Bottom Line: Mrs. Palin is proving further that she is batshit crazy. Her pseudo-speech will go down in history with Miss Teen South Carolina's epic of a couple of years ago.

Let's hope she sticks around for 2012 so the futile effort to come up with a serious candidate for a futile election against Obama will be fun to watch.

And this last thought... I do think the Republicans will implode dramatically in 2012... but that the wreckage will clear the way in a productive way to a reconsidered party that will have a real shot at winning in 2016 unless the Obama agenda leads to a feeling of peace and prosperity in the next 7 years. I'm not sure the world will allow us all to feel that comfy that quickly. We'll see.

Remember last week, when Transformers 2 came up short of $200 million based on Sunday numbers and, just coincidentally, the Thursday and Friday estimates rose enough to hit that magical $200m mark?

After Tr2 dropped 78% - without the late night numbers - from its first Wednesday to its second, yesterday, the estimate is down to just a 60% drop. If it dropped 62%, it would have been behind IA3. Hmmmm... wonder if these estimates will be "adjusted" before Monday "finals."

I actually think that Tr2 will legitimately win the race on Friday, with $21m - $22m to IA3's $18.5m or $19.5m.

Saturday being the July 4 holiday is bad for Fox, who would normally get a big Saturday bump. On the other hand, if you look back at the holiday, whatever day of the week, and you see pretty normal numbers, sometimes a little higher than normal. So we'll see.

Either way, I expect Ice Age 3 to win both Saturday and Sunday. The question will be how great the spread is.

Of course... I could end up being wrong about all of this. Tr2's drop is not too much of a question mark. But where IA3 goes is more up in the air.

When it started, the central spin, launched via Variety, was that Soderbergh delivered a late draft that so differed from the Steve Zaillian version, which the studio loved, that the movie, over $10 million into a $58m production, had to be canceled. Subsequently, we were told that it was an act of bravery by the studio.

But there are a few big problems in this smooth story…

1) Soderbergh had delivered another draft a weekend before the Death Draft, which also noted the real-life interview concept, which he was already shooting on the studio’s dime.

2) Soderbergh pegged this change at about 10% of the film… or around 10 minutes of total on-screen time.

3) The much-loved Zaillian draft had NOT been approved by MLB because of the many inaccuracies, starting with Billy Beane being a skirt-chaser and not a married man. Some insiders say that the changes that MLB had requested did not demand such a dramatic change and that the draft can still be adjusted in small ways that will get MLB approval. But there is no clear answer on this critical distinction.

Personally, I am a little miffed, as I asked about whether Soderbergh’s draft was a reflection of inaccuracies in the Zaillian draft and was told, “no.” A couple of days later, Patrick Goldstein became the only person to get an on-the-record conversation with Amy Pascal. And for good reason. He was so busy polishing Zaillian’s Oscar, he didn’t bother to ask any serious questions, freeing Sony from answering them.

For instance…

Why wasn’t Zaillian doing the rewrite?

If Brad Pitt decided to move forward with another director, who would do the rewrite necessary to get MLB approval?

How could Soderbergh be shooting interviews for the movie on the studio dime without the studio knowing what his plan was?

If a “baseball movie” is such a problem, why was the project greenlit in the first place?

Why is Jim Brooks, whose last movie cost $80m and grossed $42.7m domestic/ $12.3m foreign in spite of having Adam Sandler in the lead (easily the funnyman’s biggest financial loser), moving forward with a “baseball movie” that will likely cost at least as much, if baseball movies are a problem?

Why paint Soderbergh as a “mad artist,” absurdly pinning this choice on movies that were made for budgets of under $5 million, when ten of Soderbergh’s last dozen pictures were profitable, half of those grossing over $200m worldwide? (The only two financial misses… both heavy dramas starring George Clooney.)

What so irks me about the ongoing stories is this bizarre notion that Soderbergh was somehow transforming this project from a $58 million studio movie into a personal art project. As I have noted before, Soderbergh knew exactly what was at stake for him and his career going into this movie. Success was more important to him on this film than on most of his recent films. It was the commercial lynchpin that would make it easier to move along with his more challenging, smaller projects.

There wasn’t 10 minutes of documentary footage in another Sony sports-minded film built around a major star that was working outside of what people saw as his sweet spot. But there was at least 3 minutes. And it is probably a bit more reflective of what Soderbergh’s vision was. The film grossed $275 million worldwide, got a Best Picture nomination, and was set in the world of American professional football. It was called Jerry Maguire.

I’m not saying that Soderbergh’s vision would be as commercial Jerry Maguire. But then again, who thought that Traffic or Erin Brockovich would each gross over $200m worldwide? Seriously. Answer: No One.

Also… this idea that the world now gets a vote on what Soderbergh’s film would have been… I mean, sod off… seriously. A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing. I am sure that some of those commenting are very bright. But I’ll have the conversation with someone who actually has delivered on the skill set, thanks.

So… I will be at peace when I get the answers to these questions… unless the answers demand more questions. In the meantime, the case is not closed, even though the film looks to be dead.

Movies die every day. Feelings and careers are hurt. (Over 200 people were put out of work unexpectedly by this cancellation.) But the cheap slaps at Soderbergh are way over the top and as unnecessary as slapping down someone you just fired with gossipy attacks (even if accurate), adding insult to injury. Hollywood treats artists like shit because of money and ego. But there is no excuse for those of us who cover the industry to be equally venal.

Sony Classics is the only studio Dependent that is focused on pick-ups. None of the others were driven by pick-ups in recent years and still pick up their 2 or 3 pictures a year, and get involved in pre-production on 2 or 3 more. (SPC does that last one too.)

And what the Variety story also fails to note is that IFC Films and Magnolia are 90% non-theatrical companies now, even though most of their product gets a theatrical nod of some kind. But you don't sell your movie to either company these days sanely expecting to ever see more than (or as many as, in most cases) 50 prints out at one time.

The Dependents, in my opinion, destroyed the indie world in recent years, the way the studios destroy all innovation... by buying in and slowly but surely transforming it into a cash machine before realizing, in this case, that they have way overreached.

I tag the Indie Depression to John Lesher and Paramount Vantage primarily. They raised the bar so high with their spending that even when other companies showed restraint, there ended up being budget creep, both on films they made, films they bought, and most disastrously in marketing.

It's great that There Will Be Blood could get made with studio funds. But every other studio knew they would have a money loser by doing it... which is why the project sat around for years. I'm not blaming PT Anderson. And I am not saying that Vantage didn't market the hell out of it, achieving a much bigger box office than anyone imagined as well as its Oscar booty. But bottom line is, when you lose money, it has to come out of someone's pocket.

The question, which has been on the table and unanswered in the last year, is what the next model is going to be?

One of the companies that actually looks strong and smart is Oscilloscope, which Adam Yauch was out in LA promoting a couple of weeks ago. These guys are serious about movies. And they expect their filmmakers to buy into their belief system when they make their deals. When I asked which film was "the one that got away," the immediate response was, "Humpday," which went to Magnolia and starts its rollout in NY next week. This film was their ideal... and the company just wasn't established enough in January to make it happen.

But I think that is a part of this. If "mumblecore" continues to evolve into bigger films - and experiments have started at the Dependents - then it could feed a new generation of indie distributors who need product that is low budget and whose filmmakers need to be able to pay off their production costs, not just throw it to the biggest company that shows interest for almost nothing and hope against hope that they become the next surprise hit.

But Humpday is at Magnolia... Baghead was at SPC... Paper Hearts is at Overture.

On the other hand, Stony Island did a strong $2 million with Is Anybody There? and Truly Indie has, currently, the biggest doc of the year in Valentino, their first film to crack 20 screens. So maybe there is hope there.

Francis Coppola will keep making small personal films. He distributed Tetro himself. He can afford to find a guy like Yauch, commit the next 2 or 3 films to him without making it impossible for a company the size of Oscilloscope to worth within both their means, and be the cornerstone of building a new distributor, giving him a committed, serious distribution team that is putting out (or trying to put out) a film a month and not just ramping up for one movie a year.

As much as we discuss all of this and try to remain on the art side of it, the truth is, money is money and you can't play the game without it. The finest artists, producers, directors, etc, are all walking that line when they get a film made between what company can do the most for their film, what company is offering the most up front, what company they really like, and last, but least, which company really cares about their film.

Would any other company but The Weinstein's Miramax have gotten In The Bedroom a Best Picture nomination... while not even focusing primarily on that film as their front runner? No. But does Todd Field ever want to make a movie - he sold that one at Sundance - with Harvey Weinstein? No. But Todd is an intensely serious guy.

All that said, after spending a lot of effort on Blood Meridian, it seems Todd is moving on to another weighty piece, The Creed of Violence, which if eventually made for Universal would seem to be a 5 year wait between releases, as he had between his first and second film.

On the happy side, Overture seems to be serious about being involved early in a fair number of $5m - $15m titles each year, adding some pick-ups. Summit, which has become The Twilight Studio, is likely to have its first Best Picture nomination this next season with the Venice/Toronto pick-up, The Hurt Locker. And last year's Oscar-winner/$360m worldwide grosser, Slumdog Millionaire, was, essentially, a post-production pick-up by Searchlight. So there is some hope out there.

Of course, these are the exceptions and you can't have an industry of exceptions. When someone comes up with a concept for indie distribution in which they can assure no in-house project will have more than a $2 million loss and pick-ups can't lose more than $500,000 (the SPC model) while NOT being owned by a studio can have a working business that can release a dozen movies a year and have only two be significantly profitable and still make money. It will, as always, be cobbled together via foreign, DVD, digital-delivery, pay TV, etc.

And then, when the company has one shockingly large hit and is sitting on a pile of cash bigger than one year's budget, they have to not spend it all on being more ambitious... for that way lies death.

Onward...

It was the best Wednesday ever for an animated film and, as follows, the best Wed opening ever for an animated film, though it is just #22 all-time and only 22% of what Transformers 3 opened to last Wednesday (which includes the late-Tuesday shows).

The biggest second weekend ever is The Dark Knight's $75.32 million. In the first set of non-opening weekdays, Tr2 is running about $6 million a day behind TDK. Wednesday was also 82% off of opening day. So the weekend numbers should be good, but further off of TDK and likely behind what seems to be at least a $60m weekend coming for IA3.

A few weeks ago, Michael Douglas was given a lifetime achievement award by AFI, and his father, Kirk, was in attendance and cracking jokes, slurred a bit by his stroke, but still fighting on. But it was Michael Douglas' tribute and love for Karl Malden that most strongly resonated. He spoke of feeling like Malden's son and wishing that he could, indeed, be adopted by his second father. At an age at which he was trying to break away from his parent/legend, he was shown the showbiz ropes by Malden.

The guy was, by all accounts, a mensch... even if he forced the questionable award for Elia Kazan at the 1999 Oscars... in his work... in his industry involvements... in the community...

He will truly be missed.

The lawsuit that was filed yesterday has only one mention of Scientology in it - more on that in a bit - and a rather more bizarre (didn't know that was possible, did you?) at all to any motivation on Murdoch's part for the firing.

There is a repeated refrain about the video that Friedman "saw a film called Wolverine on the internet," but that "Friedman did not download Wolverine." How exactly does that work?

Put aside, for a moment, that it remains to be proven that Murdoch had a copy of the film in his personal possession is true. Note in the language that Murdoch had allegedly possessed and controlled and screened A COPY of the work print... but the phrasing can easily be read as NOT saying that it was that specific Murdoch Copy that ended up on the web, just that what he allegedly possessed was the same as the version of the work print that ended up on the web.

The work print thing is repeated, a little differently, again in Point 25, suggesting that Murdoch had somehow failed to tell anyone inside his company that he had a copy of the work print and that they should have known this when they decided to dump Friedman.

But either way... it is an irrelevant point. Well... a pointless point. Is the argument to be spun from this that Murdoch wanted the film posted on the internet? I men what kind of nutty...

Oh. He ALLOWED it to be posted to the web. But he hadn't told anyone from the company, right? And how did he ALLOW this? And why?

It boggles the mind,

There are two points that make some small amount of sense. One, that the piece went up without a peep from any of the people given responsibility for overseeing Friedman. If he is fired, they should probably have been fired would be his argument. Maybe.

This exposes the ugly truth about entertainment journalism and even sensationalized gossips. Their editors and overseers don't really know and don't really care. I was no online and on a vacation when the story broke and had multiple communications with the studio in which it became quickly clear that they were doing a full court press on keeping all outlets from reviewing this film off of a stolen work print on the web. Most of the geek sites were publicly speaking about it. Only a hack who doesn't bother with journalistic ethics could have gone to print with a review without knowing that the studio was working day and night - including hundreds of cease and desist notices going out across the globe - to keep anyone from doing what Friedman did.

The second argument is that other News Corp outlets had written about illegal downloading and explained in some detail how it is done. Interesting. But in the end, not relevant to Friedman's giddy embrace of the experience and, again, the choice to review a studio movie off of an illegal download that was unquestionable an unfinished print.

And now... my favorite part...

Now... I didn't even know that Friedman had reviewed the film as I wandered NYC on Friday. I learned about it in a private e-mail from AICN's Mr. Beaks, Jeremy Smith. I considered it... and I wrote about it at 6:38p PST. I think that Harry Knowles had already written about it by then (his post is time stamped 6:24p, which may be Austin time, making it even earlier in LA).

This is the only reference to Scientology in the lawsuit... and if it refers to AICN, HifFix or myself, it has no basis in any level of reality.

After Fox put out a late night press release, I responded by morning, as had Drew McWeeny at HitFix and Mr. Beaks, adding to the AICN post.

By 4:30p, Friedman was terminated.

By 6pm, Roger Ailes was spinning the story of how Fox News had acted heroically to Nikki Finke.

Apparently, this conspiracy took flight when Fox read about the review and was raised to a firing offense under the public pressure of insistence over the issue of Fox's consistency on the matter.

The problem is... everything I printed... and everything printed by HitFix and AICN about Roger was true. Roger's actions - the tone of the column not being the least of the issue - forced the action by News Corp. He might take more people down with him with this lawsuit. If there was an error to fight over it was the firing of him alone. But he took the actions that led to his professional demise. And the media - blogs - simply told the story by laying out facts and perspective.

In fact, Movieline (and others, including me) mocked the dueling drooling when it happened.

But today, using his real name, Richard Day hits some of the same notes, including the shrill argument that "the film has not been screened for a large number of gays" and that "the reaction from gays has been almost uniformly one of alarm."

The film has been shown to GLAAD and widely screened for hetero and homo sexuals in the industry alike. There has been little alarm since.

Not coming up much anywhere is also the fact that there is what would be an NC-17 version of the film that was screened for international exhibitors that was considered by most to be much more shocking than the final version... though not on the basis of gay content.

Day's quotes today sound like the continuing story of someone with an ax to grind, whose first efforts didn't take. Movieline oversells the story in its headline, suggesting a dramatically different ending to the film, when in fact, the difference, according to the angry accuser, is basically that the earlier version further extends the gay bashing that still happens in the film to a physical injury. The fact that the passive sidekick of Bruno would be victimized and take it without anger is hardly outside of the overall theme of the film nor does it seem to further anything about the gay elements of the film. They picked a gentler ending. But the joke was the guy who would get himself beat up for his employer who repeatedly treats him like shit, not that a gay man was bashed.

How bitter is Day that no one but him seems to be enraged by this film?

“I don’t know if we’re why they changed it but if we are, I regret saying anything,” says Day. “It would have been better to let them expose their true point of view; thanks to us they had a road map of the most egregious offenses and can also claim to have been responsive to our concerns.”

Angry dude... angry he didn't let them show just how evil they are... oy.

But in the end, I don't blame him. There were angry Eastern Europeans who obsessed on Borat as an ethnic slight as well. Both are wrong, in my opinion. But they have the right to scream. I only wish that publications were more careful about turning the ravings of angry people into misleading headlines and stories.

Clooney and Heslov land at Sony - The crazy thing is that much of the media seems to have missed that Clooney (and Soderbergh), who produced via the now deceased Section Eight which was primarily responsible for the birth of the also deceased Warner Independent Pictures, has been out of Warners for a while already.

Since Michael Clayton, Clooney has not had a film at WB. Leatherheads (U), Burn After Reading (Focus), Up in the Air (DW), Men Who Stare At Goats (Overture), The Fantastic Mr Fox (Fox), and A Very Private Gentleman (Focus). Soderbergh's only film at WB since Ocean's 13 is The Informant, a $21 million Matt Damon film coming this fall, a leftover from Section Eight... but he's basically been out for years already.

Paramount Seeks DVD Production Business Share With Others - It may seem like a big deal, but it really, really isn't. It's the same idea as the Paramount/MGM/Lionsgate pay-tv venture that never got off the ground. It's like all the distribution deals that Paramount has, which have created big grosses for media stories and a dangerous combination of light profits on massive hits and a decimated production business (which has NO movies scheduled to start before next year).

This is not a deal to merge libraries or anything like that. It is an effort to save money on infrastructure, just as studios that distribute through Fox or WB do... and not actually a bad idea at all, though I don't know the hard numbers.

Firings at Paramount - All inevitable. I'm not sure why people are so surprised.

What would be SHOCKING is other Par firings that are being rumored today around town. Some of these choices, if they turn out to be real, would be suicidal, as they go right to the heart of the some of the very few parts of Paramount that actually work right now.

Most of what is interesting is along the lines of "what too so long?" For instance, Paramount's head of marketing, Megan Colligan or long-time in-house big brain David Kaminow or screenwriter John August or producers Kathy Conrad, James Lassiter, and Paula Wagner or execs Dan Battsek and Claudia Lewis or documentarian Rachel Grady or Danny Boyle or cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle or the Supporting Actress nominee of last year, Amy Ryan.

Quietly leaping in is Russell Smith, who didn't get blackballed - as I worried - after the public whining about him not getting in last year. (He deserved the slot then, as he does now.)

The Acting Branch seems to have gotten the message that it has been overly cautious about invites - last year inviting only 7 actors to join and 16 the year before - went in for 20 new members, half of whom have never been nominated.

It clearly pays to be an Apatow regular, as his cache put Michael Cera, James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Paul Rudd into the Academy this year. Jonah Hill must be depressed.