• Donald Trump is now getting into bed with his worthiest apprentice/prodigal daughter Omarosa. The pair are becoming partners to produce Omarosa's Ultimate Merger a new show which will attempt to find a husband for the reality star. The show's active subtext will address the question: what is crazier, to get married on a TV show for the attention or to actually want to spend the rest of your days on Earth with Omarosa?
[Variety]

• What with Robert De Niro's film career looking more and more like some rickety nostalgia act, Tribeca sees no doubt safer waters on the small screen. Tribeca has just signed a two year deal with CBS television to develop new shows. [Variety]

• Someone has stolen a percent of ABC! Since the digital conversion, the network's clearance rate — the percentage of American households with access to ABC's affiliates — has mysteriously fallen one percent, and no one can figure out why. The single percentage point could be worth $15 — 20 million a year, but more importantly, the new digital statistics now put ABC below the despised Fox network in national access. [Variety]

• The network meanwhile has pulled the plug on witch-drama Eastwick while ordering more episodes of Jerry Bruckheimer's new procedural The Forgotten. [The Wrap]

• While Oscar's best picture race may be getting all the attention, the Hollywood Reporter writes that the animation category is shaping up as the hottest race on the book, with the field potentially increasing to five films instead of the past three. Pixar's Up faces a conundrum as it looks at potential nominations in both the animated and best picture categories, leading to the possibility that its supporters will be divided in which award they vote to give the film, a split vote which could lead the balloon film empty handed. The category also looks to become a referendum on the state of film technology today with its ranks including everything from motion capture (Christmas Carol) to hand drawn 2D (Ponyo) to claymation (Mary and Max). [Hollywood Reporter]

• Meanwhile in the main category, The Wrap's Steve Pond writes that despite the new ten film wide category, the best picture race appears to have already boiled down to a very stable, very small group of contenders, with the Oscar world basically having decided that the Best Picture of 2009 will be either Precious, Up in the Air or The Hurt Locker. [The Wrap]

• Recession or no, the buyers have been out at the American Film Market. Hoping to snag the next District 9, international agents have picked up the rights to new films starring Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis and Jodie Foster. [The Wrap]

• Disney wont have Mark Zoradi to kick around any more. After being passed over for the top job last month, the President of Disney pics, a 29-year veteran of the company, has announced he is stepping down. [Hollywood Reporter]

• What may be Miramax's last great premiere took place last night at the AFI Festival, celebrating the debut of Everybody's Fine, the news dramedy starring Robert De Niro, and the company appears to be going out with something less than a roar. There were early hopes that the film might give Miramax — and De Niro — one last Oscar hurrah. HItfix reports however, that "the film a mess in so many ways that neither the legendary actor or the stars who play his children — Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale — can save it." [Hitfix]

• The natives are getting restless and the drumbeat grows ever louder for the NBC/Universal Comcast deal. In their quarterly earnings reports, Comcast reported their profits were up 22 percent, bringing to a crescendo pleas that they just go ahead and buy NBC already and end our long showbiz-wide nightmare of suspense. [Variety]

• At the other end of the spectrum, Time-Warner was the beneficiary of low expectations. Its profits fell 38 percent last quarter, which remarkably was above expectations and led the company to raise its earnings projections for the year. [Hollywood Reporter]

• There may be signs of life in that old DVD market yet. The Wrap reports that after the huge success of the Transformers 2 DVD release, analysts are optimistic about the upcoming crop of blockbuster home releases to fuel strong sales. [The Wrap]

• The American Film Market, where US independent filmmakers peddle their wares for international distributors, opened yesterday and Variety saw hopes that the expo may be coming out of the doldrums it has been in in recent years. In addition to a line-up of films made by and featuring some heavy-hitters, Variety says the worldwide success of a handful of indie films — including Slumdog Millionaire — has created a more favorable climate. [Variety]

• Gerard Butler will star in the directorial debut of actor Ralph Fiennes, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare's Coriolanus. [Hollywood Reporter]

• It's a waiting game to see whether Vivendi will exercise its put option on its remaining 20 percent stake in NBC Universal, possibly sending the network studio hybrid into the fabled lands of IPO. While the anticipation mounts, Vivendi's chair said the company would take the next few months to make up its mind. [Variety]

• Oprah's Harpo Productions, Sam Mendes and Focus Features are teaming up to bring Joseph O'Neill's celebrated cricket pot-boiler Netherland to the big screen. [Variety]

• Spike Lee and Robert DeNiro announced plans to make a series about Alphabet City for Showtime. Alphaville will be an ensemble drama set in the 1980's. [Hollywood Reporter]

• With a mere two months until its release, pre-sales of tickets for New Moon the second installment of the Twilight saga have been brisk, with many locations reporting showings have already sold out. [Hollywood Reporter]

• What you won't read much about in the trades is the rumors about the trades themselves. Yesterday, Nikki Finke declared Variety was planning to take its website behind a pay wall and the Hollywood Reporter to cease publication entirely. The Wrap attempted to find the truth behind the rumors. It quotes a "high level" Reporter exec reacting "with amusement" to Finke's item, while Variety remained oblique about its online plans. [The Wrap]

From BBC:

The poster for Righteous Kill was displayed at the station where Mr [Charles] de Menezes, 27, was shot dead after being mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Its tagline read: "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."

The Advertising Standards Authority said it breached guidelines on decency.

"We understood the siting of the poster at the station was unintentional, but nevertheless considered that the text had the potential to cause serious offence in that location," the ASA said in its adjudication.

You gotta love the U.K.'s fastidious propriety standards. Only in England would a governmental bureau dedicated to enforcing ad-manners reprimand a studio for insensitively mounting a poster that mocks a tragic case of mistaken identity set to occur at some time in the future* three years prior. As a result of their efforts, however, we understand the offending materials have since been covered up, and the title of the movie has been replaced on all marquees with the far more delicate Heat 2: Warmed Over.

*We're informed the shooting took place there in 2005. Either way, Righteous Kill still sucks Scott Caan's balls.

• De Niro movie poster criticised [BBC]

After the jump: What actress is set to join the Mile-High Club with George Clooney?

· Vera Farmiga will play George Clooney's requisite romantic interest in Up in the Air, Jason Reitman's Juno follow-up about a man chasing down his life's goal of accruing 1 million frequent flyer miles. [Variety
· Speedy the Diet Supplement will be just one of the cartoon characters easing kids into Fox's planned Weekend Marketplace, a two-hour infomercial block that will replace the network's Saturday-morning cartoon programming. [Variety]
· Robert De Niro is the latest player to belly up to the Middle East gravy bowl, franchising his Tribeca Film Festival to Qatar for an annual event to screen in the capital city of Doha. [Variety]

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!

After the jump: Kung Fu Panda reups in 3D, Fringe reups in 2D, and crisis! grips! Bollywood!

· Jack Black and Angelina Jolie will return for a 3D Kung Fu Panda sequel, prompting the Chinese scientists so humiliated by the first one to ramp up their pursuit of a fourth dimension for their eagerly awaited response. [THR]
· The number of new DVD titles released through August is down almost 15% from the same time last year, 8,661 to 7,381. Come on, Hollywood — let's get going! Harvey can't keep up this pace all by himself! [THR]
· The Bollywood film industry is in a standstill today after 147,000 workers in 22 unions (even the dancing girls!) went on strike to protest substandard pay and work conditions. In related news, Warnari Bros. Studios drew fan wrath after the stoppage forced them to delay the release of Hari Puttar 2 to summer 2009. [Variety]
· You wanted it (we think), you got it: Fox ordered a full season of JJ Abrams's Fringe. [THR]

"He thinks he's going to . . . make John Travolta look like that was an amateur night in Dixie," says Weinstein in the 11-year-old recording, referring to Travolta's comeback in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

Responds Tarantino: "He's still dealing with, subconsciously, the fact that he's not going to get paid for doing the thing that he's created after 20 years . . . He's built his reputation on roles like [Jackie Brown's]Louis . . . 'How can you not pay me?' "

At another point, Weinstein warns Tarantino he might get a "weird midnight phone call" from the star. Tarantino rages: "Tell Bob not to call me yelling and screaming . . . I don't know if I'm going to be nice [if] the guy calls up yelling and screaming at me like a maniac, calling me a [bleep]er!"

Better that than a terrifying, apostrophe-free email, we think, though we certainly wouldn't welcome a late-night tirade from the erstwhile Travis Bickle. Still, we can't help but think this all could have been avoided if De Niro had tempted Tarantino into a pay raise by appealing to his well-known foot fetish. Sure, it may be an ignominious thing for an Oscar-winning actor to doff his shoes and socks and wiggle his little piggies for gross points, but can it really be worse than Analyze That?

[Photo Credit: AP]

• COPING WITH DE NIRO FLIP-OUT [NY Post]

According to [one] source, Campbell had Bobby D. repeatedly shoot and re-shoot a scene where his character tries to hit a ball out of a sand trap. At the end of the day, the actor reportedly approached the director to discuss the long day, and the discussion degenerated into a shouting match that culminated with De Niro hitting the road. [...]

Producer Graham King, who brought The Departed to Boston and knows a little something about working with A-List talent, swears that there is nothing more to the story than real-life “creative differences.”

“The issue really was that Bob saw the character one way and we saw it another,” King told the Track. “And it was hard for Martin, especially, to get his head around how Bob wanted to portray the actor.”

Other rumors suggested that De Niro simply didn't know his lines ("That dog don't hunt," quipped his flack, so cross that off!) and/or couldn't hack it with the mildly anti-Semitic Gibson, with whom he hadn't even yet shared a scene. God only knows, though it should be noted that Ray Winstone — a celebrated charity golf stud in his native England — was just brought in to replace De Niro. We're just saying.

• Why Robert De Niro left Mel Gibson’s ’Edge’ [Boston Herald]

"Nobu and Robert De Niro are clearly making a great deal of money serving up endangered fish," Willie Mackenzie of the environmental group Greenpeace told the Telegraph of London. Greenpeace activists went undercover at the chain, a favorite haunt of Madonna, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and discovered menus failed to disclose the species of tuna served.

The mouth-watering fish was actually bluefin, a species so endangered the World Wildlife Federation has called for a ban on its sale.

Even though Nobu's New York restaurants were not cited in the report, one diner said it made him think twice about eating at the swank Tribeca eatery.

"I come here for good food, not to be part of some exterminating force," said Lawrence Clay-Williams, 34, of SoHo.

Whatever. It's not like it's illegal or anything, making for an exotic, ultimately guilt-free alternative to less-righteous kills you'll find between bread at Subway or lesser eateries. And think of the exclusivity, with satisfied diners forking over a reported $600 apiece for the privilege of sensually living out a variation on Kill's tagline: "Most tuna respect the fisherman. Every tuna respects the chef." Someone's a genius.

• Robert De Niro's Nobu restaurant called all wet on tuna [NYDN]

1. Shave your leading men. We've seen this before on offending posters, most recently when My Best Friend's Girl co-star Dane Cook compared his own mug to "Britney Spears's vagina." But that's Dane Cook, and this is Robert De Niro, and the best Bobby can hope for is maybe "bus driver at 5 o'clock." It's conspicuous and really kind of repellent.

2. Four producers, no more. And we don't care how you do it. It's ultimately Avi Lerner's baby to drop on its head, so there's one. The others — co-producers, executive producers, and six full-blown "producer" producers — can fight it out among themselves under Lerner's snowy-haired, bloodthirsty gaze until the credits look less like a 5K-cancer-walk pledge form.

3. Wake up Al Pacino. At least for Pacino's previous B-cop-snoozer 88 Minutes, his promotional likeness was goateed and actively in search of something, even if it was the nearest exit. This is a little more fraught — sort of a vortex of old-man eye-glaze and paycheck hypnosis from which our hero desperately needs rescuing. But how? Well...

4. Avnet/Pacino Redux. One collaboration this year — this lifetime, really — was enough, guys, seriously. Thanks.

5. It's been done. The movie and the poster. Like, a million times better, too, even despite Val Kilmer:

• 'Righteous Kill' Poster [OutNow]

boomp3.com

In an attempt to scare away an swarm of photographers surrounding U2 front man Bono's French home, respected actor Robert De Niro recited some of his more intimidating and memorable film lines. Unfortunately for De Niro and Bono's houseguests, the scary line readings only garnered laughs from the French photographers, as well as wishes/desires for De Niro to do another comedy. De Niro threw his hands up in the air and suggested that if they play some of Bono's music that might make the photogs leave.

[Photo Credit: X17]

*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.

"I do not think it is a good time to strike now. The issues could be resolved over the next couple of years (without strike action)," De Niro said.

He contrasted calls by SAG to strike with the deal done by the DGA on the same issues, suggesting that directors had "done their homework" to get a decent deal.

"I do not think the actors have done that," he said. "I do not know if it is the right time to be doing this at all with the economy the way it is."

Nowhere is the economy worse than De Niro's vocabulary, where contractions are going for a record $140 per barrel but which powers along nevertheless on self-effacing candor and embittering agency-hopping. And while his point of view hardly seems to embrace the AFTRA contract on which members will vote this week, he isn't to be classified in the "neutral Clooneyesque pansy" category, either, thus requiring a whole new segment of the Turf War Map for "Part-Time Directors Who'd Rather Not See The DGA Contract Rendered Worthless Three Months Into its Term." We'll get to work on a redesign straightaway.

• Article Name [Source]

I cringed when I read the denigrating remarks made about two wonderful actors, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.

One of the most important industries in our country is the film industry. Our movies reach out to every corner of the world. Our stars are appreciated everywhere.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro are two of our very important stars. They have made movies that will never be forgotten. I think you owe them an apology.

Kirk Douglas
Los Angeles

Indeed, one might presume that seasoned film biz columnist Patrick Goldstein would know this about our "most important industries," not to mention the global repercussions for his having dinged the decrepit duo. Having now upset both the industry's delicate economic balance and Kirk Douglas, we expect Goldstein's apology should be forthcoming any minute now. Meanwhile, we hear an angry Bruce Willis is drafting a retort to the letter directly preceding Douglas's, which namechecks Ashton Kutcher and Hayden Christensen as low-rent contemporary analogues that cement the Pacino/De Niro legend. This industrial indignity cannot stand.

• Putting in a good word for Pacino, De Niro [LAT via MCN]

Clearly having filibustered enough last week on Letterman, Pacino declined Goldstein's interview requests. But inveterate B-movie godfather Avi Lerner wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to spin:

"I like [88 Minutes] — it's exactly the movie I wanted it to be," he says. "The critics can say what they want. That's the great thing about America. Everyone gets to have their opinion. It hurts when people call and say the reviews were terrible. But I don't read reviews. I hardly read anything." (Lerner is famous for not reading scripts either, though he insists he read 88 Minutes.) ...

When I asked if the scathing reviews for 88 Minutes could damage [Righteous Kill]'s commercial chances, he joked: "Hey, it's two different movies, two different sets of 17 producers." Turning serious, he said: "They are still two icons. If you get out of Beverly Hills, to Ventura Boulevard, every person you ask will say — we want to see them together. Just like people did for Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List. And they're even older!"

Oh, now we get it: We just have to "get out of Beverly Hills" and into the parallel universe where the hoi polloi eat up hammy, old-man condescension like sweets. At these prices, though (Goldstein puts Pacino's 88 Minutes price tag at $9 million), we can't imagine many souls that wouldn't be for sale. Alas, we'll always have Heat.

[Photo Credit: Splash]

• Pacino and De Niro: How the Mighty Have Fallen [LAT]

We'd say pretty good, despite the oppressive meta levels yielded by the film's movie-
within-a-movie that crashes and burns on Cannes' opening night. The irony! Anyhow, De Niro's new allies at Endeavor will be hustling along with the power brokers at Cinetic, which will face a price reduction after nearly four months on the market — unless it's picked up before then, which wouldn't be the most surprising development we ever heard. WJH's producers 2929 Entertainment (a/k/a Mark Cuban's writeoff) sold the cop flop We Own the Night last year at Cannes for eight figures; that kind of buy won't happen here. Either way, as cautiously optimistic fans of the De Niro restoration, we're enacting our own CAA defection and holding our breath as we hope for the best.

• 'Happened' to close Cannes [THR]