· Transitioning into the "paycheck-hungry Oscar-winner playing a dad with a creepy child" phase of his career (see De Niro, Robert and Hide and Seek), Kevin Costner accepts a lead role in the horror flick The New Daughter. A possibly haunted burial ground is involved. [THR]
· Jessica Biel will star in the United Artists of Tom Cruise-produced thriller Die a Little, a project during which the actress will be evaluated for her potential fitness as Katie Holmes' inevitable replacement. Hey, Holmes can't stay young enough to pretend to have his robot babies forever. [Variety]
· Shockingly, Lions for Lambs actor/director Robert Redford is not the Bush Administration's biggest fan. [Variety]

[Image: Shock-O-Rama.com]

· As contract negotiations remain contentious, the studios are instituting a hiring freeze on writers, hoping to make the industry's powerful working scribes remember the days they were as unemployed as most of the WGA's membership. [Variety]
· Chris Pine, whose biggest credit to date was surviving Lindsay Lohan's Just My Luck, finds himself the Next Big Thing, as he's in "discussions" to be J.J. Abrams' Captain Kirk and "negotiations" to join George Clooney in White Jazz. [THR]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Indestructible Cyborgs Edition: Warner Bros. snags the rights to Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, hoping to reboot the franchise with a new storyline that span over three films. Cameron Diaz to star. [Variety]

• Cavemen [ABC.com]
• Previously: Confrontational Caveman Exposes 'The View' Co-Host's Prejudice [Defamer]

· Jon Stewart's Busboy Productions is launching another Daily Show contributor into his own series, producing 6 to 10 episodes of the sketch/variety show Important Things with Demetri Martin for Comedy Central. [THR]
· HBO gets the rights to a just-published book on the infamous Duke lacrosse rape case, material that should produce the feel-good made-for-TV movie of the year. [Variety]

Accordingly, they dispatched a Cro-Magnon ambassador to The View yesterday, who quickly confronted flat-earther co-host Sherri Shepherd for the anti-Neanderthal prejudices that go along with her religious belief s, precisely the kind of shocking bias that ABC's outwardly unevolved protagonists will rail against each week as they try to make their way in a modern society bent on keeping them down.

• The View [ABC.com]
• Previously: Logical Explanations Dept. [Defamer]

• Blackmen [YouTube]

• Star Gazing: Dine Out Edition [Crunk and Disorderly via BWE]
• Previously: The Mystery Of The Gower Gulch Cavemen [Defamer]

But, obviously, this raises some mind-melting questions: Who were these mysterious cavemen? Were they Geico's Cro-Magnons, bitter that their characters were being co-opted by primetime TV, having a little fun with passers-by? Were they auto-insurance-and-network-unaffiliated pranksters with a generous prosthetics budget, just trying to stir up trouble? (That one-episode-to-cancellation crack was harsh.) And more perplexing still: last night, another tipster sent in this photo showing cavemen who seem to match the description of the Gulch crew and a dude with a boom mic, claiming that they were "crashing the Ivy" around 1 p.m. yesterday (about an hour or so before the Gulch encounter), but that backdrop looks decidedly un-Ivy-like to us in its dinginess. Get out of our fucking heads, unevolved demons!

While we don't have any hard answers at the moment, only one thing is certain: We've just spent a lot of time thinking about how Cavemen, coming to ABC on Tuesdays nights this fall, has nothing to do with all that bizarre stuff we just wrote about. But we'll get to the bottom of this, we promise.

[Update: The mystery Cavemen were postivively identified outside The Ivy.]

• Previously: Stumbling Into ABC's Cavemen-On-The-Street Promo [Defamer]

Me: Lunchtime, Gower Gulch, the usual walk-thru. I see a small crowd with some tallish guys with really bad hair, so I assume it's a band getting ready for a local club gig. Boy, are they UGLY. Oh, it's the Geico Cavemen! One is in a blue argyle sweater and the other in a white button-down shirt. They only have a small crew and they look like they're going to ambush people, so I walk thru the parking lot over to the Rite Aid.

One of my coworkers walks by and I said, "Did you see the cavemen?" Having her sunglasses and headset on, she walked by and had no idea. I head to Coffee Bean, and see them walking down the sidewalk. I quickly cross the street. Luckily it seems like they are only keeping it "to the Gulch." On my way back, I see a security guard helping himself at craft service ... which is the back of a minivan.

Then J goes out and immediately gets it.
"So, do you like cavemen?"
J: "Yeah, I like cavemen."
GC #1: "Good, cuz cavemen like you!"
Caveman: "So tune in and watch us."
J: I will.
Caveman #2: Just tune in and catch the one ep before it goes off the air!
J: mm-hmm, (walks away, and gets accosted by a clearance person - oh, the irony - and she refuses to sign.) "Aww, come on, it's a new TV show for ABC!" smartly, she still refused.

Just one episode seems like a depressingly pessimistic outlook, even for a show that's already been extensively retooled. We hope that ABC's Steve McPherson will take immediate measures to lift his cavemen's morale, perhaps by unexpectedly showing up to the set with some special frozen treats for his cast, delivered with a promise that he'll give the series at least four episodes to prove itself before succumbing to panic and replacing it with reruns of According to Jim.

• Previously: Defending 'Cavemen' II: The Racial Insensitivity Question [Defamer]

The show is supposed to explore race relations by the trials and tribulations of the cavemen characters, but some critics say all the "Cavemen" stereotypes—athleticism, sexually prowess, laziness, etc.—remind them of one race's stereotypes in particular. Critics ask the panel if "Cavemen" is actually a show about African Americans.

"We never saw them as a stand in for any one group," says executive producer Josh Gordon.

"It's something we're aware is an issue," added executive producer Mike Schiff, "but it's our job to make sure it doesn't come off that way."

The critics are skeptical. The panel consists of eight white men. Soon the producers are defensively rattling off the ethnicities of various crew members.

"There's three African American directors..."

"And a Latina..."

After several questions on the topic, Schiff suddenly slams the breaks on the entire "'Cavemen' as metaphor for race relations" premise that ABC has touted since first announcing the show; a premise McPherson upheld during his executive session just a couple hours ago.

"Is the show about race relations? No," Schiff says. "Is that a background? Yes. But it's not the driving force."

Although the producers' "some of my best crew members are members of various ethnic groups" defense was certainly clumsy, we think it's fair to ascribe their confusion about the sitcom's "driving force" to the creative growing pains endemic to any fledgling project. We're sure by the time Cavemen rolls into its award-winning, critically acclaimed third season, it will no longer be a series about Neanderthals who seem to struggle against the stereotypes of one race, but will have evolved into a show about people in silly makeup.

• 'Cavemen' About Race, Just Not the One You're Thinking Of [TV Week]

[Sam] Huntington will play a new caveman character, Andy, who is the younger brother of Joel (Bill English). Andy, who lives in their small hometown, comes to Atlanta to visit his brother after breaking up with his girlfriend.

Andy will replace Jamie, Joel's easygoing little bother character played in the pilot by Dash Mihok. [...]

The ABC Studios-produced "Cavemen" will not launch with the pilot but with another yet-to-be-filmed first episode, which is said to be delving more into the cavemen's backstories.

The original pilot (with Jamie's scenes reshot) is expected to air later in the season.

If these panicked changes don't improve Cavemen's focus-group scores, ABC is ready to make still more radical changes that could save their bold primetime experiment. Shooting will begin shortly on an alternate pilot introducing a recurring series element in which the Cro-Magnons depilate themselves at the beginning of each episode to reduce audience discomfort with their unconventional, unevolved appearance, but should that effort not appease fickle viewers, they're also considering merging the series with planned Tuesday night lead-out Carpoolers, incorporating a new character who bores his fellow ride-sharers with stories about how Geico's ultra-low premiums have significantly reduced the stress of his daily commute.

• 'Cavemen' digging deeper [THR]
• Previously: Defamer First Look: 'Cavemen' [Defamer]

We recommend that you immediately drop what you're doing for the next 38 seconds and have a look yourself, for keeping the company of these bickering Neanderthals for even that brief a time will certainly make you realize just how hurtful the casual use of racial epithets can be. If you don't actually laugh at the ugly reflection you're casting in that mirror the cavemen are holding up to Society, well, then perhaps you're just not ready for this kind of next-level social satire.

Bonus funtime: Letting the clip run to its end seamlessly transitions into the preview for Carpoolers, creating the unsettling illusion that the Cro-Magnons have suddenly evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into their equally unfunny sitcom descendants.

• Fall 2007 Pilot Preview: Cavemen [TV Week]

On the comedy side, president Steve McPherson's vaunted "Greenlight 'em all and let God sort 'em out" development strategy has yielded the aforementioned Cavemen, Carpoolers (guys carpooling to work), Sam I Am (Christina Applegate bonked on the head, loses memory, learns she's a bitch), Miss/Guided (guidance counselor goes back to her high school; edgy forward-slash courtesy of Nip/Tuck), and in midseason, Cashmere Mafia (think Sex and the City meets Sex and the City). Also: Did you hear Cavemen is on the schedule? It totally is!

The full Fall schedule follows [via THR, new shows in CAPS]

MONDAY
8-9:30 p.m.: "Dancing with the Stars"
9:30-10 p.m.: "SAM I AM"
10-11 p.m.: "The Bachelor"

TUESDAY
8-8:30 p.m.: "CAVEMEN"
8:30-9 p.m.: "CARPOOLERS"
9-10 p.m.: "Dancing With the Stars" (results show)
10-11 p.m.: "Boston Legal"

WEDNESDAY
8-9 p.m.: "PUSHING DAISES"
9-10 p.m.: "PRIVATE PRACTICE"
10-11 p.m.: "DIRTY SEXY MONEY"

THURSDAY
8-9 p.m.: "Ugly Betty"
9-10 p.m.: "Grey's Anatomy"
10-11 p.m.: "BIG SHOTS"

FRIDAY
8-9 p.m.: "Men in Trees"
9-10 p.m.: "WOMEN'S MURDER CLUB"
10-11 p.m.: "20/20"

SATURDAY
8-11 p.m.: "Saturday Night College Football"

SUNDAY
7-8 p.m.: "America's Funniest Home Videos"
8-9 p.m.: "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"
9-10 p.m.: "Desperate Housewives"
10-11 p.m.: "Brothers & Sisters"

• ABC adds seven dramas, enters 'Private Practice' [THR]
• 'Grey's' spinoff leads ABC schedule [CNN.com]
• Previously: George Lopez Vs. Cavemen [Defamer]