The Hatfields and the McCoys Rage

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The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: The History Channel has a big old hit on its hands, Zac Efron and Goldie Hawn finally team up, and NBC has yet another singing show.

Last night the History Channel debuted its new miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, about America's most famous feuding families (after the Gorga/Giudices, obviously), and lots of people watched it. Like "the No.1 non-sports telecast in ad supported cable television history" lots of people. 13.9 million folks tuned in, which is just short of how many people watched a recent episode of American Idol. So that is pretty big! This is great news for the History Channel, obviously, but also a nice endorsement of Kevin Costner's remaining star power and a good sign that Bill Paxton will have a life after Big Love. And hey, good for Tom Berenger too. And for Jena Malone. Good for everyone, really. Too bad they're all dead now. Ah well. Guess that's just where bitter blood feuds get you. [Deadline]

Haha, oh dear. Tom Cruise is playing a character named Jack Reacher in a new movie that was originally called One Shot, but now the studio has decided to change the name to just Jack Reacher. Which... Tom Cruise... Jack... Reacher... It just... They had avoided it! Sure his character was still named Jack Reacher but the movie wasn't. But now it is. And it will be a joke forever. For us, anyway. We're not too sophisticated in the whole humor department, so Tom Cruise/Jack Reacher is a pretty funny joke. Haha. Oh man. "I think we're going to a showing of Jack Reacher 'rounder 8 o'clock or so?" Snort. [The Hollywood Reporter]

Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Jason Bateman, and Goldie Hawn are all in talks to star in the movie adaptation of the comic This Is Where I Leave You, about adult siblings returning to the family home to sit shiva for their deceased father. Now lest you get too excited and think that there is going to be some gonzo movie in which Zac Efron and Goldie Hawn play siblings, that is not what's happening. Hawn would play the mother, and Efron would be the baby brother to Bateman and Mann. So, oh well. We were really hoping to see Goldie Hawn toss her wild hair around and google her eyes and throw her arm around Zac Efron and say "What's up, bro?" Maybe someday, in some other movie. Who knows. [Deadline]

NBC is already doing a TV series called Hannibal, about elegant cannibal Hannibal Lecter, and now Lifetime: Television For Scaring Women Into Agoraphobia is grabbing its own piece of the Thomas Harris universe. They're developing a show about Clarice Starling, the young FBI agent played by Jodie Foster in Silence of the Lambs and Julianne Moore in Hannibal. The series would take place right after Starling graduates from the FBI academy and she will probably be played by, who, Brittany Snow or something? JoAnna Garcia? That girl from The Secret Circle? Someone like that, probably. Some well-scrubbed, hustling rube with her good bag and her cheap shoes. [The Hollywood Reporter]

NBC has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to put together another singing competition show. This one will be called The Winner Is and will have singing hopefuls battling against each other to win a $1 million prize. They'll be judged by a celebrity-led panel of judges, and, like The X Factor, it will be all ages. The cynical gimmick here is that the singers can cash out at any time if they feel like they did a bad job and won't advance, leaving the show with some amount of prize money. So it's basically singing for money. I mean, all these shows singing for money, but this is dropping the pretense of a record contract or any potential for continued fame. This is a quick-grab. And while it's a gross premise, you also sort of have to respect it. At least it's honest. [The Wrap]

Here are some new production stills from Quentin Tarantino's next film, the slavery-themed Western called Django Unchained. In it we see more of Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz and another glimpse of Leondardo DiCaprio as the plantation owner villain. We are cautious but excited about this.

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