Gawker: defamer, billy crystal

Bruce Willis to Put Shyamalan Lessons To Use in Directorial Debut

STV — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:05:00 EDT

· Returning to his Blind Date/Hudson Hawk roots as a sensitive, almost Bergmanesque observer of angst and insecurity, Bruce Willis will make his directorial debut and star in the "indie psychological drama" Three Stories About Joan. And if you still harbor doubt about the film's chamber-drama cred, 10,000 B.C. star Camilla Belle is attached to star. [Variety]
· Lifetime outbid six other networks for the rerun rights to How I Met Your Mother, which execs are reportedly considering spinning off with the Lifetime original series How I Survived Your Father Knocking Me Up at 15. [THR]

After the jump: Ben Affleck loses his job, Billy Crystal reclaims his own, and the world contemplates another Star Wars movie.

· Ben Affleck is in talks to star as a downsized corporate hack in Company Men, which we're told calls for a second male lead as well. Matt Damon casting bets are currently paying 2:3. [THR]
· After a six-year hiatus, Billy Crystal will return to the big screen opposite Dwayne Johnson in Tooth Fairy. [Variety]
· On the heels of Capote the Hutt, would George Lucas dare to adapt the new Star Wars video game as an animated feature? On second thought, please don't answer that. [Hero Complex]
· CBS and ABC were up, Heroes was down on the fall TV season's opening night. [Variety]
· Sony is keeping the plot for its newly optioned feature White Dad "under wraps." Meanwhile, the aggressively quick thinkers at Lifetime are angling for a Latino Babysitter MOW sequel as we speak. [THR]

Short Ends: Stern's First F'Ing Day On Satellite

Mark — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 20:55:46 EST

· FamilyMediaGuide.com, online home to the naughtiness measuring Howard Stern Shockulator, tallied 68 f-bombs, 34 assholes, 17 cocks, and 10 cunts in Stern's first day on the job at Sirius. Eh, that shouldn't be too hard to top by the end of the week.
· Just so that you know, Billy Crystal says he was offered the Oscar hosting gig before Jon Stewart. He'd hate for you to think that the Academy got its first choice.
· Brad Pitt does sort of look like a monkey, though they probably could've dug up more compelling photo pairs if they spent a couple of more minutes on searching images on Google.
· While we languish at our regular keyboard all day, our buddies at Jalopnik are running amok at the Detroit Auto Show, and Fleshbot is recovering from a weekend at the AVN pornopalooza in Vegas.
· We just can't believe in any edgy writers anymore, can we? Tomorrow's news will probably unmask Dana Delaney as the true author of Bruce Wagner's novels.
· And is Macaulay Culkin writing his own books? God, we hope so.

Trade Round-Up: Rupert Murdoch Prepares To Adopt New Son

Mark — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 14:24:23 EDT

· Fox News head Roger Ailes is the most likely candidate for "The Son Rupert Murdoch Never Had," and might replace dead-to-him-now offspring Lachlan as chairman of Fox Television Stations Group. They're going to look a little funny running the three-legged race at the News Corp father-son picnic, but Lachlan was always a liability anyway. [Variety]
· Also, Lachlan Murdoch's golden parachute will likely be in the millions of dollars, and his two-year noncompete clause will leave him with little to do but build money-castles on an Australian beach. [THR]
· That harmless little joke that Sony played on the world, where they invented a movie critic to provide glowing pullquotes for their movies, costs them $1.5 million in a settlement with fans. At that piddling price, it was totally worth it! [Variety]
· Paramount snaps up the film rights to writer AJ Jacobs's yet-to-be-published nonfiction book, The Year of Living Biblically, in which the author spends a year trying to abide by all of the Bible's dictates. Wacky, unwatchable spiritual sequel to 40 Days and 40 Nights to follow. Do we have to pitch it? "When Andy is caught cheating on his very religious fiance, he offers to prove his love by obeying every rule in the Bible up until their wedding day." We decline to dreamcast Ashton Kutcher at this time. [THR]
· Hollywood Est Hors des Idées: Warner Brothers will remake the French waiter-and-hilarious-consequences-of-averted-suicide comedy Apres Vous with Billy Crystal as the star. [Variety]