Update: As more information comes to light about Scientology swordsman Mario Majorski, a Defamer operative within the religion writes in to say, "The Church may want to put Mario into the distant past, but he was at Flag in FL in 1993 and did one of their confidential 'New Life Rundowns' called L-XI. He said it cost him $60,000." Quite the budget buster — we hope Majorski at least got a meadow of wildflowers out of it. [Previously: Introducing Mario Majorski, the Scientology Swordsman]

Twilight's record-breaking opening gross was downgraded to a measly $69.6 million on Monday, which nevertheless failed to deter Summit Entertainment from officially nudging the sequel, New Moon, into the pre-production queue. That was the easy part, though; paying its young stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart a reported $12 million apiece for the second film (and possibly a third) — and locking in director Catherine Hardwicke for millions more — is where the mess might arise.Twilight's budget was only $37 million (plus at least that much in marketing), which should have Summit well in the black by the middle of next month. Stewart and Pattinson came cheap, earning about $2 million each for their roles as vampire Edward Cullen and his dewy teen love interest Bella Swan. Alas, those days are over: Looking ahead, one rumor has the studio adapting New Moon and Eclipse — the second and third novels in Stephenie Meyer's wholesome, bestselling bloodsucker franchise — simultaneously, probably at a combined budget pushing $160 million. Anything to improve the FX, we suppose (there are werewolves in the next one), and anything to make reading New Moon worth it for poor Stewart. Their pricey return all but assured, Summit will move on to Hardwicke, who wasted little time and leverage last weekend pulling Favreau-ish media stunts about her doing Twilight's follow-ups right:

· Damn, we would have had a spare if the stuffing didn't fall out halfway down the lane. · After eight performances, a Broadway revival of American Buffalo starring John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment has closed. The three commiserated with a night of lap dances at downmarket strip club The Spread, where a hammered Cedric sobbed "all I ever wanted to do was entertain" between sloppy titty-grabs. · We always love to trot out our favorite Thanksgiving greeting card this time of year. Be nice, fuck! · The LAT can find no evidence Ben Silverman is about to get shitcanned: "NBC would like to keep Silverman, according to people close to him. His bosses think he's been a good steward." The Good Steward. Hmm. We're seeing Matt Damon biopic potential. · A Norwegian escort (maybe he found him on a Norwegian cruise line?) testified in the Boy George HustlerNapping Trial of the Century that the singer "manacled him to a bedroom wall and beat him with a metal chain after accusing him of hacking into his computer." They said "manacled!"

A tipster wasn't naming names when s/he sent word of one film critic's rather vocal dissing of another, more "highly respected" critic at a press screening earlier this afternoon. But the math seems easy enough, even for us: A father, a son and a "pathetic old putz" who's no longer on the air? Show your work after the jump.

Unholy Unions: When we heard today that Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt had gotten married, we knew there would be pictures, and we had only one question: did Spencer shave off his abominable snowbeard for the wedding? As revealed by this cover of Us Weekly, no, he did not! The magazine and Life & Style are both reporting that Montag's parents were less than thrilled that their daughter went ahead and got married without her family present. Settle down, Montags: we're sure the dynamic duo is planning a second, blowout wedding at Les Deux as we speak. Will Lauren crash the ceremony to object? Will Brody Jenner be "best bro"? So many questions, so few cumulative brain cells. [Us]

Choosing our list of what to watch was difficult today, and the fact that Sara Rue on The Big Bang Theory (part of a multi-episode arc) and James Van Der Beek as a film director on One Tree Hill did not make the grade, shows how fertile the Monday TV landscape is for beloved TV actors. WATCH The Tonight Show with Jay Leno [11:35 PM, NBC] - Ron Howard, Jonas Brothers - Former and current teen idols unite in Burbank. Ron Howard promotes Frost/Nixon and will hopefully address the white hot rumors about the Arrested Development movie.Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler [10 PM, History] - This documentary covers the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler and take control of the German government through re-enactments, newsreel footage and interviews with historians, survivors and witnesses. Times are tight, so catch the raw history on basic cable and hold out for Valkyrie to come to a sketchy second-run multiplex. TiVo

· The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra comes to Disney Hall, The Decemberists are at The Wiltern, Monolators close their residency at Pehrspace, and Electile Dysfunction Tour featuring GWAR with The Return of Sleazy P. Martin and Kingdom of Sorrow is at the House of Blues. · "Psycho-funk folkster" Pop Levi premieres his first film, You Don't Gotta Run, which documents his recent tour of Europe. He'll perform after the screening, at the Silent Movie Theater. · Clippers vs. Hornets at the Staples Center.

Pictured on a Disney premiere red carpet is fraternal showbiz sensation the Emanuel Brothers—Ari (the sexy brooding one, and the brains of the operation), Rahm (the cute, vocal one), and Zeke (the goofier-looking older one who you'd still totally be thrilled to settle for)—sending their throngs of young admirers into screaming fits and fainting spells.Unlike so many other Hollywood stars, parents approve of these upstanding young men, who wear their good intentions right on their heads in the form of Purity Yarmulkes. Catch them next in The Emanuel Brothers: The 3-D Experience, the poster of which features the boys clutching Fendi bags on the steps of Air Force One as they jet off to play a command performance at President Elect Barack Obama's Inauguration. [Thanks to NOTFAIL blog for a Photoshop we really wish we'd thought of ourselves.]

No explanation of the Twilight Phenomenon™ would likely be complete without such sizable insights as Kathie Lee Gifford's and the authoritative cultureklatsch at Fox and Friends. The latter group's ownership of the story — as evidenced by last Friday's extraordinary investigative study of "babes" headed to the multiplex in droves — continues today with a more think-y survey of how the chaste-vampire genre trumps the more occult flavor of the Harry Potter series, but over on TodayKathie Lee diclosed the real trick nudging Twilight toward box-office immortality: Teen girls are more into romance than sex. And those who aren't will be after the dressing-down delivered here. Failing the ready availability of another tween-friendly franchise, Hollywood would do well to bottle this and sell it.

When we broke the news that Fox had canceled MADtv, we also cited rumblings that Fox was going to keep its other late-night offering, the little-watched Talkshow With Spike Feresten. At the time, we assumed that Talkshow wasn't long for this world either, since it has now aired for two years (with top-tier guests like Vanilla Ice!) safely out of the public eye. Au contraire, say Fox spokespeople, who are attempting a new strategy designed to grow the series into their own Tonight Show. So what's their plan, and what is this show anyway?Says Broadcasting & Cable:

In an interview Sunday with the NYT Magazine, the 62-year-old filmmaker and noted meditation aficionado confirmed he would soon marry Emily Stofle, an actress featured in his 2006 epic Inland Empire. And, if we have his rationale correct, he will divorce Stofle not long after that:

New Frontiers in Tortured Ledes! This week's award for "worst first sentence" goes to TMZ, which began a Britney Spears story with this uniquely overwritten, not exactly timely lede: "Britney Spears wants daddy Jamie to become more like Barack Obama, and forget the words, 'No You Can't!'" We'd like to forget too, TMZ. Thanks for playing! [TMZ]

We'd like to take just a moment to officially append our 20 Fun Facts About Rahm Emanuel, Ari's power-broker brother who's expected to bring a little profane, alpha-male flair to the White House as Barack Obama's chief of staff. We'll call this Fun Fact #21: Was impersonated by Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live in a skit eventually spiked by the show's producers, perhaps fearing it could overshadow any one of host Tim McGraw's own, more solemn stabs at comedy. OR for one of a couple of other reasons after the jump — where you'll find the clip as well.Or maybe by the network, fearing the overindulgence of cursing, bleeped or not. Or maybe even by Samberg himself, fearing some Emanuelian turnabout for casting the Illinois representative as the boorish lout who would "strip [Joe Lieberman] naked and make yhttp://publish.gawkerarchives.com/ged/newou walk your McCain-loving-ass back to Connecticut, you fucking turncoat." We'll likely never really know why the sketch was killed, but we favor the latter scenario, just for the potential for Emanuel to threaten to "crack that big fucking nose of his" while teasing an SNL guest appearance in the weeks ahead.

Every movie star everywhere is quitting! In today's case of old Clint Eastwood it makes sense, because he's, y'know, old and his directing career has been a lot more illustrious than his acting career has for the past decade or so. But the once-promising, now-squandered Joaquin Phoenix? Baby mill Angelina Jolie? Nicole Kidman?? If they leave, then what are we to do? Find new movie stars, I guess. Trouble is, there aren't really any good, young understudies waiting in the wings. But there might be some! We'll take a look at who could replace these four retiring (or maybe semi-retiring) actors after the jump.

A hearty, icky round of Defamer congratulations to Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, whose coupled-up villainy on The Hills finally culminated with an actual marriage this past week in Mexico. Though the fifteen-minute ceremony was supposedly hatched on the spur of the moment, at least Montag and Pratt had on hand something borrowed (time), and something new (her breasts). Few details have emerged yet, but we'd like to believe the bride wore vintage Ed Hardy and walked down the sandy aisle to her own, Autotune-d rendition of "Here Comes the Bride" (featuring T-Pain). People has the story:

· Kiefer sighting! 12 million of them, in fact, as Sunday night's 24: Redemption returned Jack Bauer to sneering, skull-cracking form with modest (at best) ratings. His next appearance is scheduled for January — when 24 returns as a series — or in a heartwarming holiday video, should the inspiration strike this year. [THR] · Let's hear it for Catherine Hardwicke! Her $70 million weekend for Twilight made it the highest opening gross ever for a woman director. [BBC] · Steven Seagal's law-enforcement hobby is evidently serious enough for A&E to feature him in Steven Seagal: Lawman, a new reality series showcasing the actor on duty as a deputy sheriff in Louisiana. [Variety] After the jump: What actress is set to join the Mile-High Club with George Clooney?· Vera Farmiga will play George Clooney's requisite romantic interest in Up in the Air, Jason Reitman's Juno follow-up about a man chasing down his life's goal of accruing 1 million frequent flyer miles. [Variety · Speedy the Diet Supplement will be just one of the cartoon characters easing kids into Fox's planned Weekend Marketplace, a two-hour infomercial block that will replace the network's Saturday-morning cartoon programming. [Variety] · Robert De Niro is the latest player to belly up to the Middle East gravy bowl, franchising his Tribeca Film Festival to Qatar for an annual event to screen in the capital city of Doha. [Variety]

Though Barbara Walters has a long, enviable list of powerful men she's interviewed, she has an even longer, even enviable-r list of men she's conquered in the boudoir. Alan Greenspan! Roy Cohn! That one married senator guy! Why, it's a black book that could make even Angelina Jolie weep into her Hot Pocket. Lately, though, Walters has become something of a chicken hawk, and after lasciviously asking Michael Phelps about his endowments last month, she turned it up a notch on today's edition of The View.This morning's guest was Simon Baker, star of the only real network success story this season, The Mentalist. Baker's already proved his lady-killing bona fides as the non-Adrian Grenier love interest in The Devil Wears Prada, and his new designation as "Sexiest Blond" in People magazine (combined with his natural Australian accent) caused the ladies on the View couch to spontaneously ovulate. The 79-year-old Walters led the charge, turning Baker's innocent ice cream cone anecdote into an uncomfortable, cunnilingus-inspiring sex fantasy. Is that image more hideous than Whoopi Goldberg's Ugg Boots? You be the judge!

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/23 — Brunch at Alcove in Silver Lake on Sunday; spotted DOMINIC MONAGHAN and EVANGELINE LILLY. She looked fantastic (even in sweats and a T-shirt). He looked like a guy who knew he was the luckiest guy in the world! [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

Hopefully, most Defamer readers have a short work week and a long weekend to reflect on the descent into economic depression occurring in front of our eyes. With Obama naming his economic team today, it's time for you to put together your own team of advisers, namely your broker friend Steve and that attractive junior agent who told you that he has all his money in Turkish pharmaceutical stocks. If today - November 24 - is your birthday: Thanksgiving day promises a variety of experiences and flavors for you. Metaphorically speaking, avoid the green bean casserole (Jealousy) and salty gravy (Anger) but eat as much pumpkin pie (Comfort) as you like. The executive producers may have demanded that you lose 20 pounds for that bikini-centric role, but your mom's turkey (Shame) is being served in large quantities. Sagittarius (November 22 - December 21): A time for renewal is coming. Sure, you'll still be in poor health and not getting enough sleep, but those mid-season replacements will make your world bright again. More star sign servings after the jump!

Allow us to introduce to you our Inverse Baldwin Theory, which goes a little something like this: whenever one Baldwin rises in the public's estimation, another Baldwin must descend to heretofore unknown levels of douchebaggery to balance out the universe. Thus, it is so that as Alec Baldwin enjoys near-universal acclaim and awards for his role on 30 Rock, baby brother Stephen has been reduced to stunts like becoming a right-wing Republican, Celebrity Apprentice, and now... this.Appearing today on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (the daytime chatfest hosted by Spaghetti Cat), Baldwin showed off the tattoo of Hannah Montana's initials that he had inked in a bid to appear on the Miley Cyrus-toplined show. Sadly, this misguided attempt to book an acting gig produced nothing but some strong guffaws from Cyrus, a round of boos from the confused Mike and Juliet audience, and Baldwin's preliminary placement on the Megan's Law registry. [The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet]