Before it had the 2008 games sewn up, China planned to bid on then using a September start date. But this would collide with NFL coverage in the U.S. and thus dampen ratings, as occurred in the 2004 Olympics in Sydney. NBC, which already had TV rights to the 2008 Olympics, urged China to consider moving the date.

So China proposed a mid-August start date in its official bid, and won.

But it turned out that date interfered with the U.S. Open, meaning tennis stars would skip the Olympics, meaning more ratings pain.

China looked at the $894 million in NBC money it had already deposited into one of its banks and decided to accommodate one last change request from NBC, to August 8. Americans looked at the price of gas and the lack of money in their bank accounts and decided to stay home and watch the Olympics rather than go out at night or on vacation. Ratings soared and NBC was very "lucky" The End!

[Times]

Celebrities Die in Miserable Trios
No one really knows where this theory came from, though we suspect it may have something to do with the Wiccan Rule of Three. The Rule is pretty simple: once one celebrity dies, inevitably two more famous deaths will follow soon after. Speculation and dot-connecting can reach a fever pitch, even if the "celebrity" status of those considered can be a bit tenuous at times. Some sort of sane person may say that, you know, people die in an unending flood of thousands, every unforgiving day. But most of those people are poor and uninteresting. So, yeah. Important deaths happen in threes. The rest is just population control.

Carol Ann and the Poltergeist... Poltergeist
When filming the gruesome "swimming pool full of dead people" scene, the crew used actual corpses (though they were union, at least.) A series of unfortunate events followed, as chronicled by the AJ Benza of unfortunate events, Lemony Snicket. OK, that is not at all true, but, yes, tragically several people involved with the production died suddenly. Dominique Dunne, the 22-year-old actress who played the eldest daughter of the haunted family, was murdered by her boyfriend soon after the movie was released. Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Ann, died suddenly of a septic infection. Two other actors died shortly after. It makes me icky to think about it, so let's end there. You can read more about it here.

Billy Bob Thornton's Bad Juju
Many of the skinny, weird actor's costars have died: JT Walsh, John Ritter, Heath Ledger (who also died in the movie he made with Thornton), Bernie Mac, and Jim "Ernest" Varney. On the Billy Bob boo-boos list are Shia LaBeouf and Morgan Freeman (both car accidents) and his Waking Up in Reno costar Patrick Swayze is suffering from pancreatic cancer. Why are you doing this, Billy Bob? What have these people done to offend you so? Is this why Angelina wore your blood 'round her neck, to ward off your bad magicks? Read more on Defamer.

The Dark Knight Curse: The Revenge of Katie Holmes
As I've already expounded upon it beautifully, I won't go into the nitty gritty specifics of this latest Hollywood hex. All you need to know is that Heath died, Christian Bale threw his elderly saint of a mother out a window and then peed on her, and then Morgan Freeman took an ill-advised shortcut. Note the overlap between the DK jinx and Thorntongate. One party is responsible. You decide which one it is. But, chose wisely.

The Kal-El Katastrophes
The Superman franchise is also doomed. George Reeves, who played the blocky stocky rocky socky space nerd on television in the 50's was killed in a suspicious (probably Lex Luthor-related) suicide. His memory was further desecrated when Ben Affleck was chosen to play him in the film Hollywoodland (I kid, I kid. Affleck was good in that.) Richard Pryor, from the 70's films, got sick and died. Margot Kidder wandered into the woods of her mind and was never heard from again. And of course the eerily similar-named Christopher Reeve was in a horseback riding accident that left him paralyzed. He died a few years later. Recently the latest Superman, Brandon Routh, was diagnosed with a severe case of No Career.

Writing Devil Checks Your Life Can't Cash
Roman Polanski directed the howlingly funny Rosemary's Baby, about a woman who is the mutha of Satan's child. A year later, his young wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered by members of Helter Skelterist Charles Manson's Fruitcake Crazy Society. Later Polanski sexed a ten-year-old and had to move to France. Meanwhile Brandon Lee, playing the lead role in the Godless resurrection/undead goth fest The Crow, was shot and killed during filming by a bullet that was supposed be a blank. Unlike everyone else on Earth, Lee's father Bruce Lee also died once.

Linda Blair Was Not the Only Creepy Thing to Come Crab-Walking Out of The Exorcist
The William Friedkin documentary, about hell demons living in Washington DC, was overtaken by a curse that affected many cast and crew members' lives. There were fires on set and some "four to nine" crew members died during the filming of the movie. Linda Blair's grandfather passed away, as did the brother of 326-year-old Swedish actor Max von Sydow. Loads of other creepy stuff happened, not the least of which was the execrable (hah?) prequel Exorcist: The Beginning.

So there you have it. Awful, terrible no good things. I'm sure I've missed some. I've heard rumors that people who costar with Debra Messing are doomed to play grating, sexless lawyers and that if you undo Diane Keaton's tie, her head falls off.

What have you heard?

Last week I wrote a post about the supposed curse of The Dark Knight that detailed the various tragedies and grim incidences that have befallen that blockbuster film's cast. It was a pretty popular post (though, "popular" is relative in these post-Montauk Monster times), attracting nearly thirty-five thousand pageviews and some 95 comments. Our Californian sibling site Defamer ran a post just a few minutes ago about a Billy Bob Thornton death curse, which conclusively proves that the Sling Blade French fried potater leaves Kali-like destruction is his wake whenever he passes through a movie set. Now the Soul men photograph jinx. These theories are everywhere!

People really seem to love this stuff—because, I guess it means you wield some power over unfortunate events. Look, we can predict this and see the ties between all of these people and nod our heads gravely and say "ah yes, it is a pattern." Isn't that so much better than admitting to ourselves that the world is cruel at random and that we're most likely caught in a net of terrible things at this very moment but don't know it because we're not famous and our coworkers aren't famous and our neighbors and cab drivers and grocery cashiers are just plain old regular people that no one writes about and that Mario Lopez has never heard of? Some disgruntled (and humorless) commenters have implied that the Rule of Three and curse-detecting and all that has been pushed to the point where people are actually wishing bad things to happen to our most recognizable supernovas, so their thesis can have more evidence to support it, so they can feel smug and right and knowing (and a little crazy).

And I don't know, maybe there's some of that. But really it's just kind of... not fun, but engaging. In a way that's both comforting and scary. We are, yes, splashing around in the death puddles a little bit, but we're also reverent. Reverent of the people who've passed and of the bigger mysteries of existence. These are mysteries that transcend wealth and celebrity. And maybe that's part of it too. Maybe all this curse and triple death talk helps us keep our fame fascination in check. If these rich, shiny folks weren't slaves to some grand death's design—or had some Devon Sawa-like ability to cheat it—then we'd probably worship them as gods. And that would just be silly.

And, superstitious.

As we all know, Heath Ledger, who plays the Joker in the film, died in January from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and other medication. It was a fluke accident that swiftly stopped his sure-to-be meteoric rise to fame in its tracks. Some claimed that Ledger had been in a dark place after wrapping the film, having gone too deep into his crazed, anarchist character. But was that really it? Isn't that what every actor does? Could it have been a curse?

Christian Bale, who plays the rough and (annoyingly) growling Caped Crusader recently had a row with his mother and sister, right before the film's London premiere. It led to an arrest on an assault charge, though Bale denies any real wrongdoing. He is said to have had a deeply troubled childhood, which could be the reason for his violent outburst. Or... could it be a hex?

And then, sadly, we get to Freeman's auto accident. The actor, who plays Lucius Fox in the film, was driving in Mississippi last night when his car skipped the road and rolled down an embankment. He's said to be in "serious condition." There have been no reports of alcohol or substance abuse or any of that unseemly (like this post) stuff, so maybe it was, in fact, the dark shadow force that bewitched and doomed him.

Also, a crewman died while filming one of the movie's epic action sequences. (But he wasn't famous, so, boo!, apparently.) The film's other actors have so far not reported any ghostly occurrences or freak accidents, and the producers are definitely happy and swimming in piles of money. But could this just be the deceiving prelude to the awfulness that's yet to befall them? Could they spiral into addiction, spurned by an overabundance of wealth and an unseen malevolent force? More importantly, what could have provoked this curse? Supposedly the Poltergeist jinx was brought about when real skeletons were used for the film's opening scene. Did some such malfeasance take place on the Dark Knight set? I mean, other than the oily, meaty presence of Eric Roberts.