• Meet your new action hero overlord: Chris Pine. Already fronting the rebooted Star Trek franchise, Pine has signed on to play the Jack Ryan role previously portrayed by Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin in a new go-around adapting Tom Clancy's series of espionage novels. [Variety]

• For those CBS and Viacom employees who feel each day the burden of the Redstone yoke, you can take heart today; Sumner is now less your owner than he was last week. The octillionaire mogul has been selling off the debt of his holding company, National Amusements. For now, however, NA still retains the controlling interest. [Variety]

• As the world waits for the final outcome of Vivendi/GE/Comcast talks over the fate of NBC Universal, Nikki Finke reports that Comcast wants the deal "done and announced in November." So there. [DHD]

• Curse be damned! ABC has won the competition to be the next network to fail with a sitcom by a former Friends star, locking up rights to the Matthew Perry project. [THR]

• The Wrap reports that Alex Young, Co-President of Production at 20th Century Fox is being moved out of the job and into a producing deal. Young was a Tom Rothman protege who has been in the job since 2007. [The Wrap]

• Always on the lookout for a feel good project, director Gus Van Sant and novelist Bret Easton Ellis have picked up the rights to "The Golden Suicides," Nancy Jo Sales' Vanity Fair article about the deaths of downtown artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. [Variety]

• The creator of the Gilmore Girls is coming to HBO. Exec-Producer Amy Sherman-Palladino has signed a deal to develop a dramedy for the cable network. She described the project as the "story of love, hate, family — and finding the perfect opening line," [THR]

• This is what it's come to in the strange, contorted career of Bill Murray; taking Joe Pesci's leftovers. For those who thought Murray's Zombieland cameo was just a little strange— that he was too big, or had been too big a star for the joke about Woody Harrelson being obsessed with him to completely click — you are right. In an interview with Hitfix, Murray revealed the walk on had been intended for Joe Pesci — with whom the joke would have made a lot more sense — but that Murray took the part after Pesci passed. [Hitfix]

A tipster tells us that more layoffs are coming down at Viacom today: "They are cleaning house at VH1/MTV Linked Group right now. Like more than half the people involved with the website and the video just got laid off. HR is making appointments to call every freelancer this afternoon." Skeery. If you have more info, email us.
UPDATE: Another tipster adds: "Freelancers are being called in because when they hit their 9 mon point they have to leave. They can come back 3 mon later and be considered a new hire. They're trying to get rid of the perma-lancer thing that went down Dec. 07 but still not hire anyone as staff."

Some freelancers were given a 3 mon extension on their contract but they can only be given it once before HR gives them the axe.


An analyst thinks the New York Times Co. could raise $1.2 billion by selling the Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, its new headquarters building, and its stake in the Red Sox. On one hand it would mean taking a huge loss on those assets, but on the other hand $1.2 billion is not that bad, considering that it's more than the market cap of the NYT Co.

Keith Kelly confirms our rumor from yesterday about Newsweek closing its London bureau. He also says that Newsweek staffers are pissed they had to read about their magazine's big redesign in a New York Times story. Which is understandable. Is that how the Historical Jesus would act?


Five large NY/ NJ newspapers including the New York Daily News and the Newark Star-Ledger are all going to share content with each other, probably so that some of them can lay off some reporters.

Playboy had an atrocious fourth quarter, losing $145 million, and now says that it's "open" to discussion of selling its flagship magazine. They should really have to change the company name if they do that.

Instead, Stewart went forward with a few good-natured jibes at his corporate cousin's $150 million Oscar behemoth The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button — if you can call two narcolepsy jokes and extended plot mockery "good-natured." Worse yet, it came while introducing Slumdog's Dev Patel, who was welcomed shortly afterward as the equivalent of Oscar 2009's homecoming king. Worse yet, Stewart's smirking laughter at his own jokes led both his live and viewing audiences to believe they are actually fresher, funnier and/or more influential than they actually are.

So! That does it, right? 0-for-13? Watch your nuts, Jon; Brad Grey just stepped out for lunch. [The Daily Show via LAT]

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed — Viacom initially sought a 23 cent-per-subscriber boost, amounting to about $39 million — though the LAT confirms that the consumer-fueled, call-center fury influenced a swift resolution to keep SpongeBob SquarePants, South Park and Dora the Explorer on the air. The bad news: A new episode of The City airs Sunday night at 10. Call Viacom with your complaints this time around — it's only fair.

• Viacom, Time Warner Cable settle contract dispute [LAT]

Ensnared in a vicious battle over 23 cents per customer, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Daily Show, South Park and the rest of Viacom's cable offerings may vanish tonight for 13 million Time Warner subscribers.

When the ball drops at midnight in Times Square, so has Viacom pledged to yank the plug on 19 channels along the TWC system if the cable provider doesn't re-up its contract with a $35.9 million increase in its carriage fee. The bump amounts to 23 cents per Time Warner subscriber, which Viacom says is a long-overdue remedy to the carrier undervaluing its content.

We'll say! We've long considered Spike's mind-numbing cocktail of UFC tilts and Late Night Strip to be one of television's finest narcotic bargains, but TWC isn't convinced. Nevertheless, Team Redstone clearly intends to win its battle for your quarter, waving fierce numbers at the AP ("Americans spend a fifth of their TV time watching Viacom shows but its fees make up less than 2.5 percent of the Time Warner cable bill") and, according to the Wall Street Journal, launching a media campaign featuring a despondent SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer.

Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT, TV Land and their knock-off subsidiaries would be looped into the strike, with each channel's respective Web site interrupting visitors today with a pop-up ad encouraging them to lobby TWC with an appeal. And why not? New Colbert episodes start next week, and really, who among us has the fortitude to miss the next installment of Bromance on Sunday? Oh. OK, well besides you..

• 'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner [AP]

After the jump: The Universal globe stops spinning for 70 unlucky souls.

Not even veteran talking head John Norris—who was very polite to us on the VMAs red carpet when we accidentally wandered into his shot and asked where we might find Britney's elephant—was immune. Over at Paramount, meanwhile, a behooded, shirtless, chaps-wearing Sumner Redstone (he doesn't particularly like playing executioner—but when he has to, he goes for it whole hog) stands guard at a ceremonial guillotine set up in studio square, awaiting word on when to release the symbolic blade that will officially cut further salaries from the payroll. We're told supervisors are still in a meeting, and the rest of the staff is defecating masonry in anticipation. We'll have a report for you from the inside a little later.

Over at NBC Universal, Deadline Hollywood Daily reports, the belts are being tightened to gastric-bypass levels. Personal printers are strictly verboten, no new office supplies will be purchased for six months, everyone must travel (*gasp*) one class-level down, and Jeff Zucker himself will be reviewing temps' overtime charges. So don't even try it, A1 Personnel Placing Services recommendee.

500 job cuts throughout the company will follow, THR reports—including a "3% headcount reduction" at Universal Pictures, as chairman and co-chairman Marc Shmuger and David Linde's Christmas card thoughtfully put it. That's about 70 positions worldwide. The text follows:

Dear Colleagues,

As we strive to meet the challenges presented by the struggling economy, leaders from every department at Universal Pictures have worked hard to identify cost saving measures in many areas of our business. Those measures include scaling back on travel, overtime, consultants, premieres, conferences, newspaper marketing and general administrative costs.

While much has been accomplished to find necessary savings, we regret that we must also reduce headcount by around 3%. No company likes to have to make these kinds of decisions, and certainly we are no exception. We want to assure you that everyone has done their best to keep job cuts to an absolute minimum.

The process of communicating with those individuals whose positions are affected has begun today and will continue for the next few days.

We appreciate the effort from everyone who has participated in this difficult process.

Sincerely,
Marc Shmuger and David Linde

• Marc Shmuger and David Linde Break Bad News To Universal: 70 Layoffs Worldwide [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
• NBC Universal laying off 500 employees [THR]

Is it true, John? Email us if you know more. This would be quite a blow for, ah, journalism—how many people have interviewed both Mariah Carey and Hans Blix?

We've gotten these other harrowing reports from the trenches as well (new reports added to the top):

• "Its bad at Vh1 on Hudson Street. Dozens let go. Security guys on each floor "observing". Lots of staff across the board gone, some that have been here for many years. The mood is bleak."
• "Awkward day here at MTVN. I'm a humble Production Assistant for Nickelodeon, and we just found out all we low level staff are okay for the time being. The layoffs on our floor were pretty dramatic: an entire department laid off, and our senior vice president, and a department head at N@N. Looks to be more of a management/higher-up bloodbath from here. And Nickelodeon is one of the few brands actually making money..."
• "I work at 1515 Broadway (the Viacom building) and in the elevators, the newstory about the 850 layoffs keeps coming up on the captivate tvs. Pretty classy..."
• "So far at least 5 people have been let go from MTV.com. Mostly producers and associate producers who were supposed to be creating original content. Well, they haven't been producing anything for awhile and the writing was on the wall."

At least we'll always have this Conor Oberst interview. To remember the good times.

The big challenge is how to wield the budget ax in a way that won't alienate the A-list or compromise the promotional value of the event. One catering exec who's done scores of premieres says he's being asked to do more for less, and the only choice is "to get creative" when the food budget is cut.

"The shrimp are in hors d'oeuvres instead of a buffet," he said. "You cut back on things that take an inordinate amount of labor."

Premieres also drive publicity, so in order to generate that publicity at lower costs, "what you're going to see are more premieres at the Academy with a relatively inexpensive reception in the lobby and then a couple big, themed parties every quarter," a planner said.

Nevertheless, Sony, Showtime and Overture Films are a few of the companies to retain those festive, debauched standards of yore, while Universal will reportedly leave the decision to its division heads. CAA, meanwhile, denied speculation that its popular Holiday Infant Roast would be suspended for a cheaper, William Morris-style Kitten Potluck. A hard-hit Paradigm, alas, confirmed it will downgrade to roadkill.

• Hollywood Scales Back Parties [Variety]

Any divorce settlement would come out of Sumner Redstone’s own pocket, and not his family's Boston-based business, National Amusements Inc., said two people close to the firm. National Amusements is caught in a credit squeeze and Redstone's daughter, Shari Redstone, who runs the company, is trying to restructure its nearly $1.6-billion debt load, including an $800-million bank loan that is due in mid-December.

Another source tells us that Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett, the reality show maven who works with her, "had a giant blowout, over money." Along with the timing of this Sumner Redstone rumor, it paints a grim picture. Let's hope this doesn't get so bad that it filters down to the non-rich.

Viacom wanted to carve out the records of YouTube employees' video views to show that they knowingly viewed copyrighted content — and in some cases, uploaded it. But Google could easily use its records to show Viacom employees doing exactly the same thing. It would hardly be a shocker: Viacom's Ifilm site is rife with pirated videos, but the site's traffic is too insignificant for copyright holders to get fussed.

Showing Viacom's double standards is an obvious move. What Google's lawyers are probably too naive to contemplate: Scouring YouTube's video logs for truly embarrassing videos viewed by Viacom employees, and leaking them to gossip blogs. That would be a dreadful invasion of privacy, of course — exactly what Viacom was asking for, before it finally backed down.

Or not, studio sources are eager to emphasize — it's business as usual on Melrose! We're not so sure, though, and neither are most of the other observers whose reactions we survey after the jump.

Most can agree that the culprit in the imploded Deutsche Bank deal is the same credit crunch that's overextended most other American industries. The Financial Times (which broke the story Monday) notes that equity and junior debt were covered, but the senior debt was too risky for anyone to bite without terms too steep for Paramount. Wall Street's caution is such that Deutsche Bank shuttered its entire film-financing unit for lack of investors; thus, for now, the 'Mount misses out on 25% production financing, up to $30 million per picture.

That's where the "experts" come in. Nikki Finke has the company line from sources at Paramount, one of whom says Viacom isn't the slightest bit peeved about the deal falling through. But the FT story adds that Viacom could be left holding the bag if other partners can't be found for the projects that are "likely to be released as scheduled." And in fact, that's the likeliest scenario when we consider Grey's rumored mishandling of Melrose Partners II and confirmed mishandling of DreamWorks, among other, smaller deals that proved Paramount as a bona-fide money loser for pretty much everyone but its talent.

David Poland has perhaps the cleanest analysis of how this dynamic would likely have played out between Deutsche Bank and Paramount:

In fact, just the four films mentioned as expected to be part of the deal - Transformers 2, Star Trek, Tropic Thunder, and Benjamin Button - would, under terms suggested in the FT story (25% of production), represent an investment of $150 million of the $450 total that claims to be intended to cover 30 films.

Considering that if these four films — expected hits — generated $1 billion worldwide, Paramount would have a float of about $100 million on distribution fees alone. That would mean that Deutsche Bank would still be about $100 million in the hole after theatrical while Paramount would be in profit, as a corporation.

And that is projecting 4 significant hits!

Then you have less than $10 million per film under the rest of this package, allegedly meaning that all the films together would average $40 million or less to produce.

Anyway, the 'Mount will land on its feet, just as it always does. We hear Cash-Machine Manoj knows a few people who might be able to help. And there is always Dubai.

• Paramount to shelve $450m film financing as crunch hits [Financial Times]

While most will remember the '07 Awards for the Spears trainwreck, it's also worth noting that Kanye West stated after last year's VMAs that he would "never return to MTV" because he felt slighted by having to perform in a hotel suite rather than the main stage. So it appears this decision was not only made to placate the talent, but also because holding this event at a property that they already own represents a significant cost-savings for the penny pinchers at Viacom. As they say, developing...

In a nutshell, Eller writes, the scenario works like this:

Untangling the rights to various properties could be tricky. Steven Spielberg has attached himself as a producer to at least 30 DreamWorks projects, which Paramount will not be able to make unless it pays him substantial fees. The filmmaker is guaranteed 7.5% of every box-office dollar collected by Paramount until the movie breaks even. Once the studio recovers its cost and earns a distribution fee, Spielberg is then entitled to 50% of the film's profit.

And that's not even the worst part for the 'Mount: Take away Marvel's Iron Man, DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda, and DreamWorks' Tropic Thunder, and the only internally developed films in Paramount's Blockbuster Class of '08 are Indy 4 (directed by Spielberg) and The Love Guru (an abomination to God and man). What's in the pipeline if it sheds the 'Works? Benjamin Button? Star Trek? Mission: Impossible 4 (maybe)?

Moreover, will Brad Grey be as quick to claim credit for Paramount's future misfires as he was for DreamWorks' successes? Or will he even be around long enough to pat himself on the back for Untitled Wayans Brothers Comedy? Come to think of it, we kind of wish these guys would stay together for the children.

• DreamWorks- Viacom breakup could get ugly [LAT]

The rest of the picture is still taking shape, but after the jump we have a few educated guesses as to where things might land — and it looks curiously like Bollywood.

Led by Anil Ambani, by Variety's count the world's sixth richest man (and the husband of a Bollywood actress), Reliance is apparently taking over Hollywood one A-list player at a time. Its film funding arm, Reliance Big Entertainment, made headlines at Cannes last month when it announced development deals with the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks and others, splitting with studios the costs of new productions costing up to $1 billion. Reliance's latest venture is decidedly more ambitious, expanding its vast media footprint to claim what will be roughly half of the new DreamWorks: Six or so films a year through a studio to be determined (probably Spielberg's old stomping grounds at Universal, where he still keeps an office).

The deal also continues Asia's incursion into Hollywood, perhaps epitomized by Sony's $4.8 billion takeover (with Comcast) of MGM in 2005. But India has been even more active in the last year, with TV producer UTV Software buying into Fox's The Happening and Lionsgate entering a development deal with Mumbai-based shingle Eros International. The Reliance/DreamWorks pact is the biggest by far, but as noted by WSJ, the Snider connection gives Reliance stable executive footing for its grand Hollywood experiment.

The paper also adds, however, that DreamWorks would be dealing with an Indian conglom with its own internal drama: Anil Ambani is embroiled in a feud with his older brother Mukesh over a multi-billion dollar acquisition in South Africa. The trouble would only touch DreamWorks if the communications arm were ever sold; the brothers have reportedly been fighting over controlling interest in that case.

Spielberg will obviously cross that bridge when he comes to it, as will he face inevitable concerns about investor influence over his and Snider's slate. To wit, are the Clooney/Hanks/Pitt et. al. projects earmarked for the 'Works? How will Reliance play ball with Universal, Fox or another studio enlisted to distribute DreamWorks' films? Will press inquiries forevermore be rerouted to a call center in Bangalore? So many questions!

• Spielberg, India Firm Near Deal to Ally With DreamWorks [WSJ]

Despite the severed relationship, Cruise, 45, is in talks with Paramount to star in a fourth Mission: Impossible film. Viacom is Paramount's parent company.

"I consider Tom Cruise a great actor and a good friend," Redstone said. "And if Paramount decides — and they will make the decision — to move ahead with him, I will not object."

Redstone, who was seen dining with Cruise in Beverly Hills in March, was responding to a reporter's question after a speech at a conference in South Korea.

No word on whether or not Cruise and Paula Wagner's stalled United Artists tank might follow behind (especially as Dreamworks scouts new bungalows around town), but seeing as MGM still has a UA deal, M:I4 remains a separate matter. In any case, Redstone won't be leaving that one up to Grey, unless perhaps through some miracle of timing and imagination the principals develop M:I4 as a perfect midsummer companion to Valkyrie. Maybe the latter could be an origin story — Ethan Hunt descended from one-eyed Nazis? Don't think Redstone hasn't pitched it.

• Mogul Redstone: Cruise can star in next 'Mission Impossible' [AP]