PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• New Line Cinema is playing ball with Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal on “Damn Yankees,” attaching both actors to star in a contemporized film transfer of the classic musical. Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel are set to write the script. The musical is being produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the duo behind New Line’s musical “Hairspray”; a sequel to that film is in the works. “Damn Yankees,” which bowed on Broadway in 1955 and won seven Tony Awards, focuses on Joe Boyd, a happily married middle-aged man whose devotion to a hapless pro baseball team prompts him to make a Faustian bargain with the devil to help the team. He’s transformed into slugger Joe Hardy, in exchange for Boyd’s soul. Boyd can break the deal, but the deadline occurs during the World Series. For good measure, the devil engages Lola, a gorgeous lost soul, to seduce the slugger and seal his fate. The plan is for Carrey to play the devil, and Gyllenhaal to play Boyd. It’s the first musical for each. 

• Stephen Fry’s Sprout Films has optioned British artist and author Sebastian Horsley’s memoir “Dandy in the Underworld.” Fry and Sprout managing director Gina Carter are set to produce a film based on the work, and are in discussions with writers. The book, which details Horsley’s extravagant use of drugs and prostitutes (as well as his own career as a prostitute), got the self-styled dandy into hot water with customs officials in March of last year. Horsley was denied entry to the U.S. on the grounds of “moral turpitude,” and after being questioned for eight hours, was sent back to England and released. 

• Tom Fontana has been tapped to pen a series about the notorious Borgia clan that Chris Albrecht will exec produce for Gallic production shingle Lagardere Entertainment and Canal Plus. The series’ 12-episode first season will be shot in English to facilitate worldwide sales of the series, most importantly in the U.S. Albrecht, the former HBO chieftain, will shop the series to U.S. outlets. He’s partnered with former HBO longform exec Anne Thomopoulos, who will also serve as an exec producer on “The Borgias.” The intent is to make “Borgias” an ongoing series that will track the Borgia family’s amoral escapades in Spain and Rome during the height of the Renaissance. The Borgia clan is known for its reign of corruption and terror at the Vatican, when Rodrigo Borgia served as Pope Alexander VI from 1492-1503. During his reign as pope, he acknowledged siring several illegitimate children while he’d served as a cardinal, offspring that included the famously murderous and larcenous Lucrezia and Cesare. 

• Jason’s coming back. The villain who’s defied death more often than Evil Knievel is making another appearance on the big screen. Sources saying that New Line and Platinum Dunes are moving forward on a new “Friday the 13th” and that Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, who wrote the recently released reboot, beginning work on a script for a new picture. But unlike the sophomore efforts of other franchises, the new “Friday” is expected to be not a sequel so much as a follow-up, with the new picture expected to use elements of the original franchise more as a jumping-off point than as a template, because the reboot drew from the first four pictures in the “Friday” series. Producers are said not to be keen on the plot elements of the half-dozen movies that followed.  

• Aeon Flux, meet Aphrodite IX. Threshold Entertainment, Platinum Studios and Top Cow Prods. have joined forces to adapt the Top Cow comic “Aphrodite IX” into a 3-D feature film. The comic centers on a cyborg assassin who achieves self-awareness and begins searching for her origins. Producers are looking for the female lead. 

PROJECT UPDATES

• Michael Petroni has been tapped to write the next installment in “The Chronicles of Narnia” franchise. Petroni will write “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” for Walden Media and Fox 2000. He will take over for Richard LaGravanese, who penned the most recent draft of the C.S. Lewis novel. Move signals that Walden is moving full steam ahead on the third chapter in the franchise with its new Narnia studio partner, 20th Century Fox. In late December, the project seemed in doubt after Disney decided to pull the plug on co-financing the pic. Walden is eyeing a summer start date for a holiday 2010 release through the Fox Walden label. 

• Seth Green will star in Walt Disney Pictures’ “Mars Needs Moms,” Disney and Robert Zemeckis’ ImageMovers’ adaptation of the Berkeley Breathed children’s novel. Simon Wells is directing the performance-capture movie, which follows a boy named Milo who stows away aboard a spaceship to rescue his mom after she was kidnapped by aliens. Green is playing Milo. The project reunites Green with his “Austin Powers” mom, Mindy Sterling, who will play the alien leader of Mars, inspiring terror in all who meet her. Dan Fogler (“Fanboys”) is playing Gribble, a friend of Milo, and Joan Cusack (“Confessions of a Shopaholic”) plays the mom. Simon and Wendy Wells adapted the screenplay. 

• Mikael Salomon is attached to “Undefeated: The Rocky Marciano Story,” the first authorized biopic about the boxing champion, which Morris S. Levy is producing for his M.E.G.A. Films from Terri Apple’s screenplay. The film, which will follow Marciano from childhood to his 1969 death in a plane crash, promises to include never-before-revealed details provided by the fighter’s younger brother, Lou Marciano. 

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

• Regent Releasing has acquired the domestic rights to the docudrama “Shake Hands With the Devil.” Pic was helmed by Roger Spottiswoode and stars Roy Dupuis and Deborah Kara Unger. “Devil” revolves around Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire played by Dupuis, who was sent to oversee a cease-fire back in 1993 between Rwanda rebels and the Hutu majority group. When the Rwandan President’s plane is shot down, the infamous Rwandan genocide is set in place against the Tutsi minority with Dupuis stuck in the middle trying to deal with far off superiors while trying to save more than 800,000 civilians at the same time. 

BUSINESS NEWS

• Marking the final step in an arduous journey to be rid of cable systems, Time Warner set March 12 as the date of the spinoff of its Time Warner Cable stake. The media conglom, which once owned all of Time Warner Cable, reduced its stake to 84% several years ago and then in 2008 finally announced plans to shed the remainder. Late Thursday, execs said all Time Warner shareholders of record as of March 12 will get a dividend distribution March 27. 

• Kent Alterman and Michael Aguilar have formed Dos Tontos, a production company that kicks off with a two-year exclusive deal at Fox. The duo will generate films for 20th Century Fox co-presidents Alex Young and Emma Watts, and Fox Atomic chief Debbie Liebling. They start with “Cool School,” which Aguilar had already been producing at 20th, about a group of ad execs who are mentored by high schoolers so the execs can be on the pulse of youth culture. Deal is the second recent pact designed to boost Fox’s laffer output, after Ben Stiller’s Red Hour joined the fold earlier this month. 

• Longest. TV show. Ever. Fox has ordered two more seasons of “The Simpsons” that will make the animated hit the longest-running series in primetime TV history. The 44-episode pickup will bring the show to a whopping 493 episodes. “Gunsmoke” has held the record as the longest-running series and was on the air for 20 years (airing on CBS from 1955 to 1975 with 635 episodes). “The Simpsons” and NBC’s “Law & Order” have been closing in on the Western classic, with Fox’s comedy tying “Gunsmoke” this year and “Order” currently airing its 19th season. With this renewal, “The Simpsons” (which debuted in 1990) will easily take the lead. And with NBC shedding its 10 p.m. hour and the “L&O” flagship pulling modest numbers, the chances of the crime drama outlasting “The Simpsons” seems unlikely. 

• Former NBC executive vp scripted programming Teri Weinberg is launching a production company, Yellow Brick Road, which has inked a two-year, first-look deal with NBC Universal. The seven-figure pact gives NBC and NBC Uni’s cable networks first crack at Weinberg’s projects. As part of the deal, she also has joined NBC’s new drama series “The Philanthropist” as an exec producer. Weinberg stepped down from her NBC post as part of the major executive restructuring at NBC in December, when the scripted operations of the network and its sister studio were merged under newly appointed Angela Bromstad. The deal marks a return to producing for Weinberg. 

INDUSTRY MOVES

• Barely six months after joining the company, Gene Stein has been upped to head of TV at BermanBraun. Stein will oversee development and production of the shingle’s growing slate of scripted and unscripted projects. BermanBraun has three comedy pilots in contention at CBS and a drama pilot at NBC. 

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

• Jeremy Piven is off the hook, at least for now. At a union grievance hearing spurred by the thesp’s sudden exit from the Broadway revival of “Speed-the-Plow,” a panel of producers and Actors’ Equity members could not come to a consensus regarding the actor’s controversial departure. Held Thursday afternoon at the Equity offices, the hearing ended without any decision handed down. Producers can, if they choose, move on to arbitration with an independent arbiter. Jeffrey Richards, one of the lead producers of “Speed,” would not comment on whether the team plans to take that next step. Piven abruptly jumped ship from “Speed” in December, citing medical concerns about dangerously high levels of mercury in his body. The claim raised eyebrows among many legiters, who gossiped that the nightlife-loving thesp was unhappy with his Rialto gig. 

• The SAG stalemate is here to stay for at least a few more weeks, as it’s unlikely that either side is going to budge on the issue of when the feature-primetime contract expires. Any hopes for a quick back-channel solution to the impasse have faded in the wake of the decision by the national board of the Screen Actors Guild to reject the “last, best, final” offer from the majors. The guild has signaled it’s willing to accept that offer except that it’s also insisting that the deal must expire on June 30, 2011 — three years after its current contract expired — because it needs to remain aligned with the WGA, AFTRA and DGA expirations. The majors are saying the deal has to last a full three years from ratification, taking the expiration to at least March 2012, because all of its contracts run three years and it needs the guarantee of as much labor peace as possible. 

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://www.audiolife.com/

Musicians have loads of options with which to sell their music and merchandise online. If you’re Radiohead, you can afford to give your music away for whatever fans feel like paying and you’ll get enough returns to pay the bills. But what about up and coming bands? This new site has the right idea. The site offers tools to build an online storefront for digital tracks, hard copy CDs, ringtones and other goodies that exists as an embeddable widget. So instead of trying to drive traffic to a yet another site, artists can sell directly from their MySpace page or existing site. The software handles credit card transactions in a variety of currencies and Audiolife takes a cut of everything it sells, including $5.49 for every CD and $3 for every digital album sold. Two other big plusses are that there is no-up front costs and artists maintain the rights to their music. The hard copy CD printings are also a big draw, as you can order small batches for just $4 per CD plus a small fee; until now small bands have typically had to order printings of 1,000 or more. That’s a lot of left over Christmas presents. 

SOURCES:

www.variety.com

www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.cynopsis.com

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000631.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000635.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000637.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.riskybusinessblog.com/2009/02/next-friday-the-13th-in-the-works.html

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ib52b2c5e694dca5a8038256c0879d809

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000632.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib4ab512be78d97094525ba6aab860d88

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3ib4ab512be78d97093bc8be53ea48e9bd

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000643.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000625.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000638.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/02/fox-renews-simpsons.html

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3ib4ab512be78d97092205055f32ea4bec

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000624.html?categoryId=30&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000627.html?categoryId=1066&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000642.html?categoryId=18&cs=1

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• Ed Helms is branching out from “The Office,” setting up an untitled Civil War feature with Warner Bros., with castmate Steve Carell producing through his Warner-based Carousel banner. Helms will star in the project, which is based on a pitch from Helms and scripting partner Jake Fleisher. The duo will write the script with details of the story staying under wraps. Helms would play a civil war re-enacter, someone who is obsessive about historical precision – stitch count in a coat, buttons from the period, proper speech, etc. He and three other guys (two fellow re-enacters and an African-American professor of history who is protesting the event) are accidentally transported back in time and awaken in the actual civil war. Once there, they have to find their way home without altering history or permanently breaking America in half. 

• Jerry Seinfeld is returning to network series television after an 11-year hiatus as creator and exec producer of an NBC reality series that seeks to mine laughs out of marriage problems. The comedian and his Columbus 81 Prods. are teaming with longtime “Oprah Winfrey Show” exec producer Ellen Rakieten to create “The Marriage Ref,” a nonfiction series that will feature opinionated celebrities, comedians and sports stars offering commentary and advice to real-life couples enduring “classic marital disputes.” 

• Eliza Dushku, star of Fox’s frosh series “Dollhouse,” is bringing a biopic on iconic photographer Robert Mapplethorpe to the bigscreen. Dushku has secured the exclusive rights and the full cooperation from Mapplethorpe’s estate and has enlisted two-time Sundance grand jury prize winner and indie darling Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”) to helm the film, which is titled “The Perfect Moment.” Pic will chronicle Mapplethorpe’s career from his rise to fame in the 1970s for his portraits of socialites and rock stars until his death in 1989 at age 42 from complications arising from AIDS. 

• Warner Bros. is going on a suicide mission, setting up the DC Comics property “Suicide Squad” for Dan Lin (“Sherlock Holmes”) to produce as a potential franchise. Justin Marks (“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “Hack/Slash,” “Street Fighter”) is penning the screenplay, which will feature a mix of well-known and unknown comic villains recruited by the government to accomplish a task deemed too dangerous for superheroes. The historically independent operators must bury their own interpersonal conflicts and agendas to form a cohesive unit to take on a singular task. 

• “The NeverEnding Story” might keep going. Warner Bros. and a pair of top-tier production banners are in the early stages of a reboot of the 1980s children’s fantasy classic. The Kennedy/Marshall Co. (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) and Leonard DiCaprio’s shingle Appian Way are in discussions with Warners about reviving the 25-year-old franchise with a modern spin. The studio recently acquired rights to the property, clearing the way for a potential remake. Born out of a German-language novel by Michael Ende, the film centers on a boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux who discovers a parallel world in a book titled “The NeverEnding Story.” As the boy, a loner, delves deeper into the book, he increasingly finds his life intertwined with the plot of the novel, in which a hero in the land of Fantasia must save the universe on behalf of an empress. 

• “Total Recall” is totally coming back. Neal H. Moritz and his Original Films banner are in final negotiations to develop and produce for Columbia a contemporary version of “Total Recall,” the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi action movie directed by Paul Verhoeven. The original, based on the Philip K. Dick story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” follows a man haunted by a recurring dream of journeying to Mars who buys a literal dream vacation from a company called Rekall Inc., which sells implanted memories. The man comes to believe he is a secret agent and ends up on a Martian colony, where he fights to overthrow a despotic ruler controlling the production of air. 

PROJECT UPDATES

• Peter Baynham has been set by Warner Bros. to write “Arthur,” a remake of the 1981 comedy that is being crafted as a vehicle for Russell Brand to play the lovable lush. Baynham was one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s screenwriting cohorts on “Borat,” and he collaborated with Baron Cohen once again on the upcoming “Bruno.” 

• Cate Blanchett will play Maid Marian alongside Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood in the Ridley Scott-directed adventure pic for Universal Pictures. The film, which had been called “Nottingham” but is undergoing a title change, begins production in early April. Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer is producing with Scott and his Scott Free banner. The drama, originally scripted by Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris and then rewritten by Brian Helgeland, has evolved into a “Gladiator” version of the Robin Hood legend. Crowe starred in that film and Scott directed it. 

• Fox’s comedy pilot “Walorsky” has been pushed to June after difficulties casting the lead.  The project, from 20th and American Work, is in the tone of “Bad Santa” and revolves around an ex-cop-turned-security guard who patrols a mall in Buffalo. His life is centered on Buffalo sports and doing the least amount of work possible. But when he is assigned a young idiot partner, he is forced to grudgingly get involved with the people whom he is assigned to protect. 

• Film actor Derek Luke is making his foray into television with a starring role on NBC’s drama pilot “Trauma.” Kevin Rankin also is set and Cliff Curtis and Jamey Sheridan are in negotiations to join him on the UMS-produced project, a medical procedural about a team of EMTs. 

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

• Oscilloscope Laboratories, a Gotham-based recording studio, film production studio and distrib, has acquired North American distribution rights to helmer Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s Oscar-nommed docu, “The Garden.” Pic tells the story of a political and social battle between corporate builders and local community members for the largest community garden in the U.S., located in South Central L.A.

BUSINESS NEWS

• Samuel L. Jackson has buried the hatchet with Marvel Entertainment, making a deal to play the role of Nick Fury in “Iron Man 2,” and potentially many other films. Jackson’s deal is a long-term commitment to play Fury, the leader of the espionage unit the Shield. His deal contains an option to play the character in nine future Marvel superhero films, efforts that are expected to include “Captain America,” “Thor,” “The Avengers” and “The Shield” as well as potential sequels. Jackson introduced Fury in the closing moments of “Iron Man,” when the character asked Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark to join his group. Fury is a natural to show up in multiple Marvel franchises, as he crosses paths with many Marvel superheroes in the comicbooks. 

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

• In a move that imposes eligibility rules on the WGA East membership, leaders of the WGA West and the WGA East have reached agreement on joint standards for voting on nationwide issues such as strike authorizations. Details of the new standards were not immediately available, but the general thrust will be to impose work requirements on WGA East members. 

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://www.storyz.com/

Here’s a new communication service that has figured out both a business model and a multiplatform strategy right out of the gate. This new viral user generated content site allows users to communicate with friends using text, video and photos to enhance their messages. It launches with integrations with Facebook and the iPhone but embeddable widgets and a variety of other mobile integrations including Blackberry and Android are on the way, says StoryZ head of Business Development JT Klepp. The key here is combining social directories with the digital tool that’s always with you; the iPhone app is very well done and it may be an early secret to its success if it can reach a critical mass. Being able to send photo messages to anyone on your friends list is a compelling offering that should interest marketers, who can involve the community with simple challenges that go out as branded viral messages. 

SOURCES:

www.variety.com

www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.cynopsis.com

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000591.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000589.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000588.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000590.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iaeb1c24de37000ac186136f58da40dfc

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i205e36d6d97550537a3dcb5babb90fda

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000596.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000559.html?categoryId=1970&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i205e36d6d97550535547b9168cd6821e

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i205e36d6d9755053c443dd6ae8212469

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000587.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000573.html?categoryId=1350&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000594.html?categoryId=1066&cs=1

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures is remaking a pair of European horror films. First up is “Anguish,” a remake of the 1987 Spanish pic that was written and directed by Bigas Luna, which follows two girls who, while watching a scary movie, find themselves in a horror film of their own when their life starts to mirror the pic’s plot. Next is “Room 205.” Ghost House has tapped the original’s  director, Martin Barnewitz, to helm the English-language remake, which is being redubbed “The Dorm.” Story centers on a college freshman who moves into a dorm only to find that her room is haunted by sinister forces. 

• Kevin James, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade are in negotiations to star in an untitled comedy for Columbia Pictures. Frequent Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan (“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”) will helm, with the studio gearing up for a summer start date. Sandler’s Sony-based Happy Madison shingle, which recently teamed with James and the studio on the box office hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” is producing. Sandler penned the screenplay with “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star” scribe Fred Wolf. High-concept story is a comedy about five best friends from high school who reunite 30 years later on a Fourth of July weekend. 

• Woody Allen has set Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins to star in the film he wrote and will shoot in London this summer. Brolin and Hopkins are the first in an ensemble cast. As usual, Allen is keeping title and plot under wraps. 

• Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Films have acquired the comedy pitch “How Could You Do This to Me?” Project will be developed as a potential star vehicle for Miranda Cosgrove, who stars on the popular Nickelodeon series “iCarly” and “Drake and Josh.” Andy Marx and Andrea King will write the script. Cosgrove will play a teen who feels that the divorce of her parents has improved her life. When mom and dad appear to be rekindling sparks, their daughter feels threatened and tries to break them up. 

• “The Departed” scribe William Monahan is behind another crime tale, this one as the director. Monahan has teamed with producer Quentin Curtis to acquire “The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Thief, Rock-and-Roller and Prodigal Son,” the forthcoming memoirs of career criminal Myles Connor. Co-written with Jenny Siler, the book will be published in April by Collins. Connor became an art connoisseur and a rock musician whose band, Myles and the Wild Ones, backed Roy Orbison. He was also an accomplished art and antiques thief who was involved in a series of museum robberies that grabbed headlines in Boston in the 1970s and 1980s. It is unclear if Monahan will write the script, but he intends to direct the film. 

PROJECT UPDATES

• Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media is in talks to board Focus Features’ “The Attack.” Project is an adaptation of Algerian writer Yasmina Khadra’s book about an affluent Palestinian doctor working in an Israeli hospital whose life is turned upside down when he discovers his wife may have become a suicide bomber. Lebanese helmer Ziad Doueiri is attached to direct the hot-button issue pic. Doueiri has also written the script, which he has been developing with Focus for several months. 

• Sam Rockwell has joined Hilary Swank in “Betty Anne Waters,” a legal drama that Tony Goldwyn is directing for Omega Entertainment. Minnie Driver also has a role in the movie. The film is based on the true story of Waters (Swank), an unemployed single mother who saw her brother convicted for a murder-robbery in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison. Convinced of his innocence, she spent the next decade earning a law degree and working on her brother’s case. Rockwell plays the brother. Richard LaGravenese wrote the most recent draft. Pamela Gray penned the original script. 

• Mark Valley has been tapped as the lead in Fox’s drama pilot “Human Target” for director Simon West, while Kathryn Hahn has been tapped to star in Fox’s comedy pilot “Absolutely Fabulous.” “Target,” from WBTV, DC Comics and McG’s Wonderland, is based on the DC Comics title and centers on Christopher Chance (Valley), a mysterious security freelancer who assumes the identities of those in danger, becoming the “human target” for his clients. “Ab Fab,” from Sony, BBC Worldwide and Tantamount, is based on the British series and centers on best friends Eddie (Hahn) and Patsy (Kristen Johnston), two immature, trend-obsessed, booze-swilling middle-aged women clinging to their youth. 

• Zachary Levi, star of the NBC action comedy series “Chuck,” has been cast opposite the computer-generated singing rodents of “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.” Betty Thomas is directing the follow-up to Fox 2000 and Regency’s 2007 hit “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” which grossed $217 million in North America. Levi will play the cousin of Jason Lee’s character and gets tangled up with the tiny animated threesome. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney again will provide the chipmunks’ voices. 

BUSINESS NEWS

• Showtime’s series about a women with multiple personalities is getting a second season. The pay cabler has ordered 12 new episodes of “United States of Tara,” which is set to go back into production this summer and kick off its second campaign early in 2010 with its entire first-season cast intact.

• The green light is on for “Lights Out” at FX. Tuesday was a busy day at cable network. After the pilot pickup of “Lights,” FX ordered another pilot, a Graham Yost-penned drama, late in the day. “Lights,” from “The Bucket List” writer Justin Zackham and Phillip Noyce, and the Yost project, based on an Elmore Leonard short story, mark the first pilot orders for FX since “Sons of Anarchy” got the nod in October 2007. “Lights,” a drama from Fox TV Studios and FX Prods., centers on an aging former heavyweight boxing champion who struggles to find his identity and support his wife and three daughters after his fighting days, leading him to accept reluctantly a job as an enforcer collecting debts. He is diagnosed with pugilistic dementia, a neurological disorder that affects boxers who receive multiple blows to the head, which gradually will lead to him losing all of his memories. The Yost project, from Sony TV and Timberman/Beverly Prods., is based on Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole.” It centers on Kentucky-based U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens — a tough, soft-spoken lawman with a rough side — and chronicles his cases and personal life, including unfinished business with an ex-wife and his aging father. 

INDUSTRY MOVES

• Bill McGoldrick, the architect behind Spike TV’s burgeoning scripted series slate, has been upped to senior VP of development. McGoldrick has overseen the development of scripted originals for the MTV Networks cabler since the 2007 departure of Pancho Mansfield. Sharon Levy, senior VP of factual entertainment, oversees Spike’s nonscripted slate.

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

• The Screen Actors Guild and the congloms will resume feature-primetime contract talks Feb. 17 – but with president Alan Rosenberg’s lawsuit threatening to derail any deal. SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers made a bare-bones joint announcement Tuesday saying they had agreed to meet on Feb. 17 and 18 at the AMPTP offices in Sherman Oaks. “We will have no further comment about the meeting,” the orgs said. Rosenberg’s attorney Eric George also notified the AMPTP on Tuesday that the SAG national board’s recent votes to fire exec director Doug Allen and eliminate the negotiating committee – for a second time – are not legally binding. On Friday, George warned the AMPTP that any deal it reaches with SAG may be “null and void, without force of law and not binding on the artists represented by SAG.” The AMPTP had no comment. 

TECHNOLOGY/MULTI-PLATFORM CONTENT

• Snoop Dogg has inked a multiplatform deal with MTV that involves a variety show, a new album and inclusion in the “Rock Band” vidgame franchise. The multihyphenate will host the weekly “Dogg After Dark,” which will be shot from Hollywood hotspot The Kress and feature celebrity interviews, sketch comedy and musical performances. MTV plans to run the show for seven consecutive Tuesdays starting Feb. 17 at 9 p.m. Variety show is the second Snoop Dogg has emceed for MTV following 2002′s short-lived “Doggy Fizzle Televizzle.” Rapper’s pact with the music cabler will also include distribution and promotional ties to his upcoming album release “Malice in Wonderland.” Snoop Dogg’s music catalog will also be made available to MTV’s “Rock Band” music-based vidgame franchise. 

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp

Now for some news that may push the ARod juicing story off the sports pages for a day. (O.K., maybe not.) Major League Baseball’s video portal, which has been at the forefront of live streaming for years, will make a number of new improvements to its site this year, per the NYTimes. Upgrades include offering games in HD for the first time powered by Swarmcast; adding DVR capabilities; and including an audio synch feature that allows users to listen to their favorite radio announcers while streaming the games. (For instance, this means Red Sox fans can listen to Joe Castiglione instead of NESN play-by-play man Don Orsillo, who studied broadcasting under Joe at Northeastern.) MLB.com will also extend audio broadcasts to its iPhone and BlackBerry apps allowing users listen to games directly from their cell phone for a minimum yearly fee. While 500,000 fans paid $120 last season to subscribe to the video package of out-of-market games, MLB.com is trying to cut fans a break this year reducing the price to $110 and offering a lower-res basic package for $80. The company also announced partnerships with ESPN and NHL.com yesterday bundling more than 100 Spring Training games and the first two rounds of the World Baseball Classic with access to ESPN Insider or streaming rights to the remainder of the NHL games this season. Expect to see more such consumer-focused partnerships from major content providers this year as publishers work to push beyond the early adopter phase. 

SOURCES:

www.variety.com

www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.cynopsis.com

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999955.html?categoryId=19&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999951.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999947.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999942.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999941.html?categoryId=2431&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999913.html?categoryId=1061&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i435ae21676ac9670dbd46367b444ef7f

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i435ae21676ac9670826282bd7869f70d

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i435ae21676ac96704972420805c697cd

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999931.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/television/news/e3i435ae21676ac9670756af13e10cfc110

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999953.html?categoryId=18&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999923.html?categoryId=1066&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999938.html?categoryId=16&cs=1

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• Dirk Blackman and Howard McCain have been hired to adapt the Red 5 comic “ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction” for Benderspink. The comic, created by Kevin Grevioux (“Underworld”), follows an elite team of soldiers sent on a covert operation into hostile territory in the Middle East to stop what they soon discover to be a government-created army of the undead. Benderspink’s Jake Weiner and Josh Feldman are overseeing the project. 

• NBC has given a cast-contingent greenlight to an ensemble comedy from scribe Chris Moynihan about a young woman navigating dating life in Gotham. Multicamera project dubbed “100 Questions for Charlotte Payne” hails from Universal Media Studios and Tagline Entertainment. 

• Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani rape victim who waged a legal battle against her attackers and the justice system that sanctioned the crime, will be the subject of a feature film to be produced by Jay Roach and Jennifer Perini. Pic will be written and helmed by “City of God” co-director Katia Lund. When her young brother went before a council of tribal elders after he was accused of being seen with a girl from a rival tribe, Mai pleaded for his release. They spared him — but ordered that she be gang-raped in public to shame her family. While most victims of this authorized crime commit suicide rather than exist as a pariah, Mai fought back. She took her case to Pakistani authorities, and her ordeal drew international attention through press attention and particularly stories written by New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof, who may become a character in the film. The press attention shamed the government into prosecuting her attackers, and Mai emerged as a galvanizing figure in a crusade to reform women’s rights in a male-dominated culture. 

• In a six-figure spec package deal, Universal Pictures has acquired the Spencer Quinn novel “Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery,” with “Hotel for Dogs” scribe Jeff Lowell set to write the script. Published by Simon & Schuster, the book is the story of a down-on-his-luck private eye who sets off, accompanied by his loyal dog, to solve a missing persons case. The story is told from the vantage point of Chet, a dog that flunked out of K-9 school. 

• Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures have acquired “Conviction,” a spec script by tyro scribe Jonathan Herman. Deal was for low six figures. Story follows a mastermind bank robber who serves five years in prison following a botched heist. He is forced by an FBI agent to entrap his protege, who’s in the midst of a multimillion-dollar job. 

PROJECT UPDATES

• Ed O’Neill is returning to comedy series. The “Married With Children” alum has been tapped to star in the ABC half-hour pilot “An American Family,” which also has cast Eric Stonestreet. The single-camera project, from 20th TV, revolves around three families: a traditional one; another that includes a 60-year-old man (O’Neill) who becomes a stepfather after marrying a Latina (Sofia Vergara) who is 30 years his junior; and the third, a gay couple (Stonestreet, Jesse Tyler Ferguson) who have adopted a Vietnamese baby. 

• Jim Sturgess, Geoffrey Rush, Rachael Taylor, and David Wenham have joined the voice cast of animated project “Guardians of Ga’Hoole” for Village Roadshow and Animal Logic. Zack Snyder is directing the film, currently shooting in Australia. Warner Bros. is distributing. “Guardians of Ga’hoole” is based on the first three installments of Kathryn Lasky’s children’s book series, centered on a young barn owl and his friends as they escape a band of rogue owls. 

• John Krasinski is set to join Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin in the untitled comedy to be directed by Nancy Meyers in the spring for Universal Pictures. Meyers wrote the script and will produce with Scott Rudin. 

• Greta Gerwig is getting into “Greenberg.” The indie star has landed the lead role opposite Ben Stiller in the latest Noah Baumbach relationship dramedy. Baumbach, best known for the Oscar-nominated intergenerational divorce saga “The Squid and the Whale,” is writing and directing the film. The project’s logline is being kept under wraps, but it is expected to be set in L.A. and center on relationship intimacies in the manner of past Baumbach pictures. Scott Rudin will produce “Greenberg” and Focus Features will finance and distribute; the specialty division had been in talks to board the project. Shooting is expected to begin in March, with Stiller officially on board. 

BUSINESS NEWS

• Spike TV has greenlit half-hour comedy “Players” from former “Upright Citizens Brigade” regular Matt Walsh. Walsh, who created the show and will exec produce, will also star as a fun-loving dude who owns a sports bar with his uptight brother (played by Ian Roberts). The guy-oriented MTV Networks cabler has ordered 10 episodes of the series, which goes into production in Los Angeles this month and is set for a summer premiere. 

• MyNetwork TV is moving away from the network TV business. Fox’s three-year-old broadcast unit announced Monday that it will adopt what it calls a “programming service model” for next fall. The strategy will call for reduced original programming and will feature a two-hour offnet block of “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” and a movie night. The plan will also reduce MyNetwork’s programming commitment to 10 hours a week from 12 hours and leave its 180 affiliates responsible for programming Saturday nights. 

• Disney has officially added DreamWorks to its Magic Kingdom. The Mouse House inked an exclusive long-term distribution pact with DreamWorks over the weekend. Accord will add six more pics to Disney’s release schedule beginning in 2010 and pairs Steven Spielberg with the family-friendly studio. Studio’s annual output will now grow to 20 pics per year — a dramatic departure from its cost-cutting strategy, instituted in 2006 to reduce its overall annual slate to some 12-15 films. Under terms of the new deal, Disney will handle distribution and marketing for DreamWorks’ titles through its Touchstone banner, collecting 8% of the gross of each pic. 

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

• Doug Allen’s not going away quietly. With SAG heading back into feature-primetime negotiations next week without Allen, the twice-ousted guild topper has blasted those who fired him as part of an impassioned defense of president Alan Rosenberg. The moderate majority of the SAG national board booted Allen out for what they perceived as intransigence in being overly beholden to Rosenberg’s Membership First faction and for bungling the negotiations, leaving SAG without a contract since June. In response to Allen’s letter, board member and former New York SAG president Paul Christie expressed no rancor. 

• Representatives of SAG and the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers are expected Tuesday to announce the resumption of their film and TV contract talks, most likely on Feb. 17. On Monday, a group of below-the-line workers staged a rally outside SAG headquarters in Los Angeles. Several dozen members of a group called Let’s Get Back to Work urged the guild to resume stalled film and TV contract talks and called for a speedy resolution of the negotiations impasse. They were joined for a while by SAG members connected to the MembershipFirst group, carrying placards demanding a fair deal from the AMPTP. SAG members have been without a contract since June 30, and the possibility of an actors strike has slowed film production. SAG and AMPTP negotiators haven’t met since November. 

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://ocarina.smule.com/

One of the more creative iPhone apps we’ve seen is this one from Sonic Mule, a musical instrument simulation that utilizes all of the phone’s tools to astounding results. Like the ancient wind instrument it is named after, Ocarina produces sounds by having users cover holes on the screen with their fingers then blow into the mike. Tilt the phone to create different ethereal effects. One of the coolest things about it is its social networking aspect – tap on the globe at the bottom of the screen to find other users around the world using the app at that exact moment in time. Who knew the iPhone could make such beautiful music?

SOURCES:

www.variety.com

www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.cynopsis.com

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib2336cb7507211a24e5788859e03292e

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999889.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999858.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999853.html?categoryId=1970&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999843.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ib2336cb7507211a2f0c1b334c225cde2

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999886.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999851.html?categoryId=1970&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i423339706237af10a72d46e25efc3d67

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999861.html?categoryId=1300&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999876.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999836.html?categoryId=13&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999868.html?categoryId=1066&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i423339706237af10addd17570cce8201

BOX OFFICE

Weekend Estimate  

February 6-8, 2009 (*millions)

FILM GROSS

1       He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)   $27.5M  

2       Taken (2008/I)   $20.3M  

3       Coraline (2009)   $16.3M  

4       The Pink Panther 2 (2009)   $12M  

5       Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009)   $11M  

6       Push (2009/II)   $10.2M  

7       Slumdog Millionaire (2008)   $7.4M  

8       Gran Torino (2008)   $7.24M  

9       The Uninvited (2009)   $6.4M  

10       Hotel for Dogs (2009)   $5.82M 

PROJECTS ANNOUNCED

• Jennifer Lopez has signed to produce a remake of Argentina’s hit teen telenovela format “Rebelde Way” (The Rebels) for Fox, which has Stateside rights. Lopez and Simon Fields will produce under their Nuyorican Prods. banner, based on a screenplay adapted by Duane Adler (“Save the Last Dance,” “Step Up”). “Rebels,” about a pop band made up of teens who go to an elite private high school, has sold in its original form to more than 40 countries and for remakes to Mexico, Chile, India and Portugal. 

• Ralph Fiennes is making his directorial debut with a feature adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Roman tragedy “Coriolanus.” Shakespeare’s play, set in the early years of the Roman Republic, is one of his most politically challenging examinations of the way power corrupts. Fiennes will also play the title role of the proud but contemptuous soldier spurred on by his ambitious mother to run for the Roman Senate, which ultimately leads to his downfall. Vanessa Redgrave is in talks to play the part of Coriolanus’ mother Volumnia. 

• “Walk the Line” helmer James Mangold is attached to direct an untitled legal thriller for L.A.-based production and finance shingle Bold Films. Mangold’s wife, Cathy Konrad, is producing through their Treeline Films banner. The script is based on the true story of a pair of New Orleans lawyer brothers who took on a multinational oil company and its heavyweight legal teams to rep the rights of the families of an oil rig that sank in a typhoon. 

• The fallout between DreamWorks and Universal isn’t stopping Reliance Big Entertainment from flexing its dealmaking muscle. The Indian media conglom has acquired Rob Liefeld’s iconic graphic novel “Youngblood” for Brett Ratner to direct. Reliance inked a development deal with Ratner’s shingle Rat Entertainment, as well as Julia Roberts’ Red Om Films, during the Berlin film fest. The company paid mid six figures for the rights to “Youngblood,” about a superhero team sanctioned and overseen by the U.S. government. 

PROJECT UPDATES

• Mickey Rourke is going from taking hits in the ring to doling out hits himself. The Oscar nominee for “The Wrestler” is set to star in “St. Vincent” for Occupant Films and Secret Handshake Entertainment.  He’ll play a hit man who returns to New York to complete a botched hit. Masquerading as a priest, he finds himself hearing the confession of the man who he is targetting. Walter Hill, who directed Rourke in the 1989 gangster tale “Johnny Handsome,” is helming the project, based on an original script by Cameron Young. 

• Gemma Arterton, Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston will headline the cast of contemporary kidnap thriller “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” backed by the Isle of Man’s CinemaNX production and finance banner. The film, which begins shooting Monday on the Isle of Man, marks the directorial debut of writer and short filmmaker J Blakeson, who co-wrote “The Descent 2″ for Celador. “Creed” tells the tale of two kidnappers (Marsan and Compston) who carry out an immaculately planned kidnap after targeting rich girl Arterton. But things quickly unravel as the scheme plays out, with all three characters revealing an agenda that ends in a tense power play of greed, love, sex and violence.

ACQUISITIONS/FESTIVAL NEWS

• The 14^th annual Gen Art Film Festival announced that Derick and Steve Martini’s Lymelife will open the 2009 festival on April 1. Executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Leonard Loventhal and starring Alec Baldwin, Cynthia Nixon, Jill Hennessy, Emma Roberts, Kieran Culkin, Rory Culkin, and Timothy Hutton, Lymelife world-premiered at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival, where it received the coveted Prize of International Critics Award and had its U.S. debut at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. The GAFF opening will serve as the official New York premiere and will kick-off Lymelife’s theatrical release. 

BUSINESS NEWS

• It was a busy Friday at the Eye, which picked up five pilots — including a new medical drama from Jerry Bruckheimer. NBC, meanwhile, also greenlighted another comedy pilot late Friday, “State of Romance.” At CBS, the pilots included Bruckheimer’s “Miami Trauma,” as well as the dramas “Three Rivers” and “The Good Wife,” and comedies “Accidentally on Purpose” and “Waiting to Die.” Medical drama centers on a team of trauma surgeons saving critically injured patients in Miami. Trauma units are big this pilot season: NBC previously greenlighted the pilot “Trauma.” “Three Rivers” also centers on the medical world, this time about organ transplants through the eyes of doctors, donors and recipients. “The Good Wife” focuses on a politician’s wife who carves out her own niche as a defense attorney. “Waiting to Die” is a buddy comedy about two easy-going guys, while “Accidentally on Purpose” is based on the autobiographical novel by Mary F. Pols about a San Francisco movie critic who has a fling with a younger man — and accidentally becomes pregnant. 

INDUSTRY MOVES

• Katherine Pope, former prexy of NBC Universal’s TV studio, has signed on to the Fox drama “Lie to Me” as a consulting producer. Pope will work on the final four segs of the Tim Roth starrer’s initial 13-seg order. “Lie to Me,” which stars Tim Roth as a behavioral expert and criminal investigator who can tell when people are lying, hails from 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine TV. 

STRIKE NEWS/LABOR ISSUES

• It’s happened again. SAG leaders, in the latest twist in the guild’s extraordinary drama, have set the stage for resuming contract talks with the majors by again firing topper Doug Allen and booting out the feature-primetime negotiating committee in favor of a task force. The moderate majority of the national board of the Screen Actors Guild approved Sunday — for the second time in as many weeks — a resolution to take those actions, which are also aimed at removing the basis for president Alan Rosenberg’s recent lawsuit against SAG and the 41 members who had supported the measure two weeks ago. Sunday’s move is likely to re-launch feature-primetime negotiations as early as Feb. 17 after Rosenberg’s stunning legal challenge put those talks on hold last week. SAG’s feature-primetime contract expired June 30 and the last set of negotiations took place in November. 

WEBSITE TO WATCH

http://www.hulu.com/widgets

Netflix, which announced last week that 1 million Xbox users have downloaded and activated its Watch Instantly streaming service and watched 1.5 billion minutes of video since November, has been busy building plug-and-play integrations to allow users to port digital downloads to their televisions. What about Hulu? This widget gallery makes it easy to export shows to other web environments but exporting Hulu content to the big screen is more of a challenge. Software solution PlayOn is one way to do it, a simple plug in that allows you to watch Hulu, Netflix, CBS, YouTube and other content via a PS3, Xbox 360, HP MediaSmart device and soon a Wii. It is currently priced at $29.99 but the company says the price will go up to $39.99 after Feb. 8. Media Server company ReQuest, updated their whole house Intelligent Media Client last week adding the ability to stream content from Hulu. ReQuest’s IMC acts as a flexible hub with an intuitive interface bringing DVD movies, music, photos, online streaming content and informational widgets to your big set. But it costs about $2500 suggested retail. That buys a lot of a la carte purchases through your Apple TV. 

SOURCES:

www.variety.com

www.hollywoodreporter.com

www.cynopsis.com

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999755.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999729.html?categoryId=2476&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999789.html?categoryId=1061&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999799.html?categoryId=1061&cs=1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i4922a47daed814db90f9d297706e59c1

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i4922a47daed814dbd99e11fdacf6eb2a

http://genart.org/

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999752.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999783.html?categoryId=14&cs=1

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117999805.html?categoryId=18&cs=1