• Only one man in Hollywood would dare step on the toes of Steven Spielberg in the venerable American historical Ken Burnsy territory and that man is Robert Redford, who set into motion his own Abraham Lincoln bio-pic, competing with the Jurassic Park helmer's long announced, long gestating Lincoln film. [Variety]

• Fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut was the big news in Toronto last night. His film A Single Man received generally favorable reviews, with Hitfix calling it a near home run. [Hitfix]

• The LA Times reports that Carl Icahn's shareholder agitation against Lion's Gate appears to have been quieted by the company's rising share price. With the company's board meeting scheduled for today, Icahn seems not to have followed through with his threat to nominate a competing slate of directors. [LA Times]

• Helen Hunt will take the lead of Parenthood, a sitcom based on Ron Howard's 1989 film. Maura Tierney had played the role in the pilot but pulled out due to breast cancer treatments. [Hollywood Reporter]

• One more thing that hasn't changed about the new Jay Leno — his role as punching bag for America's critics. [The Wrap]

• Betty White will receive the Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award when at the Guild's big trophy show in January. [The Wrap]

Hello everyone,
We have a new intern starting today:
My name is Theo Spielberg. I am a Los Angeles native but (clearly) I love
New York City. I am a rising senior at Yale University, studying comparative
literature. Since as long as I can remember, my main interest has been music
- playing it, watching it be played, writing about it, thinking about it
etc. In high school I discovered a similar passion for writing, and have
been pursuing creative and journalistic writing ever since. I look forward
to spending an awesome summer here at New York Magazine.
You can reach him at [TOP SECRET CONTACT METHOD]

He starts today! Research on the infallible internet reveals that Theo is the adopted son of Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, and he has six brothers and sisters. Hopefully he will find Manhattan to be more "band-centric" than shitty New Haven, where the music scene sucks. We've emailed Theo to find out more about his internship, and we'll let you know what we hear. Do you know any other celebrity kids doing media internships? Email us immediately.
Non-celebrity students are also free to apply for New York internships!

UPDATE: NY Mag spokesperson extraordinario Serena Torrey responded to our email to Theo, because "Company policy prevents interns from responding to external press inquiries." She says he's an editorial intern and referred us to the job description on their site, which indicates that right this moment, Theo may be engaged in "database production, fact-checking, research, reporting, and writing," for $7.15 per hour. Which is more than Donald Trump's making from the media, hey-o!

[Pic via]

The Tony Kushner-penned biopic, with Liam Neeson on board to play the former President, has long been one of his most precious properties. But, according to Kim Masters in The Big Money, when his DreamWorks studio ditched Paramount last year, it had to leave it and an entire raft of projects behind. Well, DreamWorks had planned to buy the project back from Paramount with the money it was going to get from an Indian billionaire and Wall Street investors. But that money hasn't materialized and DreamWorks is out of cash.

That leaves Lincoln in Paramount's hands and the guy who gets to now decide if the studio goes ahead with the picture, Brad Grey, is not exactly a friend of DreamWorks'. Plus Paramount already passed on it once, claiming too high a budget.

Spielberg has slashed that number down to a sad little $50 million, but the future is still murky. It'd be a shame for him if he lost out on the opportunity. He's the master of chest-thumping, Kaminski-shot American gravitas. And now it could fall into the hands of a Joe Wright or Marc Forster. Or just get lost forever in turnaround. Anti-Republican Hollywood strikes again.

—The announcement arrived this morning, with Disney slotting six 'Works films per year, as per its usual. The first will arrive next year under the Touchstone banner, and Disney has committed to fronting P&A costs that provided one of several sticking points in the ongoing negotiations with its previous suitors at Universal.

—Regarding that relationship, Kim Masters's Daily Beast survey notes swaths of scorched earth trailing Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider after months of failed negotiations with Uni boss Ron Meyer. Aside from the outstanding $250 million loan that DreamWorks needed to close the deal (which GE offered it after first denying it) and the dearth of HBO slots for DreamWorks films (which Universal had withheld throughout the process before finally offering two of its annual six), there was Meyer's unhappy discovery that the 'Works had in fact been secretly dealing with Disney:

When [Meyer] found out that DreamWorks was in fact talking to Disney, he got on the phone with DreamWorks chief executive Stacey Snider and said she and Spielberg had behaved "like pigs" (as has been reported elsewhere). Other words, like "despicable and deplorable," have also been used.

—Who even cares about Meyer at this point, asks David Poland: "If that's DreamWorks' biggest problem in the next years, they will be dancing in the streets." And anyway, maybe Universal — which already has Brian Grazer's four films per year — is better off standing alone without having to tend to DreamWorks' release slate as well. Cheer up, Ron!

—Plus there's still the matter of DreamWorks Animation, whose industrial traction is improving along with its stock price. The NYT today has both long and short views, neither of which come close to hinting where it might end up in a climate where desperate studios need the soundest cash machine they can get their hands on. And last we checked, Pixar wasn't going anywhere at Disney.

—And just our own nagging question around Defamer HQ: Does DreamWorks' entrance at Disney mean Miramax's eventual exit? And if so, who gets Scott Rudin? We be happy to temporarily set him up here if necessary; the basement cubicles are actually pretty spacious. Just let us know.

We are talking about the Father of the Modern Blockbuster here. People don't say no to Steven Spielberg because he's scary, they don't say no to him because his shit makes bank. But the ever-hungry maw of the current economic sinkhole knows no name or status. And now he's scrambling to finance his DreamWorks production house, what does that say for the rest of the industry? For the little humble producers hoping to get studio deals? Well it ain't good.

The New York Times reports today that Spielberg's DreamWorks, the little mini-studio that he started with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen back in the late 90's, is in early talks to enter into a distribution deal with Disney. This is big news considering the company had announced a shiny new deal with Universal just a few short months ago. A deal that's now fallen apart, loudly. "We wish them luck in their pursuit of funding and distribution of their future endeavors," was Universal's passive-aggressive kiss-off announcement today. And while it may seem like just a simple statement, its implications are pretty bleak.

There have been plenty of indications of how hard it is for even Spielberg to find money. Last month, he accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes that focused on his talents as an executive producer in what looked like an investor pitch session. And he was forced to dip into his own coffers to retrieve 17 DreamWorks properties that were being held captive by the studiolet's former owner, Paramount. Spielberg split the cost of the buyback with an Indian conglomerate Reliance, a rickety alliance forged out of panicky desperation.

When it was first struck, Reliance agreed to back DreamWorks with $350 million if they could raise another $350 in a debt offering headed by J.P. Morgan. Investors have not been forthcoming and as Nikki Finke reports, DreamWorks needs to find $100 million like yesterday or it could lose the money the Indians have already pledged.

Though New York journalists flown out for a few days and feted to within an inch of their lives like David Carr might think the situation in the Southland is hunky-dory (box office is up! Studios' East Coast owners are the ones in trouble!), the reality is less pleasant.

It's been decades since box office was an indicator of a studio's financial health, though studios acts like it is when they have a hit. Which made last month's Paul Blart: Mall Cop-driven numbers something of a Pyrrhic victory because the studios' good receipts have cost them important production tax breaks. The Senate just didn't want to finance a Hollywood bailout. And for every unexpected hit—like the previously mentioned Blart or Old Man Witherstaff's Gran Torino—there have been trundling disasters like the $150-$180 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or the recent Fox catastrophe Australia.

You can bet that DreamWorks will have to take a hit, and a humbled Spielberg will have to hold a sad little hat in hand. An image lots of people never thought they'd see. A sobering thought for all of those people whose plan B is to head West and hit it big in Pictures.

Nikki Finke had word this morning that Variety and others have since confirmed: The Works's loan-heavy, $1.25 billion financing package isn't coming through after all, and Universal isn't willing to pick up the additional overhead (Finke reports $250 million) to close the deal. Thus Steven Spielberg, Stacey Snider, David Geffen and their overstuffed moving van are stranded somewhere along the side of the 101. Their choice of road service: Disney, which according to Variety "would provide P&A funds, pay-cable slots and possible production co-financing for DreamWorks' intended six pictures."

It's a logical deal for a studio with an annual slate as underbuilt as Disney's, but not necessarily compatible with either Disney's recent revenue plunge — 26% last quarter for the movie side alone — or the fact that Disney already has Miramax releasing six to eight films a year. They can't afford both. Maybe Harvey Weinstein can get it back cheap; in this economy, someone will. Developing...

• DreamWorks Desperately Seeking $250M [DHD]

• DreamWorks to leave Universal [Variety]

Regardless, Steven Spielberg and his newly announced cast — Jamie Bell as the intrepid titular reporter (Tintin, not the unicorn) and Daniel Craig as villainous pirate Red Rackham — have commenced principl photography on their long-awaited adaptation of the 80-year-old Belgian adventure yarn. THR reports that the motion-capture shoot will arrive in 3-D some time in 2011, with producer Peter Jackson likely in line to direct the follow-up if/when the first one achieves the grand ambitions planned by studio partners Sony and Paramount.

And how could it not — it's got secrets! It's got unicorns! It's got an animated Simon Pegg and Nick Frost! What could go wrong, besides the shattered Hand of LaBeouf that kept Spielberg's probable first choice out of the franchise? Ancient history, that, with the semi-redoubtable Bell/Craig box-office tandem yielding this kind of inarguable blockbuster promise. Our only real question is where to place our speculative hopes and dreams now that cameras are rolling. Anyone? And Hilary Duff need not inquire.

• Anchors aweigh for 'Tintin' [THR]

Anything more likely impugns the riveting, stream-of-consciousness, what-the-fuckery of the whole exercise, though the strides in Spielberg's storytelling prowess — from alien-snubbing in 1977 to ghost-detecting with Warhol a mere five years later (never mind his recent United States of Tara setback) — bear noting for you amateur biographers out there. The rest of it, though? We kind of want to see what happened in that room in the two minutes before the camera was turned on.

• Steven Spielberg [Interview Magazine via Movie City Indie]

That's the general flavor of Anne Thompson's survey, which points to credit shortfalls, equity holdups and steep bills coming due for Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider as they finish the last of their packing at Paramount en route to Universal. If Universal will even open its gate, that is, considering that the 'Works has yet to close on $750 million in loans making up the majority of its $1.5 billion, 36-film war chest at Uni.

While the banks hash it out, and Indian equity financier Reliance Big Entertainment wait to drop in its own $500 million, Spielberg himself may be on the hook for a bill due next month: $20 million to acquire the 17 films the 'Works had in development at Paramount. Nikki Finke, meanwhile, blows off Thompson's version of the DreamWorks story for her own, which implies that funding had been delayed — to all parties' satisfaction — until the end of first quarter '09.

Which doesn't change the question posed today: Would Spielberg have launched a Paramount exodus had he known the economy would implode within a year? Answer: Of course he would have, probably even seeking the same terms, just for dick-swinging's sake. And not just his dick, but David Geffen's as well. The real question is who will actually pay for that impudence: Not Reliance, which is locked in for its own half-billion. Not JP Morgan, which readily admits it will be happy just to reach $300 million in loans by the end of March. And not Universal, which already has $150 million more than it wants pledged to DW, and only after the 'Works has already spent the first $1.25 billion. If it can raise that much.

So. Either someone at DreamWorks will be deferring a lot of salaries, Indiana Jones-style, or The Soloist had better gross about $250 million domestic when it opens next spring. We know how we'd bet, but that's just us.

• Is DreamWorks' deal stalling? [Variety]

• The REAL DreamWorks Financing Story... [DHD]

The famed director and producer, whose credits include Jaws, E.T.,, and Indiana Jones — is trying to get new financing for DreamWorks, the studio he cofounded in 1994 with music mogul David Geffen and ex-Disney exec Jeffrey Katzenberg. He hoped to take it independent again, raising $1.25 billion for a slate of 36 movies over the next five years.

But the worldwide financial crisis is making this a harrowing ordeal. Reliance Big Entertainment, an Indian company, had pledged $500 million in June — but only if DreamWorks could come up with another $750 million in loans. JPMorgan Chase, which had been raising the money, now thinks it might be able to come up with less than half that amount, next year, maybe.

DreamWorks is now living on dribs and drabs of money loaned here and there — including money from Spielberg's own pocket — and may end up being a much smaller studio, one of the many supplicant production houses that orbit around Hollywood's big names.

Spielberg and his partners sold the studio to Paramount in 2006, but the relationship was always uneasy, leading to the current split; Geffen and Katzenberg, who'd tended more to business matters, are now gone. Spielberg would rather have sold to Universal, on whose lot he kept an office; he'd been making movies for Universal since 1968. Or, had he known how hard money would be to come by, perhaps he would have made his peace with Paramount.

Instead, he's wandering the world, hat in hand, with no one to support him save DreamWorks CEO Stacey Snider. But she's more of a younger sibling, as lost as Spielberg without a bigger company's backing. Another Spielbergian theme: the absent parent.

· As various actors screen test for the male lead, the first two official casting announcements for Tron 2.0 are Olivia Wilde and Beau Garrett. Garrett plays a "a siren in the virtual world" who starts dating the Mac Guy, but ultimately the two go their separate ways, and the Mac Guy has a brief rebound fling with Kirsten Dunst. [THR]
· James L. Brooks is busily scribbling away his next feature—an ensemble project billed as "the one that will hopefully help you forget about Spanglish," to which Reese Witherspoon has already committed. [Variety]
· Current-events dramatist extraordinaire Peter Morgan's directorial debut will come in the third part of his Tony Blair trilogy. No word yet on whether Helen Mirren would be tapped to again channel the juggsy, stag-sparing Queen that won her an Oscar. [Variety]
· Fox has ordered 13 episodes of Glee from Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, about "a thirtysomething Spanish teacher at an Ohio high school who has the task of taking over the school's glee club, which has become a haven for outcasts." We're not sure what it expects to contribute to the TV-musical genre that Viva Laughlin hasn't already, but we're willing to give it a shot. [THR]

[Photo credit: Getty Images]

Perhaps Smith is just looking for a new screen challenge after mastering his simulated-sex technique, but the kinetic bloodletting of director Chan-wook Park's original — which came one Michael Moore doc shy of winning the Cannes Film Festival in 2003 — won't likely wash with the mainstream. And the watering-down of legendary set pieces like those above won't make friends with the genre geeks lunging into Universal City today with pitchforks and torches.

Also, [SPOILER ALERT] Americans don't do incest subplots and ambiguous endings. These aren't exactly tweakable story factors in Oldboy, though perhaps Spielberg can turn Smith's daughter into an alien in some third-act reveal that dazzles us into FX submission. Again, fellas, take our benefit of the doubt, just don't make us regret sharing it.

Either way, we know Smith doesn't do live squid (link NSFW), and a California roll just won't be the same. We've changed our mind: Stop this remake.

• Spielberg, Smith in talks for 'Oldboy' [Variety]

Such modesty! To a point, anyway: If and/or when his Reliance Big Entertainment honeymoon ever tapers off, Spielberg and DreamWorks president Stacey Snider really won't have the Geffen touch to help woo another international conglomerate into bed. But by then Spielberg, 62, will probably be ready to scale back anyway, and survival will be less about braintrust than brand (and the library it manages to develop with its new distribution partners at Universal). He shouldn't even be there now, if one of his more illuminating disclosures today is to be believed:

In describing Mr. Geffen’s role at DreamWorks, Mr. Spielberg likened it to a family relationship. “Jeffrey and I were like the kids,” he said, while Mr. Geffen built the house and saw that the bills were paid. [...]

By his own recollection, Mr. Spielberg was initially reluctant to join in creating the original DreamWorks studio, which was conceived by Mr. Katzenberg shortly after he was fired as chairman of the Walt Disney Company’s studio operation in 1994. But Mr. Katzenberg begged for a meeting, and asked to bring a friend. The friend was Mr. Geffen, who not only did all the talking, but insisted to Mr. Spielberg: “I am representing your best interests.”

That assurance was to become the theme of Mr. Geffen’s dealings with Mr. Spielberg, who describes Mr. Geffen’s efforts for him over the years as a kind of “altruism.”

Aww! That shouldn't imply Spielberg was in a hurry to race out the door at Paramount, though, where Geffen reportedly had a short stay in mind even before he clashed with Brad Grey in 2006 over credit for Dreamgirls; "I do not like change," the director told the NY Times. And even if we have Tom Freston's firing and other, seemingly circumstantial evidence to vouch for that philosophy, everyone knows the bottom line: The sex just isn't the same off the Paramount lot. Wait and see — he'll be back.

• David Geffen Makes a Sudden Exit [NYT]

Maureen says she hit rock bottom shortly after auditioning for Steven Spielberg for his then-film, Raiders of the Lost Ark. "It was one of the worst auditions of my life," she says. "I was asked to meet Steven Spielberg. I was high and I had missed my meeting with him. I was totally spaced out... been up for days. He offered me an orange...he probably thought I was sick."

Just think of the alternate universe in which Marcia Brady would have replaced Karen Allen in Raiders of the Lost Ark, thus ensuring a post-Celebrity Fit Club comeback in this year's Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Sadly, McCormick's involvement in the franchise likely would have led to a whole new round of unsettling revelations ("One time, while high on opium, I took on Harrison, John Rhys-Davies, and that guy whose face melted off"), but after South Park has had its turn with Indy, is there really any more despoiling left to be had?

• McCormick Talks Cocaine, Abortions & Syphilis [The OK!]

After all, it's hard enough facing a happy Brian Grazer, whose Imagine Entertainment is also headquartered on the Uni lot, where it cranks its own fistful of prestige titles every year. Imagine evil Grazer, suspiciously adapting a Jokeresque grin and pitting his own interns versus DreamWorks assistants in a climactic time-bomb face-off after Snider usurps yet another plum release date for Untitled Shia LaBeouf Sequel. It could happen, reports The New York Times:

[Uni president Ron] Meyer would not discuss anything related to a DreamWorks deal, except to say: “We would be very pleased to be back in business together. We don’t anticipate a real impact on our current or future slate from distributing their films.” [...]

Officials at NBC Universal have said that they realize a deal with DreamWorks could upset Universal’s equilibrium and that they will take that into consideration before entering into any kind of formal partnership. But ultimately, the company wants the deal to happen; the money that the company can make by distributing DreamWorks movies — which are hits more often than not — far outweighs any ruffled feathers.

We certainly hope so for Grazer's sake. It's hard times, after all, and you'd be surprised: All that Hawaiian appliance-and-furniture replacement adds up before you know it.

• DreamWorks, Universal ink deal [Variety]

• A DreamWorks Deal Could Rock Universal’s Boat [NYT]

Nikki Finke heard that the folks at Paramount didn't know that Comedy Central, which is also owned by Viacom, would be harshly and extremely criticizing their precious little summer cashcow. Will heads roll? No, probably not. It's allllll just publicity and stuff. Though anything that Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the boys behind South Park) can do to stop the supposedly in-the-works Indy 5 from happening, I'd appreciate it thanks.

"It's automatic, really, we did well with the last one and with that having done well and been a positive experience, it's not surprising that some people want to do it again," Ford said.

I asked Ford who specifically is stirring up the idea of another revival, whether it was Lucas, Spielberg or the star himself? "Really, it comes from the ethos, from the ether. It's natural. It's a way of nature, of course, success breed opportunities ... also we don't stay as closely in contact as we have in the last year, that's part of it." [...]

"It was never a lead-pipe cinch," Ford said. "It was a calculated business risk but I believe it paid off. I was somewhat surprised and gratified to see it did the business that it did. It was successful in almost every market. The first time we showed it to a disinterested outside audience was at Cannes. That's a crap shoot of the first order. Not only is that audience sophisticated and film-knowledgable, it's French! And it's their country and their festival and we somewhat expected to be seriously slapped around. But we were not, we were embraced...it was very gratifying."

No problem — we can help with that. Still, we can't foresee even the most spectacularly acclaimed Indy film outpacing the last one for sheer anticipation and return on investment; have you taken a look at the Indiana Jones PlunderWatch™ Ticker recently? You want a crap shoot of the first order, Harrison? Beat that.

• Harrison Ford says George Lucas in 'think mode' ... [Hero Complex]