HOLLYWOOD - Top Story: Aniston and Pitt Won't Be Headlining Together
Don't count on seeing any films in the future starring real-life celerity couple Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt. "The repercussions of couples doing movies are not always positive," Aniston told TV Guide for it May 2 issue. "We wouldn't want to go out there with bull's-eyes on our heads." Perhaps that's a smart move: Gigli, which starred Ben Affleck and his former fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, bombed at the box office, as did the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman starrer Far and Away. With Friends wrapping its 10th and final season on NBC, the 35-year-old actress said her immediate plans are to star in two films inspired by 1960s films--one being a remake of the 1966 British film Gambit, the other about a woman who thinks her parents inspired the movie The Graduate.
Schwarzenegger Denounces Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem
Taking time off from his bid to stop two Ohio brothers from making and selling bobblehead dolls in his likeness, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was in Jerusalem Sunday denouncing anti-Semitism. "I was born in Austria, a country that is beautiful, and I love it, and a place where intolerance and ignorance led to atrocities and heartache," Schwarzenegger said during the laying of a cornerstone for Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance, a $200 million project of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, The Associated Press reports. Schwarzenegger has donated more than $1 million to the Wiesenthal Center and campaigned for millions more over the past decade since he asked the institute to examine his father's Nazi past. The Wiesenthal Center found that Schwarzenegger's father joined the Nazi party in 1939 soon after Germany annexed Austria and that he was a member of the SA storm troopers.
Simpsons Cast Returns to Work
After going on strike last month in the midst of contract negotiations, the ensemble voice cast of Fox's long-running animated series The Simpsons has signed a new four-year deal with the show's producer, Reuters reports. Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Yeardley Smith will all return to work next week. The show, which celebrated its 300th episode last season, is returning for its 16th season in the fall. It has been Fox's strongest scripted performer and has has generated hundreds of millions in auxiliary revenues such as DVD sales and merchandise, raising the value of the franchise to over $1 billion.
Drew Carey Tapes Last Episode
Not returning to work, however, will be the cast of ABC's long-running sitcom The Drew Carey Show, the AP reports. Once one of the network's crown jewels, the comedy taped its final episode a few weeks ago and is expected to air sometime this summer--with little fanfare. Last year, ABC took the show off the air mid-season and burned off many of the show's episodes during the summer. After nine seasons, ABC didn't put the show on this season and will premiere new episodes on June 2 instead, with the network showing two first-run episodes a week during the summer.
Role Call: Chappelle in Family Way, Foster Takes Flight, Beckham Director in Closet
Hot off his hit Comedy Central show, comedian Dave Chappelle is heading to the big screen with the tentatively titled Dave Chappelle's Family History of the World. Chappelle would play his family members at various points in history as he chronicles his family's fictitious involvement in momentous events, from biblical times to the present day, as well as riffing on the black experience ... Jodie Foster, who's been out of the limelight for awhile, has signed on to star in the thriller Flight Plan for Imagine Entertainment. The story concerns a woman who, after the death of her husband, decides to return home to America with her young daughter. While on the flight, however, the daughter mysteriously disappears ... Bend It Like Beckham director Gurinder Chadha has set her sights on her next project, a remake of the 2001 French film The Closet. The original, which starred Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil, follows a bland accountant, on the verge of being fired, whose next-door neighbor devises a plan that may enable him to keep his job if he can successfully convince his boss that he is gay. No cast has been set as yet.
Kit Bowen contributed to this report.