By Leslie Simmons

Not too into singing cheery holiday carols and celebrating the birth of Jesus at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass?

Well, there’s always the un-holiest of gatherings in Manhattan and Hollywood watching an aggressive extraterrestrial with razor-sharp claws engage in a bloody battle with a fierce alien humanoid hunter at the “Midnight Mass-acre” for AVP-R (That’s “Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem” for those not hip to the game.)

AVP-R is the sequel to 20th Century Fox’s 2004 “AVP: Alien vs. Predator,” which did phenomenally well at the boxoffice raking in a combined domestic and international gross of more than $171 million. Fox is kicking off the latest showdown between the two evil stars with a heartwarming (or perhaps in this case, heart-stopping) special Christmas Day midnight screenings at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood and the Regal Union Square Stadium 14 in New York.

Just to push the joy of the season, Fox sent out a special gift to reporters announcing the opening day showings: a holiday ornament declaring “This Christmas There Will Be No Peace on Earth” with the Alien and Predator shaped to form North and South America on a globe.

Not to leave fans out, Fox will reward the first 100 fans at each location with a special Christmas stocking stuffer: a commemorative T-shirt that reads “I Survived Midnight Mass-acre Christmas Eve 2007.” (Festively printed, of course, with dripping green ooze and red blood.).

A bloody good Christmas!

By Steven Zeitchik

Ever since Philippe Dauman turned the phrase“completely immaterial” from Wall Street wonk into fighting words, it’s been a game of reading tea leaves to determine whether DreamWorks will stay at Paramount after the company’s contract expires at the end of ‘08.

Add this to the tasseography.

In an interview with Stacey Snider after the announcement of the Golden Globe noms, Risky Biz asked the DreamWorks CEO how she felt given that, by the next Globes, DreamWorks could be packing off for another studio.

Snider responded by describing a “warm” rapport with those who work on its films at Paramount and Paramount Vantage. “Our day-to-day relationship with people who are in the trenches couldn’t be better.”   Then she gave shout-outs to a number of execs, like Vantage’s Megan Colligan and Nick Meyer and Par’s recently upped John Lesher.

True, it was the traditional post-nomination call, when the focus is on the films, not the larger corporate reality. But it was nonetheless interesting that Snider didn’t single out Viacom higher-ups, and the carefully worded endorsement may be an indicator of how DreamWorks execs will handle the potentially awkward situation of spending the next twelve months based at a company top brass have expressed misgivings about.

After all, DreamWorks still needs Paramount to release some important films in the next year–including awards-ready fare like “Sweeney Todd” and more commercial pics like the Ricky Gervais romantic comedy “Ghost Town.” Snider’s carefully crafted shout-out is a vote of confidence in those who release those movies, and further ensures that the movies will get love. But by leaving the bosses out, she may also simultaneously be leaving the door open to other suitors like Universal and Warners–and providing one more tea leaf to read.

By Carl DiOrio
Despite the tension surrounding the WGA strike, at least some of those clued into the discord seem to have maintained a well-developed sense of humor. A site spoofing the official Website of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers has shown up, and its mocking mimickry is long on impishness and relativity short on outright meanness. An example: “We are heartbroken to report that despite our best efforts, including sending them a muffin basket, making them a mix CD, and standing outside their window with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel songs, our talks with the WGA have broken down. Quite frankly, we’re puzzled as to why this happened. We talked about it all the way home – after we walked into their hotel room, slapped our list of demands on the table and abruptly left the negotiating session – and none of us could figure out what went wrong.” A profile of AMPTP president Nick Counter posted under the “About Us” link on AMPTP.com claims, “For almost fifteen years, Nick Counter was a member of the Backstreet Boys, one of the biggest-selling teen pop bands in history.” The photos, one pictured left, are good for a chuckle, too. Just for the record, the studio group’s real site is accessible at AMPTP.org.

By Steven Zeitchik

Directors may be in a mood to compromise with producers over labor issues, but don’t tell Francis Ford Coppola.

The iconic writer-director is unrepentant in his support of the WGA, even seeing a Corleone-esque logic in the AMPTP’s current position.

“The struggle going on is about a dirty little secret that no one will really talk about,” Coppola told Risky Biz. “In the old days when a movie just had a record (soundtrack) it was considered ancillary rights, and it was agreed that the studio would take 20% and put it in the pot, and the other 80% would remain with the studio. But now ancillary rights include the DVD and the Internet and everything else, and the truth of the matter is it’s no longer ancillary rights–it’s the profits of the movie.”

Later this month Coppola will release his first movie in a decade–the abstract and ambitious “Youth Without Youth,” which he financed through his American Zoetrope banner–and he harbors no affection for a system he says exploits writers.

“The studios want to remove the 80% (from the pot) that they are using to cushion the studio system,” he said. “They couldn’t pay those executives the bonuses or run the type of wasteful operations they do unless they were stealing 80% of the real wealth of the film. That’s what the writers strike is really about.”

So much for that invite to Nick Counter’s Christmas dinner.

Roger King, CEO of CBS TV Distribution, brought Oprah Winfrey to national television and was known as one of the greatest salesmen in the history of TV. King, who died of complications from a stroke today at age 63, has been the subject of so many colorful stories through the years because of his accomplishments and his antics alike.

Click here to read King’s obituary and take a look back at the milestones in the syndication giant’s career, which we have chronicled in an image gallery.

We invite you to share your memories and condolences in the comments section below.

By Leslie Simmons

Faux rock star Dewey Cox may be a legend in his own mind, but the marketing folks at Columbia Pictures are doing all they can to make him a household name, prior to the film’s Dec. 21 release. Not since "The Simpsons Movie" this summer have I seen such effort go into the marketing of a film.

The latest is Columbia’s offering of the first 10 minutes of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" for online viewing over the weekend on MySpace, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes and the official movie Web site, starting Friday at 3 p.m.

Carson Daly addressed his decision to return to work in his monologue Monday night on the first new episode of NBC’s late-night talk show "Last Call With Carson Daly" since the writers strike started Nov. 5. Daly became the first late-night talk show host to go back to work when he began taping new episodes last week.

The transcript of his monologue follows:

Thank you, how are you? It’s good to see the batteries in the applause sign still work after a month, that’s nice. Welcome to the show everybody, I’m Carson Daly.

It is nice to be here. Obviously this is our very first show back since the writers strike started on Nov. 5. We have halted production for a month to support our writers and the strike.

Recently there’s been a few articles in the newspaper regarding us being the first late night show to return. And I feel here at the top of the show, I quickly wanted to just address some of those things, then we’re going to go continue being the ridiculous show that we are with no writing.

(Applause)

The first thing I wanted to mention was there was a lot of speculation in these recent articles as to why we’re back tonight, many of which were completely false. There’s really a couple of reasons why we are back, the main reason being, and I don’t know how this happened but we ran out of repeats.

A month is a long time. I was watching the show, which I normally don’t do on Friday night, it was a repeat and in it, I made a stupid joke about the band Creed, and it dawned on me that people might think that Creed reunited, and I thought well now I have to come back on the air. I can’t have people running around thinking that band got back together, they are not back together.

No, there’s one reason we are back tonight. We are the first late-night show back on TV, I believe. That reason is that if I had not been back on the air tonight 75 members of my loyal staff and crew were going to get laid off, that’s really the only reason. These are people that are in this room, there people that when we moved this show from NY to LA uprooted their lives, moved there families all out of loyalty to me. Came out here, a lot of there efforts aren’t seen on camera, some of them are working the cameras. But they have a bit of a thankless job compared to some of us, and they’ve been loyal to me.

And when the challenge was put it front of me which was a very simple
ultimatum if you will, you either come back or they’re laid off, I said
lets turn the lights on I’m going to come back, its that simple, and
that’s why I’m back tonight.

(Applause)