Although the real question keeping Hollywood awake in 2012 is “Does Winston Wolf clean up dead hookers on Yom Kippur?”, the fine folks over at HitFix have put forth a handful of queries of varying importance which filmmakers, studios and fans might have on their minds this year. It’s their 15 Questions Keeping Hollywood Awake in 2012. With concerns from Lindsay Lohan’s possible last chance to Joss Whedon’s first real shot with The Avengers, it’s an intriguing list that might prove 2012 to be both an endlessly fascinating and completely irrelevant year in the stories behind the movies. Will Smith, Found Footage, Hunger Games, Dark Knight Rises and more. HitFix has questions, and here are the answers:

Just last week, we bemoaned the news that Lindsay Lohan was “in early talks” to play Elizabeth Taylor in an upcoming Lifetime movie. But now, a blabby producer has proven two points in a recent chat with E! News – one, it’s bad news to report on “early talks” and two, it’s pretty likely that big names (even tarnished ones like Lohan, especially tarnished ones like Lohan) are getting tossed out into the press to drum up interest in what will likely be a throwaway TV movie. So why keep covering this? Because I cannot wait to see how it shakes out. Larry Thompson, the executive producer of Liz and Dick reportedly told E! News that Lohan is not the only actress in talks for the role – Megan Fox is also a possibility. Thompson said, “I’ve been talking to Lindsay Lohan directly, and with her reps, and have been in conversations with other actresses, including Megan Fox.” However, Thompson reportedly gave E! News a lesson in how Hollywood works, as he “added that being in talks with more than one actress is not meant as an affront to the talent involved, but rather is simply de rigueur for projects of this nature.” Too true, Thompsy. He continued, “it’s a very serious selection. It’s like casting for Hollywood royalty.” No, it is casting for Hollywood royalty.

It seems as if Lindsay Lohan might be most comfortable playing anyone but herself. Lohan has constantly imitated Marilyn Monroe in photo shoots over the years, and the actress was long attached to Matthew Wilder’s Linda Lovelace biopic, Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story. The film seemed stalled out due to the Lohan commitments that could never come to fruition. Lohan was dropped from the project in November of 2010, and Malin Ackerman stepped in to the role shortly after. So, if you can’t be Marilyn and you can’t be Lovelace, who can Lohan be? If a report from Deadline Hampstead is to be believed, Elizabeth Taylor. I’m sorry, what? The outlet reports, quite bizarrely, that Lohan is “in early talks for the female lead in Lifetime’s original movie Elizabeth & Richard: A Love Story, chronicling the enduring love of movie icons Taylor and Richard Burton, whose fiery romance was the most notorious, publicized and celebrated love affair of its day.” The film has been written by Christopher Monger, who also penned the Temple Grandin biopic and directed the forgotten Hugh Grant-starrer The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain). Let’s parse that – Lindsay Lohan might play Elizabeth Taylor in a TV movie written by a guy most famous for writing an award-winning film about a high-functioning autistic woman who loved animals. Well, okay, you’d think Monger would be getting better work, but them’s the breaks, I guess.

If you’ve been privy to watching the Gotti family’s reality show Growing Up Gotti, then it should be pretty clear to you that the family isn’t shy about being perceived as gaudy tabloid fodder. And it should come as no surprise that the biopic they’re involved in about their family’s recent history is stirring up its own circus of controversy. First it was all surrounding the casting of Lindsay Lohan and the question of whether she would be sober or sane enough to actually appear in the film, and which role she would actually play. Then THR reported that Joe Pesci was suing the production. He was announced at a Cannes press conference as playing the part of Angelo Ruggiero and had already gained 30 lbs to play the role, but recently the film’s new regime, led by director Barry Levinson, had told him that he would be recast in the smaller role of Anthony Casso and have his pay cut from $3 million to $1 million.

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the ever-changing late night addiction that you just can’t seem to quit, no matter how hard you try. Tonight it features pieces that will make you think, art that will blow your mind, and a minimum amount of talking about Transformers 3 and Doctor Who. That stuff will be back tomorrow, don’t you worry. In the very near future, Stargate Universe will go off the air. And for the first time in 15-years, there are no more planned Stargate projects in the works. It will create a big whole for the fans who have made the sci-fi property one of the most popular since Star Trek. With that in mind, io9 has dispatched a list of 10 lessons about life after cancellation that Stargate can learn from the likes of Trek and Firefly.

We reported a little over a week ago that Lindsay Lohan was close to joining John Travolta and Joe Pesci in the upcoming crime family drama Gotti: Three Generations to play the role of John Gotti Sr’s sister, Victoria Gotti. Well, in true Lohan fashion, there’s been some drama involved. Even though Lohan was close enough to signing 9 days ago that she was attending press conferences for the film, eventually talks with her representatives hit a wall and Gotti producers dumped the idea of having her in the film. But then she whined a bunch so now she’s back in, but this time in a different role. Lohan has now officially been signed to play the role of John Gotti Jr’s wife Kim. About her signing Lohan said, “I’m really excited to be back on set and clear up all the misinterpretations about me and show this is what I love to do.” So around we go for another spin on the merry-go-round that is Lohan’s public life and film career.

A press conference was held today that seems to have been a big love fest between the Gotti family and Hollywood. The concrete news on the table is that Joe Pesci is going to be joining John Travolta in the upcoming Nick Cassavetes mobography Gotti: Three Generations playing the role of Angelo Ruggiero. The not yet concrete news is that they are in negotiations with Lindsay Lohan to play John Gotti Sr.’s daughter, Victoria Gotti. Things seem to be pretty far along on that front though, as Lohan attended the press conference. The film is being described as an “open door insider’s look” into the Gotti family history that was written by Leo Rossi after numerous interviews with members of the Gotti family and John Gotti Sr.’s attorneys. John Travolta, who is playing the Gambino crime family boss himelf in the film, calls this “the most interesting untold story in this country.” He goes on to talk about the “beautiful love” that he has gotten from the Gotti family and the fact that he is a fan of Growing up Gotti as to why he was interested in taking this role. A large part of the film seems to concern itself with fathers and sons, and how Gotti Sr. took the family into a life of crime, but how Gotti Jr. has steered it away from nasty enterprises like drug dealing and murders and toward more classy ventures like reality television. Cassavetes says of Gotti Sr., “He didn’t know any

Any news about Lindsay Lohan being cast or being sought out comes with the common sense disclaimer that she’d be incredibly difficult to get an insurance bond for (in any leading role especially). Now, this particular news story comes with the further disclaimer that it’s a fashion photographer (see image) requesting Lohan for the role for his first feature film that’s so under the radar that it doesn’t seem to exist. Please read the full report over at EW, because it reads like a surreal conversation between two friends, each telling one another at a sleepover that they should totally make that movie. Only, both friends are played by the same person: Tyler Shields. This thing, a movie about Charles Manson killing Sharon Tate, could be fully financed and ready to roll, but this particular announcement (coupled with a complete lack of any other information on the flick) makes it seem like a guy wants to cast his friend in a movie that will never get made. The title of which is Eyes of a Dreamer – which, fortunately for the humor quotient here, happens to also be the name of a 1970s softcore porn made by a director named Mr. Mustard. It just so happens that, in this case, both people are famous, so the story has a minutia of credibility. Of course, I’ll be proven wrong as soon as cameras start rolling (and even if they don’t, I don’t want to make light of the insane difficulty inherent

What is Movie News After Dark? It’s the thing your girlfriend is mumbling about during sex. It’s the thing that every nerd, intellectual and dweeboid demands before they slink off to sleep. It’s everything to everyone at every moment, every where. But really, it’s a list of the day’s movie news items. And some other fun stuff, thrown in for good measure. First The Muppets, now The Hobbit. Bret McKenzie, most famous for being 1/2 of the awesome duo behind Flight of the Conchords, appears to be making all the right moves. He’s been confirmed for a smaller role in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films. That’s all that matters.

It’s been a while since Lindsay Lohan has had a substantial, starring role in a feature film. Your guess as to why is probably as good as mine, but I’m going to go ahead and give my guess anyways: because she’s fucking crazy. When Lohan isn’t causing shooting delays due to erratic behavior she likes to spend most of her time going in and out of rehab, getting fall down drunk in the club, and being put on trial for petty thievery. Despite how bright her star briefly shined, this probably doesn’t sound like the actress that you would want to sign on to your new movie. Well, one man disagrees. That man is producer Nathan Folks, and the movie he wants to sign her to is called Escaping the Game. In an interview with Radar Online Folks is quoted as saying “She wants to do it,” and describing the film as being “about celebs who become very famous and can’t take it.” I could see the idea of casting Lohan in such a role as being either some sort of therapeutic release for her artistically, or maybe a meta statement meant to blend fantasy and reality. But then Radar goes on the describe the plot and Lohan’s role in the film, “Several fake their own deaths and create a new life for themselves on a remote island. Lohan’s role would be as an investigator who is hired to get to the bottom of their disappearances.” So yeah, Lohan wouldn’t

The temptation to refer to Robert Rodriguez’ new film as Brown Dynamite is strong but for two things. One, while Machete fits a similar mold as Scott Sanders’ hilarious riff on blaxploitation films it just isn’t as consistently good as Black Dynamite. For another, the term “brown dynamite” conjures up some unpleasant imagery especially in the context of spicy Mexican food. But enough about intestinal explosions (for now at least)… let’s talk about this tastelessly absurd, cartoonishly violent, and often ridiculously fun movie!

This week, Fat Guy Kevin Carr jumps feet first into the world of exploitation pictures. He rips off his shirt to show his prison tats when he sees Machete and then becomes a weapons expert to go head-to-head with George Clooney in The American. Finally, he cringes and rolls his eyes at yet another crappy real-life couple love story with Going the Distance. It’s sad when the highlight of his moviegoing weekend is a Lindsay Lohan nip slip.

Your daily allowance of random movie stuff, stories that fell through the cracks and news you can’t use.

A few days ago Allison Nastasi over at Cinematical shared the news of Lindsay Lohan’s newest announced role as seventies porn icon Linda Lovelace, in the film Inferno. The movie, to be directed by Matthew Wilder, is still in development — which means there is plenty of time for Lohan to do what she does best; causing the folks with cash in their pocket to keep it there until she’s gone.

Robert Rodriguez is moving forward with his long-rumored flick Machete and it looks like may have one-upped sexagenarian stallion Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables in the casting department.

I mentioned yesterday that today we would be back in business with the Daily Diversion, back to videos that were more related to movies and television. And what better way to prove that then to go right back to the folks at Funny or Die and good ole Lindsay Lohan

There was a lot of fake movie news floating around yesterday, but there’s always a lot of fake movie news floating around. We take a look at eleven rumor stories (some true, some false) that really should have been posted on April 1st.

Tried reading the “news” lately and just gotten a load of faux celebrity news? Robert Fure feels your pain and your rage.

The trailer for Lindsay Lohan’s next film Labor Pains has appeared online, and we’ve got it right here for your viewing pleasure. And by pleasure, I am referring to those of you who enjoy the sound of nails on a chalkboard.

Now that Michael Phelps is done grabbing a record 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics, what’s next for the most decorated Olympian? The obvious choice for a sports star, sketch comedy.