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SUNDAY UPDATE: Sony's animated kiddie fare Open Season kicked butt this weekend for No. 1. It was an embarrassing loss for Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner despite Disney's heavy promotion of their Coast Guard action/adventure The Guardian. (So what did we learn? That Costner's career is definitely toast, while Kutcher's appeal is limited.) Opening in 3,833 theaters, Sony's "when the hunted become the hunters", starring a domesticated grizzly bear and a scrawny mule deer, earned $23 million this weekend thanks to an expected rug rats' Saturday bump. It was Sony's 11th No. 1 opening this year, and Sony's 10th film of the year to open to more than $20M -- a gargantuan feat of marketing muscle. By contrast, The Guardian, in 3,241 theaters, made only $17.8 million its debut weekend. The two movies sucked the life out of the rest of this weekend's box office. 
The third-place movie, Jackass 2, took in $14 mil for a $51.4 cume. Meanwhile, the AP reported that a small-town Illinois theater owner shut down for two weeks rather than show Jackass 2 or other new releases that he calls "drivel." The Lorraine Theatre in downtown Hoopeston reopened Friday showing Disney's football biopic Invincible. The owner said he'll shut down again if faced with a similar batch of films, even though contractual issues with the studios -- such as guarantees on first-week receipts -- sometimes limit his options. "I just didn't think I should use my high-quality facilities to show people vomiting on screen," he noted. No. 4 was The Weinstein Co/MGM's School for Scoundrels, which opened in 3,004 theaters for an anemic $8.5 mil weekend. (Remember when star Billy Bob Thornton used to appear in important pics instead of teen drivel?) Finally, in fifth place, holdover Jet Li's Fearless from Rogue/Focus Pictures added $4.8 mil for a $17.9 mil cume.
column, 
"Not long after Dean Baquet became editor of the Los Angeles Times, influential entertainment mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg sought a meet-and-greet. It was during this lunch that Katzenberg purposefully let slip big news: His DreamWorks partner David Geffen really wanted to buy the newspaper. Baquet was shocked. “How’s he going to feel the first time we review a movie or music produced by a friend of his?” Baquet asked. Katzenberg just laughed. That was a year ago, and, since then, Geffen’s pursuit of the Tribune Co.’s troubled outpost not only hasn’t flagged, it has fired up, and not just because the paper’s 20 percent profit margin is so much better than the 6 percent earned on bonds. I’m told he’s “very serious” and “pretty confident” about purchasing it someday soon. “He believes that he’s going to be the owner,” an insider explains. That, even though there’s a growing list of fat-cat Angelenos lining up, including Eli Broad and Ron Burkle. But anyone familiar with Hollywood knows how relentless Geffen can be: What David wants, David gets. Says another source: “He has never stopped doing anything until he’s done.” ... Baquet, meanwhile, has never met Geffen. “But if David Geffen called me up tomorrow and said, ‘I want to have lunch,’ I’d probably have lunch with him,” Baquet was overheard saying. “After all, I’m the editor of the L.A. Times.” That’s exactly why this is all such an ethical dilemma, too.
...The Times’ most pressing problem isn’t whether Geffen or someone else buys it, or Tribune sells it, or Baquet gets fired. Instead, the widespread media coverage has ignored the dangerous game being played with the paper’s integrity between this billionaire boys’ club and Baquet or his surrogates behind closed doors. I’ve even looked into accusations that the Times buried an investigation into one of the potential buyers. It’s all so unseemly: There, in August, was the Times’ own West magazine’s Power Issue giving high placement to every past and present ... 
Don't get me wrong: I like this show. But the primary problem with NBC's expensive but struggling Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip isn't the Aaron Sorkin (right) inside-the-bubble flourishes, or the smarty-pants staccato scripts, or the high-priced/high-profile cast. It's the truly awful scheduling. Granted, ABC last spring threw that monkey wrench into NBC's plans to air Studio 60 on Thursday nights when Grey's Anatomy was moved there (instead of Monday nights). But Monday nights are a lousy time slot for Studio 60 when Sunday night at 10 pm would have been so right. After all, Grey's Anatomy premiered on March 27, 2005, in the same Sunday slot, and that was a winning strategy. So I don't understand why NBC didn't wait to debut Studio 60 in mid-season after football ended. As it stands now, ESPN's Monday Night Football is eating into its audience. And it can't move to Sunday until it can replace NBC Sunday Night Football. Of course, others might argue that Studio 60's woes go deeper than scheduling, since during premiere week too many Deal Or No Deal viewers turned off the new series within 30 minutes. But it's obvious that Deal and Studio 60 attract very different demos and a game show was the wrong lead-in. Its first week out, Studio 60 wasn't even in the Nielsen Top 20, and its second episode following lead-in Heroes attracted even fewer eyeballs. Now NBC is in a quandary: If Studio 60 gets moved to Sunday nights or even stays Monday nights and continues airing shows in order, then newcomers will feel lost. And if the network repeats those earlier shows, then existing fans will get bored. It's a dilemma I can't help but think 'King O' The Grids' scheduling guru Preston Beckman would never have let NBC confront. 
I've written 
David Carr has confirmed to me he's reprising his Red Carpet role as "The Carpetbagger" for The New York Times this Oscar season beginning in early November. The blog will appear after the NYT's annual holiday movie issue is published. Intended to supplement the paper's news coverage of the Academy Awards, Carr, a Times culture reporter and media columnist, penned a very personal, rather informal and somewhat uninformed blog but, at the end, predicted correctly that Crash would win Best Picture. (So did I -- way back last January -- but who's keeping score, right?) Meanwhile, Tom O'Neil tells me the Los Angeles Times keeps expanding "The Envelope", its embarrassingly fanboy 24/7 awards website feature that includes lots of Oscar-related blogs and news. There will be weekly Envelope inserts into the LAT about the Oscar derby starting in early November. Plus, ads for The Envelope are running in many Los Angeles theaters right before films screen. (Some may go beyond LA, too.) I also hear The Envelope may keep a running scorecard based on various Oscar gurus' opinions. All I can say is, ENOUGH! It's a shame this stuff has to start so early -- see today's LAT article 
This afternoon, the jury in the Joann Wiggan perjury trial returned verdicts acquitting the former SBC phone employee of four of the five counts. The jury split 6-6 on the third count, and U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer declared a mistrial on that count. Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel A. Saunders issued this statement through a spokesman: "We are disappointed by the verdict, but of course we accept the jury's decision. We will consider the evidence related to the unresolved count and will decide in the next few days whether to proceed with the case." The feds emphasized that the loss of this case has no bearing on the upcoming racketeering and wiretapping trial February 13th against celebrity P.I. thug Anthony Pellicano and others. "The charges against Ms. Wiggan are completely different from those contained in the separate indictment against Anthony Pellicano," Saunders said. "Today's verdict does not impact the prosecution or the ongoing investigation of Mr. Pellicano and his associates."
The verdict comes after Wiggan testified that she did not intentionally lie to a federal grand jury about having contact with a phone company colleague who's now under indictment for allegedly providing confidential information to Pellicano. The prosecution related to a five-count indictment of Wiggan last February stemming from her grand jury testimony about her contact with SBC field technician Rayford Turner, who's charged with helping Pellicano place wiretaps. 
I've learned that both Time and Newsweek want to put Mel Gibson's Apocalpto on their covers timed to its Dec. 8th opening. This happened with Gibson's The Passion of the Christ: Newsweek made it the cover before the film's release, and Time after the movie was in theaters. It's quite a coup for any Hollywood pic to make the covers of both newsmagazines. "There are a lot of media offers on the table competing for this movie," an insider told me. This may happen without any actual interview of Gibson, too. Any interview would be problematic for Mel's publicity push since it would necessarily dwell on Gibson's alcoholism relapse and drunken rantings against Jews. Because of that, it's still up in the air if there'll be a big network (or even cable) TV one-on-one. 
But the real issue, now that the Disney movie is starting to garner raves from its sneak screenings, is whether Oscar voters can, or will, judge Mel's film fairly. Members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are known to hold grudges for a myriad reasons, and Gibson's anti-Semitic remarks over the summer provide ample fuel. Then again, the voters are supposed to judge the merits of the film and not the man behind it. The question is: can that be possible? I certainly don't have an answer yet since it's too early in the process -- most voters won't even start seeing the film until December -- but I can look to the past. After all, they ignored Gibson's Passion for the big noms (Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture) because of the anti-Semitic overtones some saw in its portrayal of the events surrounding the death of Jesus. And, last year, I reported that hetero Oscar voters were unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain because of their own anti-gay prejudices. But Mel's film is becoming known as the 'Mexican Braveheart' -- and everyone knows Braveheart won a ton of Oscars. What is interesting, also, is how Gibson seems to be positioning Apocalypto: the Hollywood Reporter, which had a stringer in Austin, noted that at one weekend screening Gibson drew a parallel between the Mayan civilization on the brink of collapse and America. "What's human sacrifice," he asked, "if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?" (Gibson has been increasingly critical of the Bush administration ... 
Again, moviegoers sought mindless entertainment as Johnny Knoxville's stupid stunt pic Jackass Number Two delivered a knockout punch at the box office for No. 1. The flick took in a bruising $11.9 million Friday and $10 million Saturday at 3,059 theaters Friday for what was a huge $29.2 million opening weekend. Hit-starved Paramount brass will be thrilled, although the idea for turning the MTV series into a movie pre-dates current management of the studio. Jet Li's martial arts Fearless limped into No. 2 by comparison for Rogue/Focus Pictures, opening in 1,806 theaters Friday with only $3.6 mil Friday and $4.2 mil Saturday for what was a $10.8 mil weekend. Sony's Gridiron Gang, starring The Rock, came in #3 its second weekend out, earning $2.9 mil Friday and $4.3 mil Saturday for what was an additional $9.7 mil to its cume of $27.2 mil to date. Electric Entertainment/MGM's Flyboys seemed an exact replica of the old pic Memphis Belle -- and it failed to fly with moviegoers now as in 1990; the No. 4 James Franco starrer was grounded with a $1.8 mil opening Friday and $2.4 mil Saturday for what was only a $5.5 mil weekend. Another holdover, Universal's The Black Dahlia, finished in 5th place with only $1.3 mil Friday and $1.9 mil Saturday, so it will probably add only another $4.5 mil to its cume of $17.3 mil to date. Among other movies opening this weekend, Sony's remake of All the King's Men starring Sean Penn (who's becoming known as box office poison) and Anthony Hopkins, was a flop. It finished #6 by eking out only $1.2 million Friday and $1.5 mil in 1,514 theaters for what should be a feeble $3.8 mil total. 
One problem was the studio's decision not to use the film's New Orleans setting in the pic's trailers out of fear it would be seen, sources told me, as exploiting the post-Katrina news value of the city. Fortunately for Sony, it had a financial partner on the film, which limits its exposure, and received production incentives from filming in Lousiana pre-Katrina. (All weekend figures include Sunday estimates.) 
The Tribune Co., which has an all-important board meeting today where the crisis at its Los Angeles Times will be front and center, may have a bigger problem than even the corporate owners realize with the paper's top editorial management. I'm told there's even a name for it inside the LA Times newsroom -- "The Suicide Pact" -- and it involves the highest-ranking editors. I've learned from insiders that, if Dean Baquet gets fired as editor and executive vice president by his Chicago bosses, then his trusted senior lieutenants have agreed to quit on the spot: Doug Frantz, Leo Wolinsky, and John Montorio.
"Carrey once rewarded his team with spankin’ new Porsche 911 Carrera convertibles. But on September 13, Carrey phoned Stevens and said, “I’ve never met with another agency. But I’m feeling like it’s time.” The two haven’t talked since. The next day, Stevens had that Porsche towed and sold. “I could never sit in it again after that,” the agent was overheard to say. The shocking and unexpected firing of the top agent by the top actor left Hollywood agog. Naturally, none of this “he said/they said” badmouthing behind the scenes has surfaced in the trades, because that’s how Hollywood works: The media rarely know about such disputes, much less report them. And the principals won’t talk to journalists publicly about any of this. But I’ve dug deep for details, first on DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com and now in L.A. Weekly, because they’re juicier than any episode of Entourage. I found out Carrey’s managers claim that Stevens wasn’t cutting it as a rep anymore, had become distracted by a summer home in Martha’s Vineyard and golf rounds at L.A.’s Riviera Country Club, and was “rageful and resentful,” alienating not just them but the star. I also learned that Stevens accuses the managers of a cash-and-Carrey conflict of interest by “manipulating” the comic’s exit from UTA in order to further their own, now separate, producing careers at another ... 
UPDATE: *A day after my original posting, the Los Angeles Times internal memo making the announcement finally went out today.* It's not been announced yet, but I'm told the Los Angeles Times did select its replacement for Amy Wallace, the talented Deputy Business Editor in charge of entertainment/Big Media/technology industry coverage who 
OK, so now we know what ex-studio moguls do: they blog on HuffPo. If Sherry Lansing's doing it, can ousted Viacomer Tom Freston be far behind? Sherry 
She's a regent of the University of California and chair of its Health Services Committee. With a partner, Civic Ventures, she's starting a movement, Primetime, for those sixty and older to retire and give something back to the community. "The funny thing is that I'm busier than I've ever been. I honestly can tell you that this is the happiest time of my life. It doesn't take anything away from what I was before; I still love movies, I still love my old friends. But now I have so many new friends, and I'm constantly learning new things. The big difference is that I control my own days and set my own agenda; I don't do anything that I don't want to." Turns out Sherry's blogging is an excerpt from Arianna Huffington's new book, 
Even though very little has been written about this forthcoming flick and it's still not announced on the film company's website, this could be that big score which The Weinstein Company has been waiting for. (HollywoodWiretap.com updates TWC, 
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