The last forty-eight hours have been tumultuous ones for this year’s Academy Awards telecast. First, the show’s producer Brett Ratner was unceremoniously asked to step down from his position after the world realized that he was a creep. Then his host, Eddie Murphy, soon followed, wishing the new producer and new host the best of luck. Fans all over the web were in an agitated state, debating who should take their places, with a large contingent actively campaigning for a very Muppet Oscars. The Academy seems to be in a bit of a panic though, because less than a day later they’ve already locked their choices down, and the replacements they found can most accurately be described as safe. First, it was announced that Brian Grazer would be the new producer. After this, speculation began to run rampant that Billy Crystal would be the most logical and easy choice for Grazer to plug in as host, seeing as he’s done the job so many times and has a seemingly endless enthusiasm for the gig. Sure enough, earlier today Crystal took to his @BillyCrystal Twitter account and made the following announcement, “Am doing the Oscars so the young woman in the pharmacy will stop asking my name when I pick up my prescriptions. Looking forward to the show.” Since then, the Academy’s official account has retweeted Crystal’s claims, making things pretty official.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s a nightly movie news column that isn’t holding out hope that it will be chosen to host the 84th Academy Awards. It has never had a good working relationship with Brian Grazer. Earlier today the entire film world was talking about Brett Ratner’s departure as producer of the Oscars because of a whole bunch of controversy over some comments he made that offended fans of rehearsals. Everyone wanted him out, and they got it. The also got the bonus of Eddie Murphy jumping ship as host, two-for-one discount style. And now they’re getting something else, which might be seen as a bonus. The Academy confirmed this evening via a press release that Brian Grazer will produce the 84th Academy Awards telecast. The odds on Tom Hanks hosting just went through the roof.

At this rate, the saga of bringing Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower series to the big screen will be almost as harrowing as the book (but only about 1/100th as long). The earliest I remember hearing about it was back in 2008 when J.J. Abrams kept having his name pop up everywhere. Of course, things didn’t seem really concrete until Ron Howard saddled up to ride, but then he backed out after everyone ever laughed at his budget and vision of 30 movies and 200 television miniseries. None of that has fazed Brian Grazer. The shrewd producer told The Playlist that he, Howard, and writer Akiva Goldsman did some reworking on both the script and the numbers, and came up with something even more destined to get made than the previous incarnation was supposed to be. The money quote: “We found a way to cut out $45m out of the budget without changing the scope and actually giving it a good ending. In the $140m draft, the ending wasn’t quite as satisfying. Now, we’ve got $45m, $50m out of the way and a really satisfying ending. It’s gonna get made.” Fingers tightly crossed that “really satisfying ending” doesn’t equal Roland riding off in the sunset. On that front, it’s unclear whether or not Javier Bardem is still interested in the main role or the dusty trail to get this thing in the can, but with Goldsman and Howard still on board (again), it’s still a shadow of the project that [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Welcome to the Saturday edition of Channel Guide in which Merrill Barr takes a look at an episode from that past week in the world of television that really stood out above the rest. If there isn’t a good episode, well there’s always plenty of back logged TV to be brought into the spotlight for you to check out. There are very few television shows that actually improve over time. Usually nothing ever comes close to matching the magical discovery of who a show’s characters are, and how they interact than what takes place in that first season. The season where everyone is fresh faced and bright eyed before their lives take a one eighty with either tragedy, comedy, action or all of the above. One could probably count on two hands the shows that really surpassed their first season. Well now we can add another show to that list: Parenthood. And there is no greater proof of that than in the season 2 finale “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

Universal launches its opening toy-made film salvo with Stretch Armstrong arriving in early 2011. Should the public respond by throwing their money back?

Some people out there quite excited about Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Ron Howard’s next film, Frost/Nixon.