• Meet your new action hero overlord: Chris Pine. Already fronting the rebooted Star Trek franchise, Pine has signed on to play the Jack Ryan role previously portrayed by Harrison Ford and Alec Baldwin in a new go-around adapting Tom Clancy's series of espionage novels. [Variety]

• For those CBS and Viacom employees who feel each day the burden of the Redstone yoke, you can take heart today; Sumner is now less your owner than he was last week. The octillionaire mogul has been selling off the debt of his holding company, National Amusements. For now, however, NA still retains the controlling interest. [Variety]

• As the world waits for the final outcome of Vivendi/GE/Comcast talks over the fate of NBC Universal, Nikki Finke reports that Comcast wants the deal "done and announced in November." So there. [DHD]

• Curse be damned! ABC has won the competition to be the next network to fail with a sitcom by a former Friends star, locking up rights to the Matthew Perry project. [THR]

• The Wrap reports that Alex Young, Co-President of Production at 20th Century Fox is being moved out of the job and into a producing deal. Young was a Tom Rothman protege who has been in the job since 2007. [The Wrap]

• Always on the lookout for a feel good project, director Gus Van Sant and novelist Bret Easton Ellis have picked up the rights to "The Golden Suicides," Nancy Jo Sales' Vanity Fair article about the deaths of downtown artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. [Variety]

• The creator of the Gilmore Girls is coming to HBO. Exec-Producer Amy Sherman-Palladino has signed a deal to develop a dramedy for the cable network. She described the project as the "story of love, hate, family — and finding the perfect opening line," [THR]

• This is what it's come to in the strange, contorted career of Bill Murray; taking Joe Pesci's leftovers. For those who thought Murray's Zombieland cameo was just a little strange— that he was too big, or had been too big a star for the joke about Woody Harrelson being obsessed with him to completely click — you are right. In an interview with Hitfix, Murray revealed the walk on had been intended for Joe Pesci — with whom the joke would have made a lot more sense — but that Murray took the part after Pesci passed. [Hitfix]

Bids are coming in high on Sumner Redstone's movie theater chain, which is good because he needs the money [Variety]. More than 60 actors cast in this year's pilots are foreigners. This will be on Lou Dobbs tonight [THR]. Taye Diggs will play a vampire in Dead of Night [THR].

• Oh man. Annie Leibovitz had to pawn all her stuff because of THE DEATH TAX. (Conservatives are right!) Because, see, she couldn't marry her long-time partner Susan Sontag, which would've protected her from paying 45 percent on value of the inheritance. (Liberals are right!) But, wait. Susan left everything to her son David.... "Leibovitz was left a maximum of four 'articles of [Sontag's] tangible personal property,' such as art, furniture and jewelry." So, yes, as reported earlier, Leibovitz went broke because she was renovating all her townhouses or something, and there is no news here. [P6]
• Lindsay Lohan is going to stop acting and start modeling. We are going to stop doing some thing we haven't done in 5 years too (respecting Kanye? caring about Iraq?) and take up something no one would actually pay us to do (journalism). [P6]
• Oh, and Linds is OUT OF MONEY. Because no one wants to pay some stupid girl-dating girl to show up places, or be in family movies. Amazing how many stories you can get out of one Nylon interview, right? [NYDN]
• Tone-deaf secret Xtian celebrator of heteronormative sexy girl-on-girl performative polyamory Katy Perry is dating song-belting fop Josh Groban. [ShowbizSpy]
• Because of the economy, Lauren Conrad pulled her clothing line out of stores, where it wasn't selling, and announced that she's "re-working" the whole thing with "more high-end fabrics," because of the economy and what-have-you. [P6]
• Christie Brinkley is completely insane. "Not too long ago, my son and daughter were on an online game, and a popup ad came up and they were trying to recruit the kids to a gang. And I thought 'Oh my gosh!'" Just... what? So she took her son Jack to West Side Story to learn that being in gangs is not all fun and games! It is strenuous dancing and occasionally even odd time signatures. Also we are pretty sure she discovered a recession-proof advertiser that will save the newspaper industry! [NYDN]
• Viacom billionaire Sumner Redstone is 85, and he is divorcing his 46-year-old wife, and he's been seeing "an enticing Eastern European beauty who used to work on one of Viacom's corporate jets," but also he's been going places with that wife he's divorcing a lot lately, so who knows what's up with Sumner's lady situation here, besides EWWW. [R&M]
• Matt Lauer ran into a deer. [Us]

• Don Geiss of 30 Rock?Drunk driving. In the wrong lane. Before insisting "the ground wasn't level enough." [Fox News]
• After some drinking, Josh Broslin told film critics that Russell Crowe is an "asshole" and that the Times' chief theater critic is a "motherfucker." [P6]
• Before his recent divorce, Sumner Redstone loved to overshare about boning his wife, ruining dinner for everyone."If they show up 15 minutes, half an hour late, they might say, 'We had sex four times today!'" [P6]
• Lily Allen on media bias: "I know lots of people who take cocaine three nights a week and get up and go to work, but we never hear that side of the story." [Sun]
• It might seem like Paris Hilton gets around, but she's actually only had sex with "a couple" of guys. (In front of a camera. We're pretty sure she forgot to add that qualifier.) [Sun]
• Brad Pitt clarified that he romanced Jennifer Aniston's replacement Angelina Jolie in a very classy way, during and/or immediately after his divorce. [P6]
• Michael Jackson has six months to live, supposedly. [Enquirer]

Apparently Viacom and Time Warner Cable have been negotiating over fees for months, and haven't been able to reach a deal. Viacom said it wants an increase of somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 cents per month, per subscriber across all channels, including Nickelodeon, VH1 and MTV. That's pretty bold given the state of the economy, and given that Viacom this year moved more of its content onto the internet, where it can be watched for free, arguably undermining cable subscriptions.

But Time Warner is still jacking up rates in some areas, despite the economy. And Viacom overlord Redstone holds company stock as collateral for personal loans he is desperately trying to renegotiate. Staring down the longest advertising decline since the Great Depression, he's got to be eager to wrangle (for Viacom) whatever revenue increases he can get his hands on.

As Nikki Finke points out, these sorts of disputes are usually resolved within hours of cable systems yanking the channels. They should be especially eager to do so this year: The longer channels stay off cable boxes, the longer subscribers have to find their favorite shows online. The Daily Show is on Hulu now, after all.

UPDATE: Viacom is taking off the gloves with awesome/evil ads like the one up top, involving "SpongeBob Squarepants," and a similar one involving a crying "Dora the Explorer." The Wall Street Journal writes, "While programmers and operators often battle fiercely over contract renewals, Viacom's campaign is notable in its willingness to pull children into the debate."

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.

• Tina Fey agreed to be Lorne Michaels' awkward circus monkey at gathering of Albany lawmakers discussing TV production tax credits. "She seemed incredibly uncomfortable... Someone said, ‘Do a Sarah Palin!’ and she did a Sarah Palin." Cringe. [NYM]

• Jennifer Aniston was desperately seeking any piece of young man flesh before reuniting with John Mayer. As though that wasn't obvious after she reunited with John Mayer. [P6]
• Britney Spears was trying to defy her dad and win her independence by eating just one "protest" meal per day, but abandoned this disturbingly insane plan to eat a greasy hamburger and fries at a fast-food joint.
• The screenwriter behind Pulp Fiction was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter. [Daily Star]

According to Page Six, the North Beverly Park Homeowners Association (including Jackson and Magic Johnson, among others) is outraged that the South Beverly Park HOA (representing Washington, Stallone, Eddie Murphy and even Sumner Redstone) has denied it members use of an entry gate on Mulholland Drive — "forcing the south dwellers' nannies, workmen and relatives to drive seven miles around to the south gate."

Naturally, this effrontery cannot stand; the dueling associations are presently squaring off in court, with the exasperated judge urging reconciliation while the North group's lawyer complained that the smaller, Oscar-challenged HOA to the south should pay for the right to use the gate. Meanwhile, we hear Sharon Waxman is set to report that Denzel's side rejected their neighbors' offer via secret ballot in a high-powered, super-classified dinner at Redstone's joint. Nikki Finke naturally will protest those findings, confirming instead that Sam Jackson's nanny was, in fact, spotted entering the community on Mulholland.

Such drama! Please let us know if your own Beverly Park detours persist; we're determined to mediate a speedy resolution any way we can.

• Civil War in H'Wood [NYP]

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.

• Anne Hathaway's new actor boyfriend "went after all the young heiresses" when he was at Brown University, which makes him as terrible for her as jailed fraudster Raffaello Follieri, according to Page Six's tipster. [P6]
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes spent their second wedding anniversary apart, on opposite coasts. Make of that what you will. [Mail]
• The longtime editor-in-chief of Gourmet, Ruth Reichl couldn't get into her own party because she wasn't on the press list. I would not want to be that event planner. [P6]
• Sumner Redstone, purportedly to his ex-girlfriend on his ex-wife, in a restaurant: "I'm finally rid of her." [P6]
• Angelina Jolie forced husband Brad Pritt to make an angry call to his ex Jennifer Aniston, in which Pitt "went off" in a "quivering" voice. This according to the tabloid that reported that Aniston was pregnant with twins by John Mayer. [Star]
• After returning from a summer of TV filming in Spain, Gwyneth Paltrow didn't visit her husband but instead spent some private time with a Miami billionaire, including a jaunt on his yacht with Kate Hudson. [P6]

• Recovering sex addict David Duchovny has apparently been convinced those weren't secret sexytime text messages from serial divorcé Billy Bob Thornton on wife Téa Leoni's cell phone. [P6]
• Oprah Winfrey said on a conference call with Barack Obama and prominent African Americans that they should get out the vote to make the country "truly one nation indivisible." If Obama wins, she totally gets the credit. [Politico]
• Soon-to-be-divorced Sumner Redstone spent more time with the ex-girlfriend he "unexpectedly" ran into across a dinner table this past summer. [P6]
• Paris Hilton wore a giant ring on her wedding-ring finger and said it was a gift from a friend, not a transparent effort to get Benji Madden to propose. [Insider]
• Having moved on from Drew Barrymore to Kirsten Dunst, Justin Long hit on Tila Tequila, asking her to straddle him, in Las Vegas. Cue the "I'm a mack" jokes in three, two... [P6]

• Sell a stake in National Amusements, the holding company through which Redstone controls Viacom and CBS.
• Sell a stake in the movie chain business that daughter Shari Redstone runs. Or,
• Sell off CBS or Viacom.

Sumner Redstone has vetoed option three. Option two looks attractive money-wise, but it would piss off Shari, and besides, the movie chains are the most consistent money-maker the company has right now. That leaves option one—which could keep Redstone in control while giving him some cash to maneuver with.

But he doesn't want anyone else telling him how to run his company. So maybe he's just screwed? We'll see!

[WSJ. The unkindest cut: the WSJ says Shari Redstone "bares a striking resemblance to her father." That's just mean.]

CBS hasn't done this well any time since 1987, before reality TV was invented.

Apparently, what is good for CBS is a bad economy. CBS’s lineup of police procedurals, where the criminals always get caught, and sitcoms that are reliably funny in unchallenging ways, seems to be becoming a safe haven for viewers worried about jobs and mortgages.

“When the road gets rocky, the center is the best place to be,” said Kelly Kahl, the chief scheduler for CBS. “It’s kind of a cliché,” Mr. Moonves said, “on CBS the good guys win.” Or as Mr. Kahl put it, “We give people what they want.”

What people want is the television equivalent of porridge: it fills you up without flavor, and it was beloved by uneducated peasants.

That should be good news for old mogul Sumner Redstone, who controls CBS and Viacom through his holding company, National Amusements. So why is he having so many money troubles at the moment? Well, besides the ton of money he lost in the current Wall Street crisis and whatever he'll have to pay to his now-ex-wife, it turns out that Redstone has lost hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prop up—wait for it—the maker of "Mortal Kombat."

Midway, which is best known for the 1990s arcade game Mortal Kombat, has eaten up a lot of quarters without much return. Midway has not reported a profit since the second quarter of fiscal 2000, and over the last three full fiscal years the company has lost $258.9 million.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, estimated that Mr. Redstone has spent $500 million to $700 million on Midway shares since 1983.

Ha. Sumner, I will tell you all about video games for a mere one million dollars.
[NYT, NYT]

The sheer number of institutions in the private placement suggests that refinancing National Amusements' debt isn't going to be easy, despite Redstone's proclamations that the discussions are going well.
"Do you know how difficult it is to get 55 people to agree on anything?" asked one source rhetorically.

Redstone has to keep his game face on because the alternative is to sell his Viacom and CBS shares (or perhaps smaller units of his holding company) and loosen his grip on the media firms.

What did he spend the money on? Nothing fun, sadly. According to the Times:

The sources of that debt go back to National Amusements’ original purchase of Viacom stock; the cost of building movie theaters; a $240 million settlement with Mr. Redstone’s son, Brent; and Mr. Redstone’s purchase of more than 85 percent of the stock in Midway Games as well as loans to Midway, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Mr. Redstone characterized the [prior October] sale of his $233 million of stock as an "infinitesimal percentage of what I own. I still own billions of dollars of stock." The stake he sold represented about 10% of his holding at the time. "We sold a little bit and the rest is not for sale."

...The drama over Mr. Redstone's stock sale raises questions over why National Amusements didn't pre-empt the situation by opening discussions with banks earlier... "While I control National Amusements, I'm not involved in the day-to-day operations," Mr. Redstone said... "Perhaps in the future I'll get more involved."

The ultra-rich: Learning from their mistakes, one billion-dollar bungle at a time.

Any divorce settlement would come out of Sumner Redstone’s own pocket, and not his family's Boston-based business, National Amusements Inc., said two people close to the firm. National Amusements is caught in a credit squeeze and Redstone's daughter, Shari Redstone, who runs the company, is trying to restructure its nearly $1.6-billion debt load, including an $800-million bank loan that is due in mid-December.

Another source tells us that Martha Stewart and Mark Burnett, the reality show maven who works with her, "had a giant blowout, over money." Along with the timing of this Sumner Redstone rumor, it paints a grim picture. Let's hope this doesn't get so bad that it filters down to the non-rich.