· Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi announces that Sideways star Thomas Haden Church will play the Spidey's new archenemy, though he didn't disclose the villain's identity. We're going to play it safe and guess he'll be donning the spandex overalls of the wine-swilling Possibly Retarded Airplane Mechanic, a truly chilling foe. [THR]
· If he can't have his acting career back, what he really wants to do is direct: Ben Affleck will direct his own adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel Gone, Baby, Gone for Touchstone. [Variety]
· Fox chooses mostly unknown British director (and Guy Ritchie disciple) Matthew Vaughn to direct X Men 3. Somewhere in Australia, Bryan Singer is laughing his ass off. [Variety]
· Not content to remake Curb Your Enthusiasm without the funny parts and with a fat, whiny stand-in for Larry David, Showtime poaches some HBO talent to keep the good times rolling. [THR]
· Paul W.S. Anderson, the auteur behind such masterpieces as Resident Evil and Alien Vs. Predator, brings his skillset to writing and directing a remake of Deathrace 3000 for Paramount. We thought that the New Paramount™ was going to lay off the remake crack-pipe, so we'll have to assume that this project is an artifact of the Sherry Lansing era. [Variety]

The NYT has some bad news for people wanting to do business with part-time movie star/full-time Scientology evangelist Tom Cruise: any deal you hope to make may include a "voluntary" tour of the Hubbard mothership or its satellites:

The Cityrag blog alerts us to these Paris Hilton pics on the JJB message board. Remember, kids; Don't bake and drive, or you might find yourself buying a pair of David Lee Roth's sunglasses from the Just a Gigolo video before the high wears off.

It looks like that 90-year-old Portuguese pool shark is going to have to take a raincheck for whooping acquitted murder suspect/cowboying enthusiast Robert Blake at nine-ball, because the actor seems busy floating theories about who might have killed his wife to Barbara Walters on Good Morning America this morning:

Page Six is taking the news that William Morris agent Todd Feldman defected to CAA pretty hard. Hell hath no fury like a gossip rag scorned:

Unfortunately, we have no idea what the story is about because the image in this lede stopped us dead:

· "Glickman, a former congressman who took the job after Jack Valenti retired last year, calls piracy 'a potential dagger poised at the heart of the motion picture industry.'" It's so nice that some of Valenti's poetic soul is finally rubbing off on the Glickster.
· PoweR girl Lizzie Grubman gets busted planting a gossip item on Lindsay Lohan. Guess she's still getting the hang of being on camera all of the time. Good thing she didn't have a show when she was learning how drive her SUV in the Hamptons, eh? [second item]
· Michael Jackson's learning, albeit slowly. Sure, he showed up to court late and in tears from his "back pain," but at least his handlers got him out of his jammies this time.
· The Genies (the Canadian Oscars) are being held tonight, and forgive us for sounding like an ugly American for saying so, but doesn't the Genie statue look like something that Oscar would fuck in in the bathroom of the Abbey and never call again for being too clingy? We're just sayin'.

On the eve of NBC's launch of the American version of The Office (and in its second story about the new show in two days—someone give their PR person a raise), the NYT visits with Ricky Gervais, the comedic genius behind the original British series. Now that he's embraced his post-Office existence, it seems that he's trolling for a job in NBC's programming department:

· Concerts, Concerts, Concerts: The Doves at the El Rey. Bob Dylan at the Pantages Theatre, and Kaiser Chiefs play what will certainly be a typically packed, sweaty, and free Amoeba show before their sold-out gig at the Troubadour later tonight.
· Relive the good old days, when you'd hang outside of a place like Amoeba to stomp the kids leaving their indie rock show, by checking out "Outrageous! L.A. Punk Rock Flyers, Handbills and Posters (‘77-‘83)" at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. Now, of course, you're a lawyer.
· Film critic Stephen Farber hosts a screening of Hungarian thriller Kontroll at the Westside Pavilion Cinemas. And if a Hungarian thriller isn't enough to lure you from your couch, Nimrod Antal, the film's director, will be there to answer your questions about being thrilled, Hungarian style.

Now with 10 percent less cola!

At a taping of a cable show honoring Sin City creator Frank Miller, Brittany Murphy demonstrates the technique that's allowed her to work in Hollywood for over a decade without ever seeing cocaine.

"Unorthodox" William Morris president Dave Wirtschafter couldn't have known that his profile in the New Yorker, which should've been a high-brow blowjob for his agency, was going to wind up being such a headache. An operative shares this anecdote, which might reveal an unexpected bright side:

Who says we have to choose? Can't Michael Jackson be the kind of creepy clown that gives kids wine, calls it "Jesus Juice," then shows them some porn as a warm-up to an inappropriate sleepover in his bed? Leno, on the other hand, can be the kind of creepy clown who devotes his monologue to "such topics as electrocution and prison rape" and jests "about the possibility of Jackson attempting suicide." First, cultural critics and pointy-headed types like Elaine Showalter should stay off our turf. Secondly, when did Leno's monologue get funny? Eh, we're not going to lose any sleep over it. We're sure his prison rape and suicide jokes are hacky anyway.

Fametracker kicks off a new feature, Celebrity Vs. Thing, in which the famous are pitted in a theoretical deathmatch (we're pretty sure the loser isn't actually erased from existence, but we'll see how it goes) with a random inanimate object. Their first face-off involves beloved actress/mummy war bride Catherine Zeta-Jones and that most unfashionable artifact of the pre-Atkins era, the bagel.

· Hugh Jackman signs on for the film adaptation of the C.P. Taylor play, Good, and will play a professor in 1930's Germany who gets "caught up in the fervor of nationalism." We're going to assume that's a euphemism for "getting all Nazi'd up." [Variety]
· DreamWorks and Imagine hire the writers of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for the Eddie Murphy vehicle Johnny Blaze. The writing duo will spend the next two months trying to rediscover the exact combination of psychotropic drugs and junk food that birthed their first hit. [Variety]
· FilmEngine purges the original cast of the Butterfly Effect and will go ahead with the development of a Kutcher-less sequel. Wilmer Valderrama, your moment has finally arrived. [Variety]
· And in other ridiculous sequel news, New Line has picked up a couple of disposable actors for Final Destination 3. Before you laugh, this one features an amusement park accident. Dude—killer Ferris wheels! [THR]
· Reason for rejoicing; Bravo orders a second season of Project Runway. [Variety]
· Everyone gets a poker project! Janeane Garafalo to star in the NBC poker comedy pilot All In. [THR]

Trade paper Broadcasting & Cable noticed that when David Spade played Owen Wilson in a SNL sketch (a celebrity roast of Clint Eastwood hosted by a humorless Sean Penn) in the March 12th episode of the show, he was outfitted with a finely-crafted prosthetic nose to add to the bit's verisimilitude. We can all breathe a sigh of relief that the make-up artist decided to render Wilson's nose as circumcised (though that vein is a little disturbing); an uncut proboscis would've been too much to bear, even in the name of comedy.

There's been a lot of discussion on the fallout from the New Yorker profile of "unorthodox" William Morris Agency president Dave Wirtschafter since Friday afternoon. So much, in fact, that the only reasonable day to deal with it is in a round-up:

Apparently, Pat O'Brien is just like the rest of us and requires at least a bottle of Wild Turkey to get through an episode of The Insider, as the host has checked into rehab to battle an alcohol problem. O'Brien slipped a written statement announcing his dry vacation to the AP on Sunday and disappeared into the ether. Lest you worry that his absence will cripple the celebrity salad-tossing capabilities of the show, Lara Spencer, a woman we've never heard of, will fill in while O'Brien's away. In a word: Whew.

The box office numbers that help ease that case of the Mondays:

· Is Demi Moore pregnant? This AP story provides absolutely no new information or insights. Delicious!
· "Car mishap," "hit and run," "twitchy Idol judge sideswipe," call it whatever you want, but the cops might be coming for Paula Abdul.
· Matthew McConaughey's MTV diary: It's just like On The Road, but as written by a nude bongo-drum enthusiast. [via Goldenfiddle]
· The Spamalot hype has reached such a breaking point that we can hardly wait for them to open a half-assed version of it in LA starring Ted Danson and Jason Biggs.
· Was anyone else relieved when Mischa Barton got delesbianized on The OC last night? We were really tiring of those excruciatingly uncomfortable girl-on-girl kisses, which we feared might ruin HLA for us forever. Anyway, whew, that was a close one!