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Russell Brand to Host the MTV Movie Awards, Maybe Find a New Wife While He’s at It

Russell Brand and ex-wife Katy Perry famously got together at the 2009 VMAs, after Brand used his hosting power to hit on Perry mid-show. So it makes sense that the newly single Brand has signed up for another MTV hosting gig — the Movie Awards, which go down June 3. The new wife hunt begins! Look out, Jennifer Lawrence; there are a lot of gross "Cornucopia" jokes coming your way.

Stephenie Meyer’s Company Picks Up Second Film

First off, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer has a production company. It's called Fickle Fish Films. Its mission in this world is "to create literature-related films and media," and it has financed one project, Austenland, thus far. Now Down a Dark Hall, the 1974 young-adult thriller by novelist Lois Duncan (who wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer the year prior), has been optioned, too. Meyer should follow this one up with the rights to J.K. Rowling's first post-Potter novel. That would be too rich.

Azealia Banks Now Repped by Lady Gaga’s Manager

After scoring a September debut album on Lady Gaga's label home at Interscope, Azealia Banks has also signed with Gaga's manager, Troy Carter, the man once said to make 95 percent of Gaga's business decisions yet only influence 5 percent of her creative choices. It's just another piece to the puzzle of Banks's imminent hugeness, alongside her first major gig taking place at Coachella last weekend, the steady stream of rad new jams she keeps dishing out, and everything about "212."

Scott Rudin Hires a Literary Mind to Lead His Literary Company [UPDATE]

Hollywood's most literate producer Scott Rudin (so literate he lives in New York) is becoming even more intertwined with the book world, hiring publishing veteran John Schoenfelder to run development at his company for him. Schoenfelder comes with a varied, though recently troubled, pedigree: He's served time at St. Martin's Press and then Little Brown, which last year made him editor of its new imprint, Mulholland Books. Dedicated to "suspense fiction," Mulholland launched last April and ran into trouble seven months later with its eleventh book, Q.R. Markham's Assassin of Secrets; the well-reviewed novel had to be recalled after evidence emerged that the author had plagiarized from Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, and Charles McCarry.*

While Rudin's tastes lean highbrow, Schoenfelder's author list tilts toward mystery and crime. »

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Polone: Four Star Screenwriters Talk About Rewrite Hell

Why does anyone want to be a screenwriter? It is the most difficult job in the business. Facing a blinking cursor and a blank screen is much tougher than interpreting that screenplay. And for this arduous work, the screenwriter is compensated less than the producers, director, and stars: It is pretty rare for even an A-list writer to get any kind of big-money profit participation on a film, while it is de rigueur for those in the aforementioned categories. And, unlike the other artists who work on films — and in most other art forms — it is common and even pro forma to replace a screenwriter on a studio project. While book editors probably have given notes to e.e. cummings and Norman Mailer, I doubt anyone ever rewrote them. I can’t imagine that after Bruce Springsteen sent Columbia Records the songs for Born to Run, an executive said to him, “That’s great Boss, or, eh, The Boss, but we think it best to hand these over to John Fogerty and let him do a pass on them.” Dalí, Rodin, and Chopin would probably be aghast to learn of how motion picture scripts are developed. On a big-budget film, it is not uncommon for six or more writers to have worked on the screenplay, including the director and a friend of the star who is brought in just to work on his character’s dialogue. After 27 years working in this industry, I’ve heard many writers complain about unjust situations or how a movie could have been better had their work made it to the screen, but not about the actual experience of being rewritten or rewriting someone else. So in search of illumination on the topic, I decided to ask a group of four top script writers — David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man), Brian Koppelman (Rounders, Ocean's Thirteen), Jeff Nathanson (Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal), and Andy Walker (Se7en, Sleepy Hollow) — for their thoughts on the curiously standard procedure of swapping writers on movies.

"My emotional response [to being rewritten] is a mix of disgust and horror, no matter what side I'm on." »

Azealia Banks’s Album Due in September

"212" rapper Azealia Banks, who has spent the last few months hanging out in Europe with very fancy people (Karl Lagerfeld, Lana Del Rey), just gave Nylon a few details about her debut album. It's called Broke With Expensive Taste, and it'll be out in September. She'd also like you to know that her eyelashes are real. And this concludes your Azealia Banks Status Report for the day. Limbo it out.

Limp Bizkit Is Part of Cash Money Now

The record label behind Lil Wayne, Drake, and Nicki Minaj has just signed Limp Bizkit, the Fred Durst-led rock/rap/screaming group best known for launching the "angry red baseball cap" look back in 1999. Wayne confirmed the deal last night during a radio interview; Durst then jumped on Twitter to share thoughts like "The game is missing danger, electricity, and rock n roll!!!! Cash Money Limp Bizkit" and "Rock shit doesn't rock anymore!" There are also rumors that Ashanti might join the label. Meanwhile, Vulture wonders whether the only requirement for joining Cash Money is the willingness to show up at random karaoke bars and perform your own song? That's our best explanation so far.

Hunger Games Outselling Twilight Already

Vulture apologizes that we did not set up some sort of countdown siren Tumblr or alert you in any other way to the fact that Hunger Games tickets went on sale yesterday. But they did, and apparently the public was very aware of that fact — so much so that Katniss and Co. beat the Twilight: Eclipse record for first-day online advance ticket sales. People continue to be excited about this movie! And so do we. Okay, now everyone go write a thank-you email to the teenage cousin who bought the tickets so you could maintain plausible deniability.  "Yeah, I have a ticket, but only because my 15-year-old cousin really wanted to go."  You're covered.

Why Did Hollywood’s Youngest Mogul Cool on Two of the Town’s Hottest Screenwriters?

Late last night, Roberto Orci – who, with Alex Kurtzman, make up one of Hollywood's most successful franchise scriptwriting teams (Transformers, Star Trek) – Tweeted, "After a wonderful five years with DreamWorks, K/O Paper Products is excited to be an independent production company in the coming year!"

This was surprising, as just last October, the news had broke that the two J.J. Abrams protégés were in talks to move their production company, the cheekily-named Paper Products, from DreamWorks to Skydance Productions, the deep-pocketed Paramount partner funded by billionaire Oracle scion David Ellison. Vulture has learned that that deal fizzled out this month after Ellison (whose new company had back to back hits with True Grit and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol) realized that while he was happy to have the talented team write movies for him – such as the Star Trek sequel – he didn't need them as creative partners as much as he once thought.

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A Year Later, Adele Is Still No. 1

Happy 21 anniversary, everyone! Are you celebrating by purchasing yet another copy of Adele's breakup opus? If so, you will not be alone — the album sold 730,000 copies this week, its biggest one-week sales take to date (thanks, surely, to her six Grammy wins last weekend). Adele also landed her 21st nonconsecutive No. 1 this week, breaking the previous record held by The Bodyguard soundtrack. And in case you missed it, she won some Brit Awards and flipped off "the suits" after getting cut off. As ever, it is good to be Adele.

Russell Crowe in Talks to Join the Dracula Tale Harker

Our spies tell us that Warner Bros. is in talks with Russell Crowe about starring in Harker, a reimagining of Bram Stoker’s Dracula that's being produced by Leonardo DiCaprio. It tells the vampire story from the point of view of Jonathan Harker, who — instead of his traditional role as a lawyer — is now a Scotland Yard detective investigating the Count's string of grisly murders in England.

'Unknown' director Jaume Collet-Serra is in the mix, and may follow it with a resuscitated 'Akira.' »

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  • Posted 2/9/12 at 4:54 PM

What Are the Odds That 26 As-Yet-Unrenewed ‘Bubble’ TV Shows Will Come Back?

When the ending credits of the final episode of Chuck aired last month, folks all over Hollywood reported hearing a small explosion: the sound of TV's ultimate bubble show finally bursting. For years, Chuck stood as the perfect example of a TV show stuck in purgatory, its renewal always up in the air because it had ratings too small to make it a slam-dunk but just enough of a fan base to warrant continued consideration. But while Chuck is no more, plenty of other shows remain stuck in varying degrees of limbo. And as we did last year, Vulture has processed reams of ratings data, queried industry insiders, and scoured scheduling grids in order to come up with our best guess as to the future of more than two dozen as-yet-unrenewed series on the Big Four broadcast networks. We then ran everything through our patented, award-winning Bubble Meter to arrive at a final score quantifying each show's odds of survival, from the horribly made-up Work It dudes at 1 (representing certain cancellation) to the salty-tongued vixens of 2 Broke Girls at 10 (definite renewal).

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Four Reasons Why Opening This Means War on Valentine’s Day Was a Bad Idea

“Love,” the poet Robert Browning once wrote, “likes stratagem and subterfuge.” If that’s so, why is Fox’s romantic spy comedy This Means War struggling so much in the Valentine's Day season? Originally slated to open on February 17, McG’s action-comedy love triangle had Fox feeling so bullish that a little less than a month ago, the studio moved up its release by three days, hoping that opening it on February 14 would turn it into an irresistible date movie and blunt the appeal of Sony's rival chick flick, The Vow, which opens tomorrow. Then, disaster: On Tuesday, after the studio saw abysmal audience research data that suggested that The Vow would leave Fox eating its chocolate heart out, Fox slid War's opening date back to February 17, though even that doesn't seem to be helping its tracking.

There are four reasons things went wrong: Let's divvy up the blame. »

Exercise-Video Giant Anchor Bay May Now Split With Komen

A little more than a week after its Planned Parenthood defunding/refunding controversy and a day after the resignation of the public policy chief who engineered it, Susan G. Komen for the Cure is still radioactive. Insiders tell Vulture that Anchor Bay Entertainment, one of Hollywood's largest producers and distributors of women’s fitness, dance and exercise videos, is "submitting lists of new charities…to replace [long-time beneficiary] Komen," even after Komen's attempts to repair their PR damage.

Anchor Bay currently has a deal to donate to Komen one dollar from every home-exercise DVD sold. »

As Predicted, Lana Del Rey Debuts at No. 2

The official numbers are in, and Lana Del Rey's Born to Die is the No. 2 album in the country, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Del Rey sold about 77,000 units in her first week, which is a smidge above the projected numbers but well behind Adele's 122,000 copies of 21. (That brings Adele to 6.3 million albums sold in total, along with her nineteenth non-consecutive week at No. 1. Fear her.) Meanwhile, Del Rey did in fact hit No. 1 in the U.K., so do some quick backlash soul-searching and then relocate as necessary. 

  • Posted 2/7/12 at 11:30 AM

How TV Pilots Looking for Stars Are Benefiting From the Zooey Effect

Having settled on most of their pilot contenders for the 2012–13 season, the broadcast networks now have to figure out how to fill literally hundreds of major roles in these would-be shows. The bad news: They've got just a few weeks to audition and sign talent in order to have pilots ready for May's upfront scheduling announcements. The good: The roster of names available to casting agents has never been wider, or dotted with more recognizable actors. In addition to the usual suspects who always seem to be trying out for TV shows (think Sarah Chalke or JoAnna Garcia), we're now in an era when doing television — both cable and broadcast — is often just as attractive an option as a career devoted to features. Not only is TV generally doing a better job dominating the pop-culture conversation, but studios aren't making as many features as they once did, or are more frequently choosing to go with unknown names rather than stars in order to save money. Both factors play in TV's favor. "As the movie business shrinks, you see more well-known actors considering TV, and the networks no longer look at it as crazy or a stretch to go after big names," one talent agent told Vulture. Does this mean we can expect James Franco or Channing Tatum to sign on for NBC's new Munsters reboot? Probably not, but then again, who knows? After surveying our talent agency sources, Vulture found some surprising names on network wish lists this pilot season. We also heard one actor mentioned frequently as the poster child for broadcast TV's new talent economy: Zooey Deschanel.

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What Hollywood Can Learn From the End of Universal’s Ill-Fated Hasbro Deal

Last week, news broke that the board game Candy Land had been dumped by Universal Pictures and instead set up at rival Sony Pictures, now as an Adam Sandler vehicle. And with this departure, Universal had unloaded the last of its Hasbro-inspired projects (having washed their hands of Stretch Armstrong, Ouija, and Clue within the last six months); this ends — nearly two years early — the studio's largely unproductive, multi-million-dollar deal with the world's No. 2 toymaker. Signed in 2008, the pact originally anticipated a far-less-costly moviemaking world in which movie stars wouldn't be the attraction, brands would. And yet: Candy Land has now been scooped up by another studio not because of the inherent attraction of the board game, but precisely because it would make a good vehicle for a big star. From this expensive and largely fruitless deal – the jury is still out on whether the $250-plus million adaptation of Battleship with no movie stars will end up like the Costa Concordia or rack up Titanic-size grosses – Hollywood can take a lesson not just about the dangers of relying too much on outside brand names, but also on the dangers of a studio looking for too quick a fix.

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What Does NBC Have Riding on the Success of Smash?

You've heard of Smash, right? That new NBC musical drama premiering Monday at 10 p.m.? Well, of course you have: Since the first on-air promo debuted November 6, the Peacock has been pounding Smash into our collective consciousness by every means possible. Featurettes showcasing Katharine McPhee's rendition of "Beautiful" have been been part of the preshow reel on thousands of movie screens for weeks now. McPhee and co-star Megan Hilty crooned carols at the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, while Debra Messing handed out an award at the Golden Globes. To build word of mouth, the pilot episode has been streaming online, on-demand, and in airplanes weeks ahead of its official debut. And then there are the billboards, bus advertisements, and, in selected areas, NBC execs tackling people and begging them to watch it. Big promo pushes are nothing new for NBC (remember the endless drumbeat in advance of The (Non-) Event?). But the launch of Smash has taken on a special urgency. For one thing, it's the first serious attempt by new NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt, on the job barely a year now, to reverse nearly a decade of decline at the Peacock. It's also coming at a time when NBC seems perilously close to shifting from merely uncompetitive to nearly irrelevant on many nights of the week. To wit: Late last month, Peacock brass woke up to an embarrassing post on industry bulletin board Deadline.com reporting that in the 10 p.m. Thursday slot — where not that long ago ER drew over 40 million viewers —NBC had finished in eighth place, behind everything from Jersey Shore and the Univision telenovela Rosa De Guadalupe to a repeat of The Big Bang Theory on cable's TBS. "There's a lot of racing hearts and held breaths over there right now," says one TV industry insider who deals regularly with NBC suits. "If it doesn't perform the way they need it to, there's going to be real concern about how they're ever going to turn things around." But just how important is the success or failure of Smash to the gasping network? Let's break down the potential aftershocks for the Peacock of three different ratings outcomes.

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Brad Bird Considering Taking Over Robert Zemeckis’s Abandoned Sea Monster Movie

Last November, it was revealed that director Robert Zemeckis had ended his flirtation with Brian Helgeland’s American history and monster mash-up Here There Be Monsters, which pitted American Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones against various tentacled monsters of the deep, and little more was heard about the project. But now insiders tell Vulture that the project may have signs of life, as Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol director Brad Bird is meeting with Legendary brass about the project, which originated as an idea by company chairman Thomas Tull.

It's kind of like 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,' but with chum. »

Iggy Azalea Signs to a Major Label

Iggy Azalea, the other rising female rapper with a name related to the genus Rhododendron, made it official with Interscope last Friday. (Azealia Banks, you may remember, signed with Universal a week before that.) The label says Iggy's first album, The New Classic, will be out sometime in June 2012, leaving you a full six months to decide whether in fact Azelea is the right up-and-coming flower-rapper for your purposes. Or you can go the patriotic route, or stick with the Minnie Mouse ears. Collect them all.

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