Ann Curry is pretty much out as co-host of Today and NBC will move her into a fancier role as foreign correspondent any day now. Everybody knows this now, but nobody knows who will get to inhale huge amounts of musky smugness while sitting next to Matt Lauer. Many have said that Matt will set next to a boiled, bland rutabaga who goes by the name of Savannah Guthrie, but Radar says that isn’t happening. NBC has put several replacement possibilities in front of focus groups and they weren’t feeling it for Savannah. But they were feeling it for Kathie Lee Gifford’s partner in morning time drunkery Hoda Kotb. They all burp up hearts for Hoda and they think she should be pried away from Kathie Lee’s pinot-stained claws to host the first two hours of Today. A source put it like this:
“Hoda scores off the charts in focus groups, and the audience can relate to her.
Hoda has a hard news background but is extremely comfortable discussing pop culture issues. She just has a warmth that viewers find comforting. She was very public with her breast cancer battle, and allowed cameras to follow her during her cancer treatments on Today. Hoda is a team player, and is so well liked by everyone at the show, most importantly, Matt Lauer. They have a very easy rapport and
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“Guuuuuuurrl, what’s that smell?” is a line that came out of the mouth of Ryan Seacrest’s assistant this morning and his assistant quickly learned that smell was the lump of sad he made in his underoos after finding out that he’s not going to replace Matt Lauer on Today after all. Matt Lauer will glib another day, and then some, because he has signed a new long-term deal to stay on as the co-host of Today for years to come. Matt’s current contract expires later this year.
There’s a reason why in the picture above Matt looks as awkwardly uncomfortable as GOOPY Paltrow when someone wearing clothes from Sears tries to hug her. Gawker reported almost two weeks ago that Matt wants Today to be a Curry-free zone and would only sign a new contract if the producers dropped her ass. Good Morning America has beat Today in the ratings for the first time in the history of forever and Matt is blaming the stale chemistry between him and Ann Curry for that. So since Matt has signed on, I’m guessing that Ann Curry will soon be saying “good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning” to the clerk at the unemployment office.
I liked Ann Curry before she took over for Meredith, but ever since then it’s been
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Happy Thursday! Also in today’s edition of The Broadsheet: Tom Cruise tries (sort of) to talk up Top Gun 2… Ryan Seacrest may land on Today… There is a movie in the Oscar hunt called The Woman in a Septic Tank… and more.
· The biopic-y Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho may have a clumsy working title and a tortured history, but the long-suffering Anthony Hopkins project reportedly has a new studio in Fox Searchlight, a new director in Sacha Gervasi, and — I can’t even believe I’m writing this — new interest from Helen Mirren in playing Hitchcock’s wife Alma. To repeat: Hopkins and Mirren may play the Hitchcocks. I mean! Maybe Alison Brie can play Janet Leigh. [THR]
· And now imagine Ryan Seacrest co-hosting Today. It could happen — if Matt Lauer decides to leave the show in 2012. Can Seacrest and Ann Curry even be in the same room without setting off some kind of blistering, blood-red, category-5 cultural cyclone across the land? Do we really want to find out? [WSJ via Deadline]
· Tom Cruise isn’t doing a very convincing job of taking Top Gun 2 seriously: “I said to Tony I want to make another movie with him. He and I haven’t made a film since Days of Thunder. Tony and I and Jerry, we never thought that we would do it again. Then they started to come to us with these ideas of where it is now. I thought, ‘Wow, that would be… what we could do now.’” [MTV]
· Melancholia’s sound designer opens up about that ending: “It’s the loudest thing I have ever mixed.…
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