GOODBYE EDD
Tonight Show announcer/sketch comic Edd Hall signs off tonight after a 12-year run with Jay Leno - hoping there's an earlier timeslot in his future.
"I've got a couple of things I'm working on but nothing signed, nothing solid," said Hall, who spent 10 years with David Letterman before joining the "Tonight Show" in May 1992.
"Sitcoms are the direction I'm going in . . . My acting coach said, 'Where you need to go is as a TV dad,' " says Hall, the father of three young children. "And that's where I'm looking, primarily."
Hall said he's been thinking of leaving the show for a while now.
"At the beginning of the show, I was hired as a principal performer to do sketches as well as announcing, and in the beginning, for the first six or seven years, I was on three to four times a week in sketches," Hall said.
"In the last few years they've sort of phased out the sketches, using correspondents around the country, and I kind of felt like, 'OK, now I am just the announcer.'
"It's a good job and is high profile, but I had to ask myself if I wanted to stay here, or if now was the chance to get out and test my chops," he said. "It's a decision that's been a few years in the making."
NBC's announcement of Hall's departure, coupled with the hiring of Howard Stern sidekick "Stuttering John" Melendez as his replacement, fueled rumors that Hall had been fired.
"A lot of the press was thinking I got fired, but I'm mainly leaving because I want to go off and pursue acting," he said. "NBC and the show have been so supportive. My contract isn't really up until mid-May, and I asked to get out of it early because it's pilot season.
"They were very obliging, even though, at that point, they didn't have anyone to replace me."
Hall said he was initially surprised that NBC selected Melendez as his successor.
"When they first told me there was a little bit like, 'Hello?' But after it was announced, I called John and congratulated him and we spoke for about 20 minutes," he said.
"I'm going to be interested in how they work him into the show - he's a sweet guy and I'm sure he's going to do great."
Hall will receive a nice sendoff on tonight's show (11:35 p.m./Ch. 4), including a retrospective of his memorable bits.
"It's exciting and terrifying at the same time," he said. "I've been very lucky in show business. I was at NBC for 25 years . . . There are very few show-biz jobs that last that long."
JON H-ANCHORS FOR MORE
It's four more years of "The Daily Show" for Comedy Central cut-up Jon Stewart.
The brainy comic has signed a deal to remain the anchor of the cable channel's popular news satire through 2008.
"Jon is really focused on his work," said outgoing Comedy Central chief Larry Divney yesterday. "He really enjoys it. I call him a pundit and he says, 'stop,' I call him a humorist and he says, 'stop.' "
Stewart's current deal is believed to expire at the end of this year and several networks, including Fox, are purported to have met with him in the last few months to discuss new shows.
"We weren't privy to his conversations with [other networks] or what kind of money they were talking about," Divney said. "We just put what we thought would be our best foot forward based on what our resources are.
"I think he likes having his platform of creative freedom, and he likes where the network is and the company that he keeps," Divney said.
Stewart took over "The Daily Show" in January 1999 from then-host Craig Kilborn and has turned the news lampoon/talk show into one of the most sought after gigs for politicians and movie stars to appear on as guests.
In a strange twist, since Kilborn's departure, the show has even become a primary news source for many viewers in their 20s and 30s.
Stewart has also become something of a well-known political pundit, known for his quirky insights into politics and skewering the media.
So far this year, viewership has averaged about 1 million for the nightly 11 p.m. broadcast - an all-time high for the show.
'Dead' Entering Hallowed Ground at Box Office
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The sacred will battle the profane at the box office this weekend.
Newmarket Films' "The Passion of the Christ," which has handily topped the mount for the past three weekends, will face off with "Dawn of the Dead," Universal Pictures' remake of the 1978 zombie classic, which trumpets the ad line: "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
As of Wednesday, "Passion" had pulled in more than $273 million. Having earned $32.1 million last weekend, a 40% decline this weekend -- still a tenacious hold -- would see "Passion" attracting another $19 million-plus.
That scenario could leave room for "Dawn of the Dead" to rise to the top spot. Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Zack Snyder, "Dawn" reprises the premise of George Romero's classic in which a handful of embattled survivors are trapped in a suburban shopping mall surrounded by hungry zombies. The target audience for the R-rated flick are younger, thrill-seeking males -- and a multiethnic cast that includes Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber and Mekhi Phifer should also lure in urban audiences.
Horror genre fans are a loyal lot. Last October, New Line Cinema opened its remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in 3,106 locations to $28 million. However, zombies may not have quite the appeal of chain saw-weilding maniacs, and tracking suggests "Dawn of the Dead," which is rising in 2,744 locales, could perform more like "Jeepers Creepers 2" and "Resident Evil," which bowed to $15 million and $18 million, respectively. However, if "Dawn" does bust out and hit the $20 million mark, then it will go mano a mano with "Passion."
"Dawn of the Dead" could lose some thrill-seekers to Warner Bros. Pictures' "Taking Lives." A more upscale thriller directed by D.J. Caruso ("The Salton Sea"), the atmospheric R-rated tale stars Angelina Jolie as an FBI profiler working a serial killer case in Montreal. Sporting a cast that includes Ethan Hawke, Olivier Martinez and Kiefer Sutherland, the film is likely to attract a somewhat less rabid and probably more female first-weekend audience than "Dawn," and so it could find itself checking in with a number somewhere in the low-teen millions as it debuts in 2,705 locations.
"Taking Lives," which appears to be interesting younger females, also will find itself battling it out with the second weekend of Sony Pictures' "Secret Window," starring Johnny Depp. That thriller, about an embattled writer, bowed last weekend in the second spot to $18.2 million. A 40%-50% decline in its second weekend would find "Window" collecting another $9 million-$11 million.
Meanwhile, Focus Features is employing a somewhat more controlled release for the weekend's third wide release, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet in a memory-impaired romance. "Sunshine" is making its first appearance in 1,353 locations as it attempts to build itself a constituency.
The movie has a major box office star in Carrey, whose last film, the broad comedy "Bruce Almighty," pulled in $248 million domestically. But Carrey's fans have not always stuck with him when he has ventured into more adventurous territory like 1999's "Man on the Moon," which only grossed $34.6 million domestically.
However, the R-rated "Sunshine," directed by Michel Gondry ("Human Nature") also boasts a secret weapon in screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, an Oscar nominee for both 1999's "Being John Malkovich" and 2003's "Adaptation." Kaufman is a genuine star in the specialty-films market, and Focus is betting that by combining Carrey's more discerning fans with Kaufman's followers, it can settle in for a long run following what is shaping up as a $6 million-$9 million opening.