What An Asshole

via Editor & Publisher

Movie Actor Baldwin Launches Anti-Porn Action, Promises Newspaper Ads

NEW YORK A new sex-oriented business is opening not far from his home outside New York City, and actor Stephen Baldwin is hoping to stop it, possibly with the help of newspaper ads.

One of the family of Baldwin brother (Alex, Billy, Daniel) actors, Stephen Baldwin has become known as a Christian activist, while continuing to gain movie roles.

On Friday, Baldwin, 39, stood outside the "adult entertainment" shop and photographed workers and their vehicles as they got the store ready to open, according to an account in the Journal-News of White Plains, N.Y.

Baldwin told the paper he planned to stand outside the store every day and photograph the license plates of the store's patrons to aid in tracking down their identities. He vowed to take out a full-page newspaper advertisement once a month to publish those names.

"I won't stop until it shuts down," he said. He has said the store will attract crime, lower property values and hurt the quality of life in the largely middle-class town, which is known as something of an artist's enclave.

"I don't want it this close to my house," Baldwin, who lives about a mile away, told the paper. His home just outside Nyack has a sign bearing scripture out front. "I'm personally not OK with pornography," he added. "I definitely think that it adds to the moral decay or our culture."

Local police "responded to the property last night after Baldwin called them about 9:30 p.m.," the newspaper related. "He said the workers were giving him a hard time for taking photographs. Police told Baldwin he was free to protest and take photographs as long as he was not on the store's property."

Jonze + Eggers x Sendak = Holy Sweet Cock!

via Variety

Warner Bros. has acquired "Where the Wild Things Are" out of turnaround from Universal.

Adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic kid's book, which Spike Jonze will helm from a script he and novelist Dave Eggers penned, is expected to get under way late in the year.

Playtone's Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing, along with Sendak and John Carls.

Figuring out a way to turn the 338-word "Wild Things" story into a movie has been a long process, with multiple helmers and writers weighing in. Details of the Jonze-Eggers version have been closely held, but pic will be a live-action feature that will likely require a sizable CGI budget.

Universal and Sendak did not see eye-to-eye on the concept, but the current vision of the pic has the strong support of Sendak, who told the New York Times in October, "I am in love with it. If Spike and Dave do not do this movie now, I would just as soon not see any version of it ever get made."

Rather than put a kibosh on the pic, U decided to let the producers shop it to other studios. Warners is prepping the pic as a tentpole. Legendary Pictures, which has co-financed last summer's "Batman Begins" and the upcoming "Superman Returns," will likely come aboard as a co-financer.

Warners exec Lynn Harris is shepherding for the studio. Playtone is also producing CGI toon "The Ant Bully" for Warners, skedded for release Aug. 4.