The Simpsons marks its 300th
episode Sunday, and with Fox renewing the program for two more seasons, it will
become the longest-running sitcom ever (with The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet
set to fall to second).
The surviving members of the
Grateful Dead, who retired the group's name and dubbed themselves The
Other Ones after the death of leader Jerry Garcia, have decided on
another name change to The Dead.
The record price and epic
length of the new Harry Potter novel hasn't stopped the publisher from expecting
extraordinary sales. Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix, hitting bookstores June 21, has a first printing of
6.8 million.
Voters for the Razzies, an
annual spoof of the Academy Awards, picked Britney Spears' teen buddy
flick Crossroads for eight Razzie nominations while Madonna's
island-romance bomb Swept Away received seven, including worst picture and worst
actress for both movies.
The latest reality game show is
raising the stakes to $1 billion. The WB is close to inking a deal to produce a
two-hour live special with a whopping $1 billion jackpot, the most prize money
offered in television history. But don't bother bugging the WB for an audition.
Contestants will have to win their spots on the show via specially marked Pepsi
products. The strategy is being likened to a real-life Willy Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory.
The Santa Clause star Tim
Allen is in negotiations with Paramount to develop and star in the studio's
remake of Father Knows Best and is in early discussions with the Walt Disney Co.
about a potential two-picture deal that would include another installment of the
successful Santa franchise.
The search for a singer to
front the new band featuring former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash,
bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum is being documented
for an upcoming VH1 reality TV show. More than 500 vocalists have sent demos to
the group, which also includes guitarist Dave Kushner. Among the hopeful
finalists is ex-Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach.
Metallica's massive
Summer Sanitarium Tour, featuring Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park,
Deftones and Mudvayne, will touch down in
Minneapolis
at the Metrodome on July 27th.
Twenty-five years after
Elvis Presley's death, the only child of the king of rock 'n' roll Lisa
Marie is
launching her own musical
career with a newly issued record that has some critics all shook up.
Madonna, who cultivated
her pop vixen image in the music video genre she helped popularize 20 years ago,
is using her latest video performance to speak out against a possible U.S. war
with Iraq.
Tommy Lee has slammed former
Mötley Crüe bandmate Vince Neil over the latter's
stint in the WB reality show The Surreal Life, saying that the singer has hit
"an all-time low" by doing the series and blaming him for "dragging what's left
of a once-great band through the dirt."
Actor Benjamin Curtis,
who plays the wise-cracking Steven in Dell Computer Corp's "Dude, yer gettin' a
Dell" commercials, was arrested for marijuana possession.
Demand for high-priced vintage
comic books featuring the Man of Steel, Batman and other crime-fighting
superheroes is growing as baby boomers and others spooked by the downward spiral
of stocks flee traditional investments.
Six years after the music died
Lollapalooza organizers have announced plans for another music festival this
summer. Jane's Addiction will headline with Queens Of The Stone Age,
Audioslave, Incubus, and Jurassic 5 filling in the lead
spots.
Sylvester Stallone has
signed on as the chief villain in the next Spy Kids installment. The Italian
stallion plays the Toymaker in Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over due in theaters by July.
ABC, NBC and Fox have all
passed on a sanitized version of Sex and the City and CBS is expected to follow.
HBO was hoping to sell the series at $3 million an episode.
Hold onto your mullets: Def Leppard are getting ready
to play the U.S. The
first of 17 scheduled shows is March 21 in Pittsburgh, and the dates run through
May 4 in Atlanta.
Mötley Crüe
bassist Nikki Sixx says that his early favorite to play him in the movie
version of their best-selling band autobiography, "The Dirt: Confessions of the
World's Most Notorious Rock Band", is Jackass star Johnny Knoxville.
And the Ozzfest lineup rumors
begin! Unconfirmed reports allege that this year’s festivities will
include Black Sabbath,
Korn, Marilyn Manson, Disturbed, Chevelle and
Systematic.
In a bid to stop TV critics
from selling their screener tapes online HBO has monogrammed each copy of Six
Feet Under with the critics' initials.
Celebrity recordings that
remind New Yorkers to buckle up while riding in taxi cabs will be eliminated
from cabs this spring. Apparently passengers were ignoring the announcements
from the likes of Joan Rivers, Chris Rock and Elmo.
Eminem's only
U.S.
concert of 2003 will take place July 12 in his hometown of Detroit.
Ted Nugent’s forthcoming
live DVD, Full Bluntal Nugity Live, is slated for release on March 25th.
Rob Zombie's long, long,
long-awaited film, House of 1,000 Corpses, is finally slated to open April 11th
in the U.S., with the accompanying soundtrack available March 18th, of which the
latter will consist of 5 new Rob Zombie songs, and a zombified version of the
disco song Brickhouse with Lionel Ritchie.
Joe Rogan is about to
become the king of intentionally sophomoric TV. He's already the host of NBC's
Fear Factor. Now, the network is about to sign a deal with Comedy Central to
allow Rogan to host the cable channel's The Man Show as well. He'd take over
from Jimmy Kimmel, who left to host his new late-night talk show on ABC.
