Aint' It Cool News hears from "talent agents" that NBC won't pick up the pilot of American version of the BBC hit The Office (which stars The Daily Show's Steve Carrell, left) for a series. The networks present their Fall schedules to advertisers next week (barring writers' strike Armageddon, which will seriously confuse things), and NBC seems to prefer sticking with safe, cheap fare where struggling actors consume the colorectal tracts of farm animals (Fear Factor) or pretend that they can love the physically unattractive (Average Joe). NBC may consider The Office for midseason or a minor-league demotion to Bravo.

The message from the MPAA is clear: pirate a horrendously under-performing movie and go to jail. A 34-year-old Los Angeles man has been sentenced to 42 days in jail for taking a camcorder into The Alamo and recording the Disney mega-flop.

Blogger A Fly On The Wall has a report from the set of Meet the Fockers, the upcoming Meet the Parents sequel. After Barbra Streisand admonished an assistant director for committing the sin of calling her "Barb," Dustin Hoffman has made it his mission to torture her; he now insists on referring to her as Barb [Ed.note—Is this Hoffman character fucking insane?] and outfitted the crew in "Bush 2004" buttons. Barbra declared Hoffman a "putz" and stormed off the set, and Robert DeNiro had to talk her into returning. We're waiting for the prankster Hoffman to put on a Yentl mask and threaten to have the craft service guy killed because he's out of egg bagels.

Continuing the proud literary tradition of Ethan Hawke, actor/former Michael Jackson playdate Macaulay Culkin has written a novel. Junior will be released by Miramax books next spring and will reportedly be based on Culkin's life. Defamer, as always, is right on top of things and has already obtained this excerpt:

More troubles for Disney CEO Michael Eisner and the new office fortifications he's installed to repel his marauding enemies:

Take refuge in the numbers that make us all momentarily forget about people half a world away being dressed in garbage bag Batman costumes without the benefit of Joel Schumaker's loving direction:

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·Project Greenlight just winnowed down 1,733 entrants to 50 to make an interesting television show that will eventually put out an unwatchable movie.
·Gawkermonkey Choire is already face down in his own vomit by now, so we feel compelled to tell you about the debris from Billy Joel's drinky-drinky crashy-crashy being sold at auction for $1,075 American dollars.
·Bored? Go watch Detour in the Hollywood Forever Cemetary, and try not to desecrate any graves.
·Thank God for French law and order: Riot police will shield the Cannes festival from starving, unhealthy actors with picket signs.
·The Friars Club is roasting Donald Trump. What's there to make fun of? He's rich and gets the Trump Salad tossed by one of the hottest women in the world. Oh, yeah. The hair.

We'd run a bad review round-up, but MovieJuice Diary's Mark Ramsey seems to sum up what we've been hearing about Van Helsing:

Molly Shannon is hooking up with 20th Century Fox TV in a rich deal to develop a sitcom for her to produce and star in, according to THR. Shannon was seen most recently in Fox's extremely short-lived Cracking Up, whose abbreviated existence was plagued by feuds between creator Mike White and Fox executives. White (who wrote the screenplay for School of Rock, but is whiffing big-time on TV—Pasadena, anyone?) was fond of throwing fits any time an executive so much as looked at him, and finally quit in a tizzy. Luckily, the ratings weren't good enough for it to matter much. In any event, better luck at Fox this time, Molly!

We hear a rumor that the esteemed William Morris Agency, in an effort to better focus their money-making power, has started quietly cutting low-earning clients (this is great) alphabetically. Says a tipster:

We at Defamer are committed to offering the head-hunting services that our readers so desperately crave. Earlier, we tried to hook up the kid of a fellow Internet entertainment writer with some extra summer cash. Now we offer something to our more highly-paid readership. From a helpful e-mailer:

Downsized Apprentice contest/document reproduction deal-closing wunderkind Nick Warnock has landed a gig selling luxury suites for the Oakland Raiders. Raiders CEO Amy Trask said about hiring the fourth-place finisher, "I called someone else in our office equally addicted to the show and told him, 'I want to hire this guy to sell suites...[W]hen we saw on his Web site that he had a football background (he played high school and college football), it seemed like a great idea."

LA Weekly "Deadline Hollywood" columnist Nikki Finke has a look at the negotiations between Fox and The Simpsons' voice actors. Hilariously, Fox execs at one point threatened to replace all of them.

Ah, Movie Summer... It's the time for blockbusters, huge budget overruns, and disappointing sequels. Our predictions for the official beginning of Hollywood's pandering season:

A spy tells us about Maria Shriver's recent interview with magician/white tiger snack Roy Horn, which took place at Siegfried and Roy's Las Vegas compound. (Spy: "How do you interview a quasi-vegetable? Luckily, Maria has lots of experience dealing with someone who doesn't speak in complete sentences.") Scott Sassa, former head of NBC West Coast programming, was caught dishing about the ridiculous security in place to protect leaks from getting out ahead of the interview's Fall airing to promote NBC's animated tiger show, Father of the Pride.

Drudge reports that 51.1 million viewers tuned in to the Friends finale, 33 percent less than Seinfeld's last episode. Earlier, Drudge reported that NBC executives were in a demented scramble to get the overnight Nielsen ratings, which delivered data from only 15 major media markets due to a massive computer crash.

The Smoking Gun has the mugshot of Real World Miami castmate Dan Renzi, who was arrested for exercising his right to stroke his penis in a Kansas City porno theater on Cinco de Mayo. [Ed. note—You'd think he'd be safe after flying all the way to Kansas City just to jerk off.] While we usually never pass up the opportunity to make the easy joke, Defamer will not make any facile Pee Wee Herman references, even though both men were arrested for stroking their penises in theaters showing pornography.

It's finally over. "The One Where They All Go On To Failed Spin-Offs And Disappointing Movie Careers While Waiting Quietly For The Ten Year Reunion Special" has aired, and America has its happy ending.

One hundred striking French show business workers took over a studio at cable channel Canal Plus today, interrupting live broadcasts to protest unemployment benefit cuts, according to Variety. Some carried signs threatening a strike at the Cannes Film Festival which starts next week.