That low rumble you felt in your loins this morning wasn't the D train beneath you, headed north to Fordham. No, it was a subconscious reaction to the news that Zac Efron, a young and brave ambassador from the Elf kingdoms of the West, has been cast in yet another movie. It's called The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, based on the novel of the same name. This comes on the heels (harrrrr) of the news that he's ducked out of the remake of Footloose that Disney-porn auteur Kenny Ortega plans to direct. It's unclear when Efron, whose Elf name is ZaideeEfwinkle, will return to his kingdom of mushroom stools and Kikaree birds, but it seems likely that he'll first have to play the lead in that buzzed-about Shirley Temple biopic. [Variety]

Tom Hanks is developing a movie based on the old action hero space toy Major Matt Mason, who was a noble explorer of the final frontier who lived in a space station. The project is expected to proceed apace until some brave intern timidly taps Hanks on the shoulder and, when he's got his attention, kindly and quietly reminds him that he's not 35 anymore. [Variety] Dennis Quaid and Julianne Moore fucking hate each other. Oh wait, ha ha, no. Just their characters. Quaid is slated to play Bill Clinton and Moore his beautiful wife Hillary in an upcoming HBO film called The Special Relationship, about Clinton's dealings with British PM Antoinette Blair. A weary, so very bored Michael Sheen will once again play Blair, his third go around in the role. [Variety]

National Amusements cinemas is up for sale (by Citigroup), but is not attracting any bids. Potential buyers have been chased away because they want to buy select theaters from the 1,000 screen chain, not the whole kitten caboodle, but Citi won't let 'em. Had they done like I wanted and kept the Circle Cinemas in Cleveland Circle open, none of this would be an issue, I suspect. [THR]

Jon Hamm is playing the lawyer who inspired Perry Mason in the Allen Ginsburg biopic Howl. [Variety] Sparkly vampyr twink Robert Pattinson is going to be a star-crossed lover in the Summit feature (they own him) Memoirs. [Variety] And Slumdog Millionaire pretty face Freida Pinto will star in Julian Schanbel's next artsy fartsy movie, alongside Hiam Abbas, who acquitted herself beautifully in The Visitor. [Variety]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer scourge Michelle Trachtenberg has been cast in that pilot about nurses that isn't Nurse Jackie, called Mercy. She'll play a clueless dork. Fitting. But srsly, folks. This woman has the best agent in the biz. Her continued and frequent employment is baffling. [THR] Meanwhile George Lopez, the man responsible for both Beverly Hills Chihuahua and for currently ruining Nick at Nite, has nabbed the most coveted job in showbiz. He'll be the host of a TBS late-night talk show. Sounds bleak, sure, but Lopez actually has kind of a rabid following. (Rabid was a joke about chihuahuas... sigh). [THR]

The Times, Wall Street Journal, Post — everyone has some kind of story about the infighting, because basically Americans love to watch the rich lose all their money, and then claw at yell viciously at one another, just like people in trailer parks and shacks, and everywhere else really. And also because, oh yeah, crazy Sumner Redstone controls Viacom and CBS.

The story is, Redstone blew his money on crazy investments like Midway Games, which just absolutely hemorrhages money making videogames you've mostly never heard of, plus Mortal Kombat. He also last year donated $105 million to three hospitals, suddenly, after giving no charity, to anyone, ever. And now he has to pay for it all, by selling stocks, because his lenders are literally forcing him to.

Redstone is a stubborn old bastard bastard and refused to sell any Viacom or CBS shares to meet these obligations. Except then eventually he got desperate and was all, "OK, maybe I'll sell a little CBS, fine."

Redstone is still desperate. He can't raise enough money just selling a little CBS stock. So he's going to sell off huge chunks of the company his daughter Shari runs, a movie theater chain, which is basically innocent in this whole mess. Shari, obviously, it totally pissed, and voted against the plan in a meeting of a board committee, but lost.

So now Sumner Redstone might vote his daughter off the board, according to the Times, and presumably out of her job running the movie theater chain, because his lenders are nervous having the CEO of the movie theater chain OPPOSED to the plan to sell off chunks of said movie theater chain. And also if he dies, she becomes chairman of Viacom and CBS, which would make the lenders even more nervous.

In the meantime, Redstone doesn't have to pay $800 million due today, because his lenders are sufficiently impressed with his plan to screw over his own daughter that they're extending his deadline indefinitely while negotiations continue. Or so says the Post.

It's a beautiful Christmas fairytale, really, staged for the whole world in newspaper and tabloid columns.

Here is what just about everyone, including those in Mr. Redstone’s inner circle, agrees on: if it gets bad enough, Mr. Redstone has indicated he would be willing to part with CBS, but not Viacom, according to three people briefed on the talks who, like the others involved, spoke on condition of anonymity.

In the meantime, Redstone is trying to sell the $500 million movie theater chain run by his daughter, who perpetually kind of hates him and with whom he was recently communicating only by FAX. Shari Redstone previously said this whole financial mess is all her dad's fault and has nothing to do with the theater chain. Still: This is definitely a burn, Shari.