish I could say we even do a lot of business together, but I don't see a lot of them. I go in and up the elevator straight to my apartment." There aren't wild and crazy parties even though NBC Universal Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman, who's famously single, also lives there. "I must not live next door to Ben. I don't hear the water gurgling from his bong," one of them told me. Meanwhile, I'm told that when Larry David moved in after splitting with his environmental activist wife Laurie, "he went to all the rooms and turned on all the lights."

Even though NBC keeps claiming that relations between the network and Leno are just fine, thank you, Jay keeps demonstrating his deep resentment. Everyone knows the host who's No. 1 in late night ratings has to leave in 2009 to make way for Conan -- the result of a shake-up orchestrated by Jeff Zucker in such a brutal way that it hurt Leno. How hurt? Well, on last night's The Tonight Show, Jay half-heartedly showed off a few set redecorations made while he was on vacation, including a new desk. Admitting he didn't see what was wrong with the old one, Leno quipped: "It's not like NBC to get rid of something that's worked perfectly well for 15 years." Another reason why Leno can't be too thrilled is that NBC Universal is contemplating a spiffy new theater and offices on Universal Studios' Stage One for Conan to do The Tonight Show from the West Coast. Meanwhile, Leno remains inside his threadbare Burbank cramped quarters. (Believe me, the place is a dump.) We feel your pain, Jay. Previous: Is Leno Starting to Hint About His Future?

So I'm challenging Les Moonves again. On Friday, I urged Mr. Smart But Smarmy to cancel Kid Nation and talk straight to his board about the show, and for the CBS directors in turn to hold his feet to the fire over that irresponsible abomination. (See my Les Moonves, A Mogul With No Conscience.) Now, in the short term, I want Moonves to lift all the gag orders on the 40 children and their parents who signed that 22-page participation agreement in which a strict confidentiality clause covers disclosure of information about the show and contact with the media for the next three years. If violated, a $5 million penalty is charged. I say, if CBS has nothing to hide concerning allegations of child abuse and violation of child safety and labor laws in the filming of the reality show, then let everyone involved talk freely to the media.

I see that CBS has already rolled out to the media a few kids and parents primarily because they're talking positively about their Kid Nation experience. For instance, two Kid Nation Minnesotans, 14-year-old Maggie and 11-year-old Brett, and their mothers, recently did media interviews arranged by CBS, who declined to reveal anyone's last names for "security reasons". The St. Paul Pioneer Press revealed that Maggie was rushed to the hospital during filming with a stress fracture on her thumb. The network has still not acknowledged that injury, and god only knows how many more occurred.

Already, editorials condemning CBS have begun appearing in major newspapers like the Baltimore Sun, New York Daily News and Boston Globe, which urged "viewers to step back and reestablish the line between entertainment and exploitation". Meanwhile, several state and union investigations are ongoing about the show asking what I am: if CBS and therefore Moonves were as proud of Kid Nation as they'd have us believe, then why were such pains taken to shoot in such secrecy, and do it in a state that did not protect children on showbiz sets, and in such a way that guild rules didn't apply? Congress, which back in the 1950s discovered that TV quiz shows were being fixed, should use its oversight and subpoena powers and begin a probe on this latest TV scandal because it involves children.

A federal judge today has effectively blocked that subpoena for NYC journalist John Connolly's Verizon phone records which Anthony Pellicano's defense was demanding. The request went back all the way to 2002 when FBI agents raided the Hollywood P.I.'s offices. See my previous: Pellicano Demands Reporter's Phone Calls

So old coot Sumner Redstone's secret elixir for long life is four ounces a day of a little-known superjuice called MonaVie. "It's a miracle drug," he told Fortune. "I feel great." The dark purple antioxidant rich concoction has at its main ingredient the Brazilian açai berry long touted among health nuts for its anti-aging ingredients. A bottle costs $40 and is not available in stores; it's marketed only like Avon or Tupperware. Fortune says Redstone first heard of the juice from Viacom exec Bill Roedy on a trip to Germany in January then learned that his butler's sister-in-law was a devotee too. (No, I'm not making this up. It's in the magazine.) "Since I've been on MonaVie I haven't taken a sleeping pill," he says. He even considered investing in Utah-based MonaVie after its CEO, nutritional products salesman Dallin Larsen, came to visit him at his Beverly Park mansion. At a recent party, Redstone gave bottles to Bill Clinton and celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. "Just about every friend I have is on it," Redstone says - a group he says includes Viacom and CBS board members as well as Michael Milken. Ay-yi-yi.

This one, in Sunday's paper by Jeannette Catsoulis, about sequels: "Fans who tolerate the repetitiveness and ideological bankruptcy of the Rush Hour franchise, for example, may be testaments to the power of hope and a need for familiarity at a time when the Iraq war continues unabated, pensions and polar ice disappear, and Al Qaeda videos enjoy wider distribution than Sundance winners." ...I can't believe a New York Times editor let such garbage be published.

Because of (or in spite of) all those blockbusters and threequels, Summer 2007 today crossed the $4 billion mark, setting a new record for total domestic gross receipts. Media By Numbers which has been keeping a running tally on summer-to-date statistics just told me that the period May 1 through today has made $4.003 billion. That's way past 2006's $3.633 billion, with revenue up 10.18% and attendance up 5.35%. But it surpasses even 2004's record of $3.95 billion reached by Labor Day (that summer-to-date figure is only $3.810 billion). This is the first $4 billion summer ever. By September 3rd, attendance will be over 600 million tickets for the first time in two years, but that's still short of 2002's 650 million tickets sold. True, not all the big tentpoles worked for critics, some sequels sank, pics faded faster than expected, and these numbers aren't adjusted for ticket prices or inflation. For instance, average ticket prices in 2004 was $6.21 versus $6.85 in 2007. (Which is why Hollywood box office figures are starting to resemble baseball statistics with lots of asterisks after every record set...) But there were so many blockbusters crowded in weekend after weekend that Summer 2007 was able to break the record before even reaching September 3rd. Here are the Top 10 Summer Movies so far:

SUNDAY AM: Today, Summer 2007 box office smashed the record for domestic gross receipts and zoomed past $3.95 billion set in 2004 to $4.003 billion. (See my story here.) Otherwise, this was one of those few times in Hollywood when age and familiarity bested youth and novelty. I'm talking about the Top 10 weekend box office, of course. (What did you think?) So oldies but goodies occupied Numbers 1-3. Of course, the fact that this is late August, and the best summer movies have already opened, and now all we're left with is the dogs, may have something to do with it as well. Sony's holdover Superbad finished at the top with $18 million ($5.7 mil Friday and $6.7 mil Saturday, or -46%) from 2,948 theaters. The new cume for mogul Judd Apatow's low-cost coming of age laugher is $68.6 mil. It's only the 3rd summer film to win back-to-back weekends with Spidey 3 and Pirates 3. But, again, the competition was weak.

So much so, that even for its fourth weekend, Universal's The Bourne Ultimatum starring Matt Damon managed #2 with $12.3 mil ($3.6 mil Friday and $5.4 mil Saturday from 3,679 runs) for a hefty new cume of $185.1 mil. New Line's Rush Hour 3 finished the weekend #3 with $11.5 mil from 3,442 dates for a new cume of $107.7 mil. A newcomer grabbed No. 4, Universal's freshman laugher Mr. Bean's Holiday debuted with $10.1 mil this weekend from just 1,714 venues. This latest in Brit comic Rowan Atkinson's comedy franchise should move up after a projected $10 mil weekend. Managing 5th place, Lionsgate's War starring Jet Li and Jason Statham opened to $9.5 mil this weekend from 2,277 plays. No. 6 was yet another Weinstein Co bomb, horribly reviewed The Nanny Diaries distributed by MGM. It's hard to ruin a hot book and a hot starlet, Scarlet Johannson, but the Weinsteins turned this into a dreadful sitcom of a film which debuted to only $7.3 mil this weekend from 2,277 runs.

For its fifth weekend, 20th Century Fox's The Simpsons Movie hung on to #7 with $4.5 mil from 2,600 theaters and a fat new cume of $173.6 mil. No. 8 went to Paramount's bomb Stardust whose new cume from 3 weekends out is only $26.6 mil after taking in $4.1 mil from 2,339 venues. Concluding 6 weekends in release, New Line's Hairspray was 9th taking in $3.5 mil from 2,016 plays for a new cume of $107.6 mil. And, rounding out the Top 10, Warner's dog of a movie The Invasion, starring career-troubled Nicole Kidman, eked out a paltry $3.2 mil (-46%) from mostly empty 2,776 theaters its second weekend out for a paltry new cume of $11.6 mil. I should also point out that Yari Film Group's Resurrecting The Champ with Josh Hartnett was a huge disaster despite an expensive TV ad campaign, opening only 15th with $1.6 mil this weekend from 1,605 dates and a lousy per screen average.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has nothing to fear from the pic September Dawn because no one saw it: the Slowhand film opened to only $615K this weekend from 857 venues for a paltry per screen average under $250 (probably, people who were just craving movie theater popcorn). It's ridiculous to think an indie film depicting one of the darkest and most controversial events in Mormon history could ruin the Republican presidential candidate because he's a Mormon. Even more ridiculous to think Hollywood is releasing this pic depicting graphic scenes of violence and fanaticism by 19th century Mormons on purpose to upset his campaign. See my previous Will New Anti-Mormon Movie Hurt Mitt? 

I always knew the Los Angeles Times Calendar section never had an original thought. Today it profiles that debauched/drunken agency assistant Shai Sternberger whose email bidding goodbye to William Morris I posted here last weekend. At least the newspaper credited me. Here's what he looks like in case you were wondering. KCRW is also going to interview him. I declare Shai's 15 minutes officially over now. 

Our most famous film reviewer is refuting a Disney press release claiming he has exercised his right to withhold use of his trademarked "thumbs up/thumbs down" until a new contract is signed for At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper with the syndicated TV show's distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic TV. I received this email today from Roger Ebert:

This is my response to the Associated Press story stating I withdrew the "thumbs" from the show. I was not contacted by a Disney publicist or by e-mail. I am discussing with Disney my association with the show that Gene Siskel and I started more than 30 years ago. In addition to my personal involvement, we are discussing the continued use of our "thumbs" trademarks, owned by myself and the Siskel family. Contrary to Disney’s press release, I did not demand the removal of the "thumbs". They made a first offer on Friday which I considered offensively low. I responded with a counter-offer. They did not reply to this, and on Monday ordered the "thumbs" removed from the show. This is not something I expected after an association of over 22 years. I had made it clear the "thumbs" could remain during good-faith negotiations. During my absence from the balcony, I have been excited to participate in the show in ways other than being on the set.  I love the show and I love the "thumbs" and I hope we will all be reunited soon.

And here is the Associated Press story Friday told from Disney's point of view:

Film critic Roger Ebert bans thumb reviews for now
Associated Press - August 24, 2007 9:54 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Roger Ebert has turned thumbs down on thumb reviews for At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper. Ebert is negotiating a new contract with the syndicated TV show's distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic Television. He's a a copyright holder on the signature "thumbs up-thumbs down" judgment that's part of each film review. The company said in a statement released to The Associated Press tonight that Ebert has exercised his right to withhold use of the "thumbs" until a new contract is signed. Ebert, also a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, has been prevented from appearing on the show for more than a year by health problems. Ebert did not immediately respond for a request for comment made through a publicist for the show and by e-mail.