The Cell writer Mark Protosevich has been hired to update 1972's boat disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure. Further cementing the painfully-obvious observation that Hollywood is completely out of ideas, Wolfgang Petersen is producing it (and we assume will wind up in the director's chair). Petersen, if you recall, is the director of The Perfect Storm, a boat movie, and Das Boot (German for "boat movie"). We'd further mine his IMDb profile for other nautical fare, but our German-translation intern is out scoring us some coke.

This from Variety: "Paramount Pictures has tapped Scarlett Johansson for its Tom Cruise franchise sequel Mission: Impossible 3.

Mel Gibson is throwing some of his Passion of the Christ cash into developing a movie about Boudica, a female warrior who led Britain against the Roman Empire and was named Britain's first queen after her death, according to Variety. There are at least three other Boudica films in development at different studios.

While many expected Disney's board of directors to emerge from their retreat with the head of CEO/whipping cast member Michael Eisner on a pike (or at least with a plan for getting his head on a pike), they instead returned with a "ringing endorsement," according to the LAT. However, the board didn't make any decisions about extending Eisner's contract and did begin evaluating possible successors.

Steven Bochco, creator and executive producer of NYPD Blue, crows over his and former ABC President Susan Lyne's accomplishment of slipping the word "bullshit" into his show.

Blogger Paul Davidson has "uncovered" the Movie Viewer Construction kit, which assists in the creation of pullquote-ready review blurbs. Just choose phrases from each of the columns and you're ready to be immortalized on a full-page ad for The Alamo. Example: "You'd better believe...[The Alamo was] ...the most endearing, happy-go-lucky, colorful film of......the decade, which is ten years, and that's saying a lot because 10 years holds a lot of movies!!"

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Ridiculous eyewear model/spendthrift crooner Elton John thinks that American Idol's audience is "incredibly racist" after several black contestants found themselves on the bottom of viewer voting.

If the lede begins with "former Baywatch star," the odds are pretty good that it's going to end with "sex tape." Gena Lee Nolin, onetime Baywatch lifeguard and titular jungle monarch from Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, is starring in a sex tape that's about to hit the Internet. Page Six (which manages to misspell "Gena") says the tape, featuring Nolin and her ex-husband, is being shopped around to porn sites for $1 million. Nolin's lawyer claims that the ex's ex-wife is probably responsible for the hott jungle action being leaked to the public.

Coming soon to whatever channel onto which other countries dump their own version of "urban" programming: America's Next Top Model. The UPN hit has been sold to 40 countries, as well as licensed for original, local versions. According to THR, the Russian version is already looking strong. But who's the Russian Tyra Banks? They'd probably be better off getting pop-star/fake lesbian act TaTu to judge. You know the Russians wouldn't cut the inevitable orgy scene.

Finally, we have some writers' strike talk with a little balls to it. Variety says that writers are "play[ing] it tough," the Guild "growls" and has "bared its teeth" for the studios.

Salon interviews reality TV's villain of the moment, Drew Abruzzese, The Restaurant's "intern from hell." For those of you who aren't watching, young Drew immediately endeared himself to the staff of Rocco's 22nd Street by serving free booze (he's underage) to some tarted-up chicks from behind the bar and by calling Rocco DiSpirito, the show's star, "Captain Douchebag." Abruzzese is apparently trying to head all of this off at the pass before he becomes the new Omarosa.

If you're planning on watching TV on Wednesday, we hope you like Prince. MTV, MTV2, BET, VH1, and VH1 Classic will interrupt their normal schedules of pimping rides, following around semiretarded newlyweds with cameras, and endless talking-head commentary on pop culture ephemera to simultaneously broadcast a 30 minute Prince concert.

The LAT reports that Disney's (very quietly) moved its annual board retreat to its Burbank offices, skipping a trip to an Anaheim hotel to avoid a potential media feeding frenzy. The board's expected to discuss CEO-under-fire Michael Eisner's future running the company and his possible successors.

According to the Sun, Nicolas Cage is now engaged to a 19 year-old sushi waitress after a whirlwind, two-month courtship. The details are a little sketchy here: the Sun claims Nick picked her up in her restaurant, Sushi Avenue, which we've never heard of.

Obviously not content to let their sexually uninhibited daughter hog all the camera time, Kathy and Rick Hilton have signed on to do the The Good Life for NBC. On the show, Kathy will scour the country for 10 young women with "unrealized potential" (must. resist.) and set them up in a variety of career fields (resist.sex.tape.joke.) to see which one suits each of the girls best. At the end, the Hiltons will choose one of the girls, give her a year of free rent in the Waldorf-Astoria, and a job in her best career field. Then they will starve the girl until she's emaciated, drape her in skanky couture, and creepily insist on calling her Paris.

LA.com's spies have caught Lost in Translation darling Scarlett Johansson sucking a little ascendant starlet face with a decidedly unascendant Jared Leto. When was the last we heard from him? With those ridiculous white-boy dreads in Panic Room?

How do you squeeze every last bit of money out of a failed superhero movie? You subtract the Affleck and spin off the movie's real marketable star and make an entirely new superhero movie. Jennifer Garner will again play her assassin character in Elektra, though this time Affleck's Daredevil will be replaced by ER's Goran Visnjic as the love interest. Watch out, next thing we know, Goran's (go ahead, try and make us type "Visnjic" again) going to start dating crossover stars with big asses and pretending to write a movie with Matt Damon.

There's a new weapon in the war between broadcasters that say "fuck" and the We've-gotta-make-sure-no-one-ever-hears-the-word-fuck-or-Jesus-will-hate-us Industrial Complex. It's called The Bleepinator, and it uses voice-recognition technology to automatically filter out dirty words before they hit the airwaves—potentially saving media companies millions in fines.

Variety's Peter Bart is all in a tizzy over the NYT's treatment of Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ, pointing out that the paper's dire predictions about Gibson's Hollywood blackballing haven't really panned out. And, oh yeah, the Jesus-beating flick is making a little money, too.