Mark Wahlberg's Boston dream tough guy project The Fighter has finally found its footing. Jilted since Matt Damon, then Brad Pitt, then Darren Aronofsky dropped out, the film has landed on Christian Bale as costar and David O. Russell as director. The movie, about Boston boxing half-brothers Mickey Ward and Dicky Eklund, will begin production in July. Way to go, Wahlby. [Variety]

Screenwriter Jenny Bicks is one busy broad. After slogging through years of Sex and the City she was stationed on Men in Trees, then wrote the Ellen DeGeneres comedy Mother Nature, is doing a rewrite of pilot Washingtonienne, and has now landed a gig writing the pilot for an HBO project called Modern Love, which, yes is based on the New York Times feature. It's Bicks' first time writing a male lead, so wish her luck! Or, don't. Whichever. [Variety]

Here's America: more people watched the Lifetime Movie Network feature Natalee Holloway—about the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba all those years ago and was most likely sold into white slavery—than have ever watched the net in its 11 year history. 3.2 million people, to be exact. Because everyone can relate to having their high school student daughter snatched or murdered or stolen off into the sea while she's on a chaperoned vacation. Either that, or people are just horrible creatures who point and coo at car accidents and search YouTube for footage of plane crashes and homicide investigations. So, congratulations LMN. You've found your stride. Can't wait for the Molly Bish movie. [Variety]

Just when you thought you'd finally seen the last of her, the Starter Grace may be back on your TV screens, shuffle dancing and mugging for your mild delight. Debra Messing may see her new single-camera comedy series picked up by NBC. Seems like a long time ago that Ned and Stacey got canceled, doesn't it? [THR]

Hm, there may be hope for bloodthirsty voyeuristic America yet. Oprah Winfrey has pulled a Columbine-themed episode of her show, saying it focused too much on the perpetrators of the school massacre, rather than their victims. So, that's regular decent of her I guess. Sucks, though, for Dave Cullen, who wrote a new book called Columbine that is apparently quite good, that he plugged on the never-to-air episode. That's like having a million dollars snatched right out of your hand. [THR]

Jena Malone has joined the cast of Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch!, as has the increasingly-busy Jamie from The Real World: San Diego. Evan Rachel Wood and Emma Stone are, unfortunately, out. [THR]

Photo via Bauer-Griffin

Shawn Levy's Date Night is going to be star-studded! Tina Fey and Steve Carell were already on board to play a married couple out on their... um... date... night. But the cast will now include Mark Wahlberg as a buff dude who hits on Fey and James Franco as a low-level crook. Also in the cast are Common, Taraji P. Henson, Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester, and Kristen Wiig. Sheesh. [Variety] Speaking of star-studded. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Sarah Palin will all be memorialized in TV film form by HBO. The cabler has optioned the book Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime. A screenwriter (Charles Leavitt, who wrote Blood Diamond, cause, you know, Obama, Africa) is already attached but only one bit of casting has been announced. Sarah Palin will be played by Velma from Scooby Doo. [Variety, Ryan had some thoughts on this last night]

Fan of prancy, dancy figure skater nymphs? Good news for you then! Grand fashion fop of the skating world Johnny Weir will have his own reality series on Sundance. Be Good Johnny Weir will follow the fantasticat and his posse as they prep for the 2010 Olympics. Evidently launching a bid to become as geigh as Bravo, the net has also picked up The Day Before, about what fashion models do 36 hours before they do the world's hardest job, walking in clothes. [Variety] As if regular TV was even relevant anymore! Online audiences are growing by the bushel. Lost alone had 1.4 million unique online viewers last month. Total online video viewership was up 39% from last March. Remember the internet! [Variety]

Showtime has renewed its soft core period drama The Tudors for a fourth and final season. The series' final arc will follow King Henry Rhys Meyers and the last of his two wives, me and then me wearing a wig. We're all very excited about it. [Variety] Ugh, song of purple bummer. Vastly overrated musical Spring Awakening (gorgeous score, fairly limp everything else) might be getting the film treatment. From none other than prestigious director McG. He of the Charlie's Angels and the soon-to-be-seen SkyNet's Devils. The musical is about German teenagers fucking like a million years ago. They wear knickers. And sing pretty songs. And act very, very self-important. [THR]

Wait, I just said TV might not be relevant, right? I was wrong. Bravo, still number one in gaydom, has greenlit a new series that's like its dearly departed Project Runway, but this time stars... celebrities. Launch My Line will follow a bunch of grasping "famous" people (like Tia Mowry maybe, probably Vivica A. Fox at this point, that guy from your bus this morning, a small child [dwarf?] wearing a sailor's hat) who are trying to launch their own clothing line (think: Kathy Ireland ceiling fans). They'll get help from a professional design type. Dear lord I sort of can't wait. [THR]

Other bits: Book McMafia has been nabbed for a movie adaptation. [THR] The Daily Show has added a new correspondent. [THR] And Simon Cowell might leave American Idol. [EW]

Not too long ago, Guzikowski was like you. Working in marketing, desperately writing screenplays in his spare time. He and his wife Allison, also a filmmaker, had their engagement profiled in the New York Observer—a cute if a bit too hipstery and Brooklyn for most to fully stomach kinda story. ("I love you... on the subway." "I love you... in the rain." Ugh.) Guzikowski has made some short films and was a competition semifinalist with a screenplay called Panacea, about a magical statue.

But now all of that is behind him, and he doesn't need to promote himself via Gotham Writers Workshop-sponsored contests or fawning wedding announcements in local papers anymore. Prisoners, about a vigilante Boston papa looking for his kidnapped daughter and her friend, was much loved in various Hollywood circles, and now all it needs is a director. So young Adam (he's in his mid 30's) is on his way. Maybe he'll become the next Shane Black! Except, you know, without that sad 10 year hiatus.

Movie folk continue to mine the oeuvre of sci-fi meditator Philip K. Dick. The latest movie project "loosely based" on one of his stories will be The Adjustment Bureau, which Matt Damon will star in for Universal. He's got a sweetass 20% first-dollar-gross backend. Not sure what kind of coin Dick's estate is getting at this point, but I'm sure some studio will soon pay handsomely for that box of old grocery lists that's just sitting there up in the attic. [Variety]

Bruce Willis got sued for dropping out of directing and starring in Three Stories About Joan, so now he's doing what any sensible person would do, countersuing. He wants $8.7 million because the producers were apparently sneaky about not exactly having full financing for the picture. [Variety]

Pennywhistle-voiced actor Mark Wahlberg will star in Prisoners, a story about a Boston man who turns crazed vigilante when his daughter and her friend are kidnapped. It's a good thing this movie wasn't just made. [Variety]

As his garage-built time machine just doesn't seem to work, a desperate Andrew McCarthy has found another way to return to the 80's. He'll be playing Brittany Snow's father on the spin-off of Gossip Girl that's set in Los Angeles' glitz rock n' roll days. No word yet on how he plans to sneak Judd Nelson onto the set every day. [THR]

Sex and the City dystopian visionary Darren Star is returning to HBO, with a first-look deal for a new series and an agreement to help shows from other writers along. His new skein will likely be called Doin' It in an Urban Area, about four friends who drink and cry all the time. [THR]

Oh good. A Marmaduke movie. But what does this mean for Steven Soderbergh's Howard Huge? [THR]

TOM CRUISE was having lunch with about 15 other people, including his mom and craaaazy sister. It was a corner table outside. I was inside, just watching so couldn't hear what they said. They all had champagne, but I couldn't tell which kind, Moet I think. He had a salad. I think it's called the MacArthur salad, or something like that. He did not make eye contact with anyone in the restaurant when he left, despite my open staring at him. He did say goodbye or thanks or something to the hostess when he left. He was in all black and didn't look short or anything. I think he looked actually pretty good, sorry. I was super bummed Suri and Katie weren't there.

After Tom left his mom came back to the resaurant with five of the women from the lunch and they had what looked like a business meeting. Scary. HEIDI KLUM and MARK WAHLBERG were also there, at different tables. She was pretty, but mildly boring. JEREMY PIVEN walked in through the restaurant twice, but he didn't stay. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

• Marky Mark Waters the Bushes

1. Max Payne - $18 million
Fresh off his ass-whispering turn on an especially excruciating, Sarah Palin-boosted episode of SNL, it's Mark Wahlberg who's doing most of the laughing today: The actor's latest cinematic foray clicked with young male moviegoers, despite being dismissed by most critics as being hyper-stylized junk, like some spiraling turd floating in the Wachowski brothers's septic tank. Still, not all were left unimpressed, as a giddy Colin Powell, his eyes reflecting a steady downpour of slo-mo bullets, gushed to his wife that the "transformational" third-person-shooter adaptation who would "electrify" our country's fanboy electorate.

2. Beverly Hills Chihuahua - $11.2 million
Audiences continued to roll onto their backs and squirm in delight as they had their bellies rubbed by Disney's bat-eared superstars. Not surprisingly, then, the hit's microscopic sequel—Fleas of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, about a poor, parasitic insect family that hops from rich chihuahua to rich chihuahua so that their children can enroll in the area's public schools—is being rushed into production.

3. The Secret Life of Bees - $11.05 million
Gracefully developing, is-she-or-isn't-she-stroppy? superstar Dakota Fanning and friends balanced out the vast gender divide for Fox, giving their Searchlight label the women who avoided Max Payne like the plague. "We had something for everyone," explained Fox VP Bert Livingston, temporarily forgetting about the 99.999999% of the world's population interested in neither.

4. W. - $10.55 million
Let's run down W.'s numbers: It's Oliver Stone's fifth-best opening ever, right behind Natural Born Killers. Exit polling showed 47% of audiences were over 40, 90% don't like the President, 80% were voting Obama, and 6% McCain. A round 100%, however, thought the movie was intermittently engaging, but by and large a cojones-deficient mess.

5. Eagle Eye - $7.343 million
"If you want to live, you'll do as I say. Now get wasted, hook up with Adrian Grenier's girlfriend, and lose a pinkie nail in a near-fatal car accident at the corner of Hollywood and La Brea. You'll get your next instruction there."

• October 17–19, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

Did they get it? Well, kind of! Sarah Palin did indeed cameo — across two sketches, even — though she uttered barely more than two dozen words. In the weekend update, she threw limpid hands in the air as Amy Poehler indulged in a Palin rap, and in the cold open, she interrupted (with the help of Walhberg and Alec Baldwin) a press conference by Fey-as-Palin that was made all the more ironic by the fact that Palin herself will ring in Election Day as the only major ticket candidate to never hold a press conference. Comedy or tragedy? You decide!

• Saturday Night Live [NBC]

After Kimmel ran a clip from the offending sketch, the actor—in a studied bit of business borrowed from any number of Scorsese-DeNiro collaborations—fastidiously plucked a stray thread off his dress shirt as he pledged to "crack [the Hot Rod star's] big fucking nose." The only thing better than a celebrity feud is a celebrity feud with lightly anti-Semitic undertones and the potential of skull fragmentation. Still, we think his tough-guy bark is worse than his bite, and Samberg needn't start truly panicking until Wahlberg pledges, in a clever twist on one of Samberg's greatest hits, to deliver the young comic his own nuts in a box.

• Jimmy Kimmel Live!

WHAT'S NEW: No one would argue that Mark Wahlberg's video-game adaptation Max Payne won't win the weekend, but with Beverly Hills Chihuahua still barking in theaters (it actually expands by 32 screens this week), the sour-cop actioner might see a tiny bite out of its margin of victory. Still, $20.8 million is a reliable bet, with Disney's purse dog settling settling with around $11.5 million.

The X factor is W., the Bush biopic which some forecasters see sneaking into second place with as much as $12 million. But to project any more than $10 million, maybe $11 million max is to overestimate it as anything more than a curio, an election-year stunt that wields neither the bite nor the influence that even we thought it would when the fall movie season began. Josh Brolin drawls and squints in fitful, fascinating bursts, and certain imagined powwows leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion make for riveting ensemble drama. On the whole, though, W. connotes the rush job it was — undisciplined, tonally dissonant (Stone's professed empathy for Bush repeatedly knocks its head on low-hanging satirical fruit) and way, way too long. The American people deserve better, and at least until Nov. 4, they'll vote with their dollars. There will be no stealing this election.

Also opening: Seth Green's R-rated romp Sex Drive; Roy Disney's boat-race vanity project Morning Light; critic Godfrey Cheshire's acclaimed doc filmmaking bow Moving Midway; the indie tolerance drama Tru Loved; and for those of you in New York (and the rest of you on VOD), Madonna's directorial debut Filth and Wisdom. (L.A. will get its theatrical engagement Oct. 31.)

THE BIG LOSER: The Barry Levinson-directed/Robert De Niro-starring Hollywood satire What Just Happened is one of the year's finest case-studies in meta: A troubled, pedigreed film about troubled, pedigreed filmmaking, following in the flatlining tradition of every industry saga that preceded it. It false-started out of Sundance last January but finally found a taker at Cannes, and to its credit, Magnolia Pictures has aggressively pushed the film everywhere from baseball playoffs to presidential debates. Still, one half of that audience hates Hollywood, and the other half is off to see W. As recipes for disaster go — even in limited release — this one is ready to serve.

THE UNDERDOG: Is it too reductive of us to foresee good things for The Secret Life of Bees — a film featuring an Oscar-winner (Jennifer Hudson), a Grammy winner (Alicia Keys), two Oscar nominees (Queen Latifah, Sophie Okonedo) and America's favorite teen diva Dakota Fanning, presented in a nicely bundled chick-flick wrapper by the money-printers at Fox Searchlight? Like $7.3 million worth of good things?

FOR SHUT-INS: This week's new DVD releases include last summer's rapey adventure Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Errol Morris's dense, harrowing Abu Ghraib documentary Standard Operating Procedure; the Stephen Rea-in-Mena Suvari's-windshield thriller Stuck; and the much-awaited Nash Bridges: The First Season.

So is it time for Payne? Or is today brought to you by the letter W.? Or is this the weekend you clean up after Papi and Co.? Whatever you decide, don't leave Dakota Fanning out; her curfew is later these days, and she'll hunt you down without thinking twice. Choose wisely!

He tells them, "Maybe it was a little jab because I refused to do the show so many times...[It's] not as funny as Hot Rod, but the kid's gotta do what he's gotta do to make a living. I ain't knockin' it. It's all good."

Wahlberg hits official Pissed Off levels, however, in an interview with the NY Post:

Someone showed it to me on YouTube. It wasn't like Tina Fey doing Sarah Palin, that's for sure. And "Saturday Night Live" hasn't been funny for a long time. They've asked me to do the show a ton of times. I used to watch it when Eddie Murphy was there and Joe Piscopo and Bill Murray. I don't even know who's on the show now.

Certainly, Wahlberg could have been a better sport about the ribbing—even embraced being immortalized by the long-running show, as Hillary Clinton and Susie Orman have done recently. Still, we can sympathize with the actor, as there's nothing more annoying—we can sort of imagine—than being laden with an annoying catchphrase, blurted out at the actor repeatedly by gas station attendants, restaurant waitstaff, and even his own wife, who couldn't help but shout, "SAY HI TO YOUR MOTHER FOR ME, OK?!" during the climax of a recent lovemaking session.

• Q&A WITH MARK WAHLBERG [NY Post]
• WAHLBERG TO SAMBERG: GOTCHA! [hollywoodoutbreak.com]

The Happs got its DVD release yesterday, bringing us to the above Mark Wahlberg/Zooey Deschanel exchange. For those left confounded by Andy Samberg's brilliant Wahlberg impression on SNL last week, we encourage you to watch both, then imagine Manoj's crackling dialogue replaced with: "Hey pharmacist, how's it going? I like your lab coat and name tag, that looks really great. So you're a pharmacist, right? What's that all about? Where's the cough syrup? OK, well it was great to meet you. Say hi to your mother for me, OK?"

• Enjoy: Mark Wahlberg's "Cough Syrup" Scene From The Happening [Videogum]

• SNL [NBC]

Boomp3.com

Outside of Matuhisa, Mark Wahlberg managed to confound as well as entertain a large group of onlookers when he appeared with a mystery box. Some assumed that Wahlberg's box contained leftovers, but The Happening star quickly denied those accusations. Then Wahlberg began to painfully toss the box into the area as he did a singsong chant of "it's something real cool." After a few minutes of the taunt, a man yelled, "What's in the baaaaahxxx? What's in the box?" Wahlberg opened the box and revealed that it contained the DVDs for The Happening.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

·You'll never believe it, but Nikki Finke also stayed home, instead publishing dispatches by the New Times chain's resident nerd-hack Luke Y. Thompson. And what a run he's had, with his marathon Thursday bringing us hints at a Keanu Reeves love-in (we'll get to that) and the indelible image of Rose McGowan's Red Sonja knife-licking. She and Robert Rodriguez apparently remain a couple despite all kinds of fun rumors otherwise and, obviously, despite the worst movie poster to ever debut at Comic-Con. That said, hemogravy is hot with the ladies these days, so maybe we're the ones out of touch.

·LYT draws praise, meanwhile, from David Poland, who also decided to crunch some numbers from the comfort of his own couch:

How ironic is it that every studio in L.A. is scrambling to get to San Diego this week/weekend, but The Dark Knight barely did anything (except for very basic viral marketing stunts) last year and underperformers Beowulf, Halloween, The Incredible Hulk, Shoot 'Em Up, Southland Tales, Drillbit Taylor, Spiderwick Chronicles, Hot Rod, and others all had a big presence at The 'Con.

Well, yeah, but none of them had a Fanboy Blowjob Train. Must we really spell it out?

·SpoutBlog has some of the most comprehensive coverage emerging from San Diego, including a real-time account of Wolfman star Benicio Del Toro falling asleep, a peek at Rocknrolla with attention-loving Gerard Butler and a Lego statue that will never be accused of assaulting its Mom.

· Amy Smart, Crank 2, public sex, etc.

· The NY Times brings a typically dignified tone to the pants-wetting in Hall H, featuring cameos by Hugh Jackman, Mark Wahlberg, the gang from Twilight, and a version of Waiting for Godot starring Dakota Fanning in the title role.

· Finally, /Film features a play-by-play of clips from the eco-sensitive Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still — better than the real thing, we're sure. Very sure.

boomp3.com



I remember when I was the only one who wanted to fuck Matt Damon. I'd listen to him telling the same story over and over again about working on Mystic Pizza and how he thought Lili Taylor was going to be American's newest sweetheart after the film opened. You know, I got him that part in Glory Daze to help him get off my couch for a couple of months. And now, everybody wants a piece of him and he's more than willing to return their calls. But me? Good ole Big Ben, the Larry Bird to his Kevin McHale? That guy, that friend can't even get a simple hello, but he gives Mark Wahlberg floor seats for the Celtics game. Wahlberg gets to work with Scorsese and gets the Oscar nomination. And here I am, just hanging out, fucking Jimmy Kimmel. Hmmm, I wonder what Jennifer Lopez is up to tonight?

[Photo Credit: Flynet]

boomp3.com

The Departed's Matt Damon comforted his co-star Mark Wahlberg during the fifth game of the Los Angeles Lakers-Boston Celtics NBA finals about the poor reviews Wahlberg has been receiving for his work in The Happening. Wahlberg felt especially hurt about the negative comments about his acting. Wahlberg said, "I really tried with my performance. I did my research. I remembered my lines. But, I gotta admit, I was totally caught off-guard by the fact that we were supposed to be making a B-movie. Nobody told me that."

Damon told Wahlberg that it happens, but it shouldn't bring him down. Damon said, "You can't win them all. But you just can't please everybody with every movie you do. I've got lucky the past couple of years with the Bourne movies, but don't worry about it. You'll win 'em back next time." Wahlberg hope that he would be able to win back the audience's trust with his next film. Wahlberg said, "If the next script I read even has one single scene involving a tree, I'm passing — even if Scorsese is directing it." Damon asked Wahlberg if he would feel better if he got to sing about how he's fucking Matt Damon. Wahlberg nodded and said, "It'd make me feel a lot better if I was fucking Matt Damon."

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

What about a reunion with the Funky Bunch who are also reportedly getting back together? "Not a f—ing chance," he told me.

"They asked me if I would partake and I had to decline," he continued. "Part of me would love to run around and act like a freaking a-hole again but I can't do that. I've got two kids. I saw something on VH1 or something about me in the 90s and I thought, oh my God, how am I going to explain this to my kids? I have a few years to think about how to finesse it but I do think about it on a daily basis."

This is actually a pretty easy one for Defamer's Bureau of Parental Reinvention, which encourages honesty and accountability in all situations dealing with early-'90s pop and/or underwear modeling. Look no further than Billy Ray Cyrus, whose embrace of his mulleted working-class roots yielded the phenomenal, 'tween-enabling trailer-trash empire we know today. And he didn't even have to star in an "eco-thriller" by the director of Lady in the Water. And what of Uncle Donnie rejoining New Kids on the Block? What message do concealed "Good Vibrations" really send? Come on, Mark — it's time. Be a man. Be a father. Be Funky.

• Mark Wahlberg and the M. Night of the living dread [NYDN]
• Mark Wahlberg Passes On Funky Bunch Reunion. [MTV]