FRIDAY PM: Today was sluggish at the box office, especially for matinees. Sources just gave me early Friday and estimated Labor Day holiday weekend grosses for North America. Numbers will be refined in the AM. Analysis coming:
1. The American (Focus Features) NEW [2,823 Theaters] Opened Wed
Friday $4.1M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $16M, Estimated Cume $19.1M
2. Machete (Fox) NEW [2,670 Theaters]
Friday $3.6M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $12.3M)
3. Takers (Screen Gems/Sony) Week 2 [2,206 Theaters]
Friday $3M (-60%), Estimated 4-Day Holiday $14M, Estimated Cume $40M
4. The Last Exorcism (Lionsgate) Week 2 [2,874 Theaters]
Friday $2.4M (-76%), Estimated 4-Day Holiday $10M, Estimated Cume $34.8M
5. Going The Distance (Warner Bros) NEW [3,030 Theaters]
Friday $2.2M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $9M
6. The Expendables (Lionsgate) Week 4 [3,398 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $8.2M, Estimated Cume $94M
7. Eat Pray Love (Sony) Week 4 [2,663 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $7.5M, Estimated Cume $72M
8. The Other Guys (Sony) Week 5 [2,607 Theaters]
Friday $1.5M, Estimated 4-Day Holiday $7.5M, Estimated Cume $109M

TELLURIDE: Peter Weir’

Fox just issued a statement confirming that Kara DioGuardi won’t be returning to American Idol next season. News comes as Jennifer Lopez is finalizing a deal to join the Fox series and amid speculation that Idol might be reverting to the original three-judge format. Also closing in on a deal for the reality series is Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. And executive producer Nigel Lythgoe said last weekend he’s still trying to land Elton John. So Randy Jackson will be the only returning panelist  after Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres, and now DioGuardi have gone.
Kara DioGuardi is stepping down from her role as a judge on AMERICAN IDOL. DioGuardi joined AMERICAN IDOL as a judge in the series’

EXCLUSIVE UPDATE 5 PM: Paramount just weighed in with me to say that the injured extra was not involved in the stunt, that her car was not involved in the stunt, that a “freak accident caused her injury”, that she and her car were more than 500 feet from the stunt, that she was struck by a flying metal object whose welding had come apart and not by a steel towing cable, that the stunt from Tuesday had to be repeated Wednesday because of a “timing issue” and not because it had failed, and that “nobody has done movies more safely than Michael Bay”. The studio, however, could not explain why its version of events was so at odds with the local police and media reports. “We feel horrible that anyone was injured and will take all appropriate action,” a Paramount exec told me.
9:30 AM: Safety questions on Michael Bay’s set are being forwarded to me after an actress employed as a movie extra was “critically” injured during a Transformers 3 stunt that went wrong in Northwest Indiana. According to news reports quoting local police, the movie was filming a stunt involving multiple vehicles and drivers and flying cars when a metal object struck Gabriella Cedillo’s personal 2006 Toyota. It went through the windshield and hit the 24-year-old driver who was not a stunt professional or member of the … Read More

Even though Robert Rodriguez and Danny Trejo launch Machete today amidst an onslaught of press that tries to make the film a lightning rod for debate on immigration, that wasn’t their goal. What they really wanted was to bring back the spirit of exploitation films which seemed to seize on a political issue, only to use it as an excuse to blow shit up and drop in as much nudity and over-the-top violence as they could get away with. Mission accomplished. “This was always about making a what would feel like a good old ’70s exploitation film,” Rodriguez told me. “What they did back in the day was, run out, make an over the top movie that exploited a story in the news so that it felt like it was ripped from the headlines of today, and move faster than studios could. That’s what we did. It was 16 years ago when I met Danny and said I needed to make this movie called Machete, because he looked like this Clint Eastwood type who would not back down from a fight. Immigration is still relevant, nobody has done anything about it, but it’s a smokescreen. The real Machete story underneath was always about an action hero you underestimate, who comes from a violent background, this incorruptible former Federale hiding out as a day laborer.”
The … Read More

From CSIs to spies: CSI creator Anthony Zuiker is developing a spy drama for CBS, an offshoot of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series of novels. Entitled Treadstone, the drama project, from CBS TV Studios and Zuiker’s studio-based Dare to Pass, centers on the workings of Treadstone 71, the black-ops arm of the CIA featured in the Ludlum novels. John Glenn (Eagle Eye) will pen the script and executive produce with Zuiker. The project has received a script commitment by CBS. In addition to focusing on development under his first-look deal with CBS Studios, Zuiker recently returned to the mothership CSI series for his first full-time gig on the franchise in several years.

At her own request, Deb Schindler, President of Sony International Motion Picture Production, will transition from London back to New York to be closer to her family. “My position will change to that of a consultant so that I will remain connected to the division and studio I love,” Schindler tells me. She has been with Sony Pictures Entertainment since 2004, when she headed up East Coast motion picture production and development for Columbia Pictures. In April 2007, she was named President of Sony Picture International Motion Picture Group (fka Local Language Production).

Summit Entertainment signed Jesse Wigutow to do a rewrite of The Osterman Weekend, the Robert Ludlum thriller. The picture was previously adapted into a 1983 Sam Peckinpah-directed film. Summit is trying to move fast to lock in Robert Schwentke, who is attracting buzz for his upcoming Bruce Willis-Helen Mirren starrer Red. Schwentke has competition for his next slot, as Universal wants him for RIPD with Ryan Reynolds. Wigutow just scripted an untitled Steve McQueen biopic, as well Divorcees for Universal and Snepp at HBO.
The Osterman Weekend is produced by Peter Davis, Simon Kinberg, Doug Liman and Jeffrey Weiner. Henry Morrison is exec producer. Like most Ludlum novels, it involves a guy trapped in a conspiracy, running for his life. Just before he  leaves on his annual weekend getaway with friends, John Tanner is visited by a reporter and told his pals aren’t who he thinks they are. When the journalist ends up dead, Tanner struggles to stay alive long enough to figure out who he can trust.

“Summit is pulling out because the process has gone on way too long and it’s become a distraction for the business,” an insider tells me this morning. Summit toppers Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger are still in acquisition mode, and the company will continuing looking for good deals in what is a very depressed showbiz marketplace where bargains are plentiful — especially film and TV libraries. The fundamental issue which MGM creditors had with Summit is that they would have had to give up too much equity in order involve the mini-major which remains flush with cash thanks to the Twilight franchise. “I’m not sure that Summit bowing out changes the Spyglass situation,” my insider added. For months now, Hollywood has known that Spyglass is the bigger creditors’ frontrunner to control MGM, which seems finally poised to plunge itself into a prepackaged bankruptcy, and then emerge with Spyglass partners Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber starting production for the studio. But Summit has remained very much under consideration and hadn’t heard they’re out of it — at least not yet. So Summit decided to pull the plug on its own.
This lead group of MGM creditors (Anchorage Advisors, Highland Capital Management, and Davidson Kempner Capital Management who have banded together) would have Spyglass plan transform MGM into a pure production company and close down its marketing and distribution divisions. Coupled with the equity that Spyglass would bring to the table, a streamlined MGM would lower its debt and … Read More

EXCLUSIVE: The Tudors star will play a Jewish diplomat who gets into a passionate affair with a married Swiss woman, played by Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova (Clash of the Titans), on the eve of the Second World War. Marianne Faithfull also appears. First-time director Glenio Bonder starts filming October 25 on location in Geneva, Switzerland and then in Italy. James Dearden (Fatal Attraction) and Vincenzo Cerami (Life Is Beautiful) have written the script, based on Albert Cohen’