Women & Hollywood

Box Office Roundup
Milla Jovovich topped the weekend box office at 24 million with her zombie romp Resident Evil: Extinction; number two was the Jessica Alba romantic comedy Good Luck Chuck. Jodie Foster was third with The Brave One. Amanda Bynes' Sydney White debuted at #6. The Jane Austen Book Club opened on 25 screens for a total of $160,520 with a per screen average of $6,421. It goes to 40 on Friday and 1,000 on October 5.

TV
I'm not too keen on many of the new shows this season, but I do like Heroes which starts its sophmore season tonight. The show has just hired its first female writer - J.J. Philbin (yes, she is Regis' daughter) I want to know how it is allowed that a major TV show where half the characters are women had no women in the writers room. If anyone has an answer other than that's the way things go in Hollywood, email me at melsil@earthlink.net.

News
Annette Bening has dropped out of the Broadway bound production of Joanne Murray Smith's The Female of the Species. She was to play a feminist (yes, that word is actually in the description) literary giant with writers bloack whose life unravels when a fan knocks on her door. (Variety) A plum role for someone like Frances McDormand? Sigourney Weaver? Glenn Close?

Whoopi Ratings: The View has not suffered under Whoopi. According to Variety: "After two weeks, "The View" under Goldberg is averaging 3.5 million total viewers, a 7% increase from 3.3 million under O'Donnell last season."

Cindy Chupack late of Sex and the City will create a new Romantic Comedy anthology series for NBC with producer JoAnn Alfano.

Look for Marlo Thomas to guest star on an upcoming episode of Ugly Betty.