• Taylor Swift applied the final throttle to her death-grip hold over entertainment last night, sweeping the Country Music Association Awards. According to The Envelope awards site, at 19, Swift became the youngest person in history to take home the Entertainer of the Year trophy (actually the full name for the award is Coveted Entertainer of the Year Trophy.) She is also only the sixth female in history to take that top prize. While she was at it, Swift grabbed the Female Vocalist, Album of the Year and Music Video of the Year prizes. With her goliath of an album still selling, positive buzz from SNL appearance and the lingering sympathy from her Kayne debacle, entertainment stands at a crossroads from where Swift will either become the only star in show business, or be destroyed by a vicious backlash, no doubt led by cheer captains fed up with this bleacher-sitting, t-shirt wearing nerd thinking she owns this place. Paris Hilton, are you still out there? [The Envelope]

• We have a new video game overlord. The latest Call of Duty (Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare) sold 4.7 million games on its first day out. That would be $310 million dollars in sales. In one day. Take that James Cameron. [Hollywood Reporter]

• The NFL has declared itself happy with its current line-up of TV deals, with Giants owner Steve Tisch saying at a media conference, "Right now, we feel DirecTV as the exclusive partner is really in the consumers' best interest." [Hollywood Reporter]

• Show biz's most hallowed name MGM, is headed for a fire sale. After a catastrophic few years, the company's debt holders have reportedly demanded it be auctioned off to the highest bidder. [Variety]

• Taking the next step forward in Robert Iger's full-on shake up of the entire Disney studio operation, newly installed Chairman Rich Ross announced a re-org of his team, making the various department heads report directly to him. Still to come: the much anticipated announcement of a new marketing chief. [Variety]

• Like it or not, more Fockers are heading your way. Harvey Keitel has joined the cast of the latest installment of the Meet the Parents cycle, hilariously titled Little Fockers. [Hollywood Reporter]

History tells us of how, through the ages, a line of noble studio bosses have stepped forward to look Hollywood in the eye and give it the cold hard facts. One goes back to legends of the Katzenberg memo — the 1991 Dear Industry missive of then Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg pleading for lower costs; or to the great bean counters of yesteryear; proud men, men of character and common sense not afraid to stare down the mobs of show business and tell them, you are spending too much money. Like, way too much money. Like, drunken sailor, how-the-hell-do-you-think-this-adds-up-on-any-budget money.

And we all know what happened as a result of their heroism; Hollywood came to its senses, committed itself to modest, within reason budgeting and became the most stable, nuts and bolts business on Earth, consistently impressing investors with its ability to create eight to eleven percent margins year in, year out.

Yes, exactly.

Well, today Robert Iger has stepped forward to be the latest great truth-teller. An interview with the Financial Times, quotes him thus:

"The business model that underpins the movie business is changing," Mr Iger told the Financial Times "If we don't adapt to the change there won't be a business - that's my exhortation to my team."

Mr Iger advocates a thorough re-examination of costs associated with marketing and producing movies. The solution, he said, required "research and development, risk-taking . . . real focus on changing the
status quo".

Next month Disney plans to unveil Keychest, a new technology that will allow digital copies of films to be stored remotely and then viewed and moved across platforms, such as smartphones, or games consoles such as Microsoft's Xbox.

Like Hollywood, we're all for unveiling your Keychest, going cross platform or whatever you want, but when you get into that "thorough re-examination of costs associated with marketing and producing movies" stuff, we know code for lower budgets and less hype when we see it, having seen and heard it so many times before. And our answer to it remains unchanged — Good luck, buddy.

Or more precisely — if you wanted to work in a business that didn't spend ridiculous fortunes on totally absurd extravagance, don't you have an uncle in the Tool and Dye game who could have taken you on? Because the bottom line of Hollywood remains that extravagance and excess are what the popcorn eaters pay for, and keeping a lid on that culture, fighting for "excess within reason," is always going to be a chump's game.

Because in the end, an understated campaign for a "costs-within-line" production may look great in slide 18 of the power point you show off at the quarterly board meeting, but when all is said and done, having The Jay Leno Show on your books is not going to be the thing that gets anyone's head carved alongside Mayer, DeMille and Evans on Mt. Showbizmore.

And Hollywood hates surprises.

The genial Cook who began his Mouse career as a Disneyland ride operator gave little reason for his decision, merely saying "I have been contemplating this for some time now and feel it's the right time for me to move on to new adventures … and in the words of one of my baseball heroes, Yogi Berra, 'If you come to a fork in the road, take it.'" But Friday night, the town and the internet were abuzz with speculation focusing on Disney Boss Robert Iger's unhappiness with the studio's recent lackluster performance.

Variety's quasi-official rendition noted, "The studio's most recent movies, like "Race to Witch Mountain," "Bedtime Stories" and "Confessions of a Shopaholic" have been disappointments and CEO Bob Iger expressed unhappiness with the studio's slate in a conference call with Wall Street analysts in May."

The LA Times repeated this theme adding, "Internally, Iger was growing increasingly frustrated with Cook's management style, people familiar with the situation said, citing Cook's tendency to play his cards close to the vest."

The LA Times also captured the despair of Johnny Depp, star of Disney's Pirates films. In the item, Depp "said his enthusiasm for a fourth Pirates movie has waned with the news of Cook's exit." Hard to imagine that anyone's enthusiasm for the tiredest mess of a franchise currently afloat could ever wane, but without the right man in the front office, somehow the fun of robbing hundreds of millions of film fans of their popcorn money loses its luster.

Nikki Finke, just "out of the hospital" claims the story as an "exclusive." And indeed her item is timestamped 5:03, so if the stamp is accurate, it was posted a good five minutes before five minutes before Variety's and a full 14 minutes before the LA Times' piece. So for five minutes, Nikki Finke readers were the only people in America who knew about Cook's departure, and presumably the executive who will be named his replacement used that critical window to maneuver brilliantly, sending Robert Iger a fruit basket and a card telling him how much he loves Willow's Huff Post Living Now section, while the Variety reading executives sat at their desks clearing off another game of mine sweeper.

Nikki adds the news that Cook was "blindsided" by the firing, and morally outraged that it would come on Rosh Hashanah. She also adds Steven Speilberg, who just moved his production company to Disney, to the list of people who are very, very upset. Nikki says the news is "playing very badly" on the Disney lot. And you know what happens to news that plays badly on the Disney lot...Well, nothing actually.

The Wrap assures us that Oren Aviv, President of Buena Vista will not be Cook's replacement, and speculates that either Pixar Chief John Lasseter may be positioned for another step up the ladder.

The entire press release is after the jump.

OSCAR WINNING PRODUCER BRIAN GRAZER TO RECEIVE USC PICKFORD AWARD

Disney CEO Robert A. Iger Co-Speaker at May 16 Ceremony

MAY 12, 2008, LOS ANGELES - Brian Grazer, Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning film and television producer and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, will receive the Mary Pickford Foundation Award at the USC School of Cinematic Arts 2008 commencement ceremony, at which Robert A. Iger, president and CEO of the Walt Disney Company, will serve as co-speaker, Dean Elizabeth M. Daley announced today.

Iger, who will earlier in the day receive an honorary doctorate and appear as the featured speaker at USC's commencement ceremony, will share industry observations with the cinema class. Additionally Iger will present Grazer with the School of Cinematic Arts's Pickford Award, presented to men and women of USC who have made an indelible impact on the entertainment industry. Grazer, a 1974 USC alumnus, will provide his own unique insights gained while producing projects for the big and small screens for nearly 30 years.

States Daley: "Brian has been an indisputable leader in the entertainment community, and a staunch supporter of the School of Cinematic Arts for many years. We are thrilled to honor him with the Pickford Award and to send our latest class off with the wisdom that both he and Bob will impart."

Among the notable films Grazer has produced are Splash, Apollo 13, Backdraft, 8 Mile, Parenthood, The Da Vinci Code, Liar Liar and Cinderella Man. In 2002, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him and long-time producing partner, Ron Howard, the Best Picture Oscar for A Beautiful Mind. Grazer's television credits include 24, Arrested Development, SportsNight, Felicity and the Emmy-award winning mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.

Iger and Grazer will address the May 16 commencement ceremony, which takes place at the Shrine Auditorium. Grazer is the 14th recipient of the Pickford Award, which is conferred in association with the Mary Pickford Foundation. Past recipients include: Ray Harryhausen, William Fraker, Conrad L. Hall, Alan Ladd, Jr., Michelle Manning, Walter Murch, Jay Roach, Gary Rydstrom, Stacey Sher, John Singleton, David L. Wolper, Laura Ziskin and Robert Zemeckis.

Construction on the granite memorial jutting out of the 1,820-foot Cahuenga Peak (artist's rendering above) is to begin immediately, but it's projected it will take at least three years before the final chisels are made into Peter Chernin's nostrils, Bob Iger's hairline, and Moonves's sparkling, four-foot teeth by the migrant Asian quarry workers and moonlighting WGA members hired to complete the dangerous task. Upon completion, however, we'll have an enduring and highly visible (15 miles on a clear day!) reminder of the troika of great captains of Hollywood industry who ushered a Golden Era of peace into a strife-fraught zone.

• Land above famed Hollywood sign up for sale [Reuters]
• Previously: The Strike Is Over! Look Busy! [Defamer]

• BusinessWeek online [businessweek.com]
• Previously: Disney And Pixar Finally Get It On [Defamer]

"With this transaction, we welcome and embrace Pixar's unique culture, which for two decades, has fostered some of the most innovative and successful films in history," Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in a statement. [...]

"Disney and Pixar can now collaborate without the barriers that come from two different companies with two different sets of shareholders," Jobs said in a statement. "Now, everyone can focus on what is most important, creating innovative stories, characters and films that delight millions of people around the world."

After the jump, the Official Defamer Correspondent On All Things Disney offers some thoughts on the deal:

- Lasseter takes over Disney Features, Pixar Features and has a major role in theme parks. That's a HUGE reach. (Yes, it reads that Pixar President Ed Catmull will head up all animated movies, but no one believes that.) - There's only been one other "Chief Creative Officer" at Disney (Lasseter's new title) and his name was Walt. - Lasseter takes over Imagineering. This also is big, as he takes over theme park rides as well. - The SF offices will not move. For now...keep your eye on this one.

• Disney to Acquire Pixar for $7.4 Billion [AP}
• Disney Confirms Pixar Acquistion [Variety]
• Previously: Report: Disney Getting Hot And Heavy With Pixar [Defamer]