In yesterday's New York Times, David Streitfeld had an interesting story on the front page of Business Day about planned protests of Sylvester Stallone's "The Expendables."

Apparently, state workers being strong-armed into unpaid furloughs and pay cuts by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to address budget shortfalls are pissed and have decided to draw attention to their frustration by boycotting and shaming the Governator's unbilled cameo in "The Expendables." (Stallone and Schwarzenegger are old friends and former business partners.)

As JetBlue's take-this-job-and-shove-it-steward Steven Slater enjoys his 15 minutes in the spotlight, folks are already asking who could play him in a movie.

People is suggesting everyone from Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman to "Project Runway" judge Michael Kors.

But, in fact, there's only one actor who could do Slater's my-way-or-the-flyway exit justice, and that's Stephen Stucker, who so memorably played Johnny, the completely-off-the-wall air traffic controller in 1980's "Airplane!"

John Belushi may be getting a (second) second life on the big screen.

“The Pursuit of Happyness” screenwriter Steven Conrad (right) and “The Hangover” director-producer Todd Phillips are developing a biographical film about the late comedian’s life. Warner Bros. recently acquired the rights from Belushi’s estate.

Conrad will script the project and Phillips will produce, though he has not yet committed to directing it. Alexandra Milchan and Bonnie Timmerman are also producing.

In a typically difficult process that saw the rights deal come together, then fall apart, then come back together again, the project would be the latest attempt at a full-scale biopic about the “Saturday Night Live” cast member and film star who died of a drug overdose in 1982 at age 33.

Belushi’s life was famously detailed in Bob Woodward’s 1985 biography, “Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi.” That book is not part of the rights deal, unsurprisingly, since it was widely criticized by Belushi’s family and comedy peers when it was published. When “Wired” was subsequently turned into a 1989 feature starring Michael Chiklis, Belushi’s friends and family publicly boycotted the film, which then OD’d at the box office.

Belushi’s widow, Judith, published her own oral history, “Belushi: A Biography,” in 2005. She will be an executive producer on the project, as Judith Belushi Pisano (she’s since remarried).

In an effort to push the industry toward more sustainable productions, the Producers Guild of America launched the Green Production Guide on Wednesday.

The interactive website maintains a database of environmentally-sensitive products and services from vendors and service providers nationwide. Film, television and new-media producers can consult www.greenproductionguide.com for more than 1,500 listings that include a carbon calculator to measure potential environmental footrprints.

Disney, Fox, NBC Universal, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Bros. have all provided funding and support to launch the effort as part of the PGA Green Initiative.

IFC Films has put out a trailer for the latest film from French provocateur Gaspar Noé, who made the unforgettable flicks "I Stand Alone" and "Irreversible."

"Enter the Void" has been on the festival circuit since Cannes in 2009, and IFC, which picked up the film in January, is finally giving it a theatrical release next month. The trailer is pretty epic, in that it mixes up jarringly beautiful images, disorienting techno, trippy eye candy and a mysterious and melancholy promise between a brother and sister to "never leave each other."

THR's sadly departed critic Peter Brunette thought it was silly when he saw it at Cannes, but at the very least Noé retains his desire and ability to provoke.

Check it out:

Cuba Gooding Jr. has signed with the Gersh Agency.

The “Jerry Maguire” Oscar winner -- who first defined "quan" (or "coin" in a novel pronunciation) for audiences -- has most recently starred in “Wrong Turn at Tahoe,” “Hardwired,” “The Devil’s Tomb” and “Harold.” Gooding’s resume also includes high-profile turns in “American Gangster,” “Daddy Day Camp,” “Norbit,” “Radio,” “Snow Dogs,” “Pearl Harbor,” “Men of Honor,” “Instinct” and “Boyz n the Hood.”

Gooding will next star in “Red Tails,” a World War II film about the real-life Tuskegee Airmen from executive producer George Lucas that is currently in post-production. The actor also has the action thrillers “The Hit List,” “Sacrifice” and “Ticking Clock” lined up for takeoff.

Gooding continues to be repped by Michael Rotenberg at 3 Arts Entertainment and attorney Jake Bloom.
 

Reese Witherspoon is working her way through the classic American songbook.

The actress, who won an Oscar in 2005 for portraying June Carter in “Walk the Line,” is pulling together an untitled biopic about Peggy Lee with writer-director Nora Ephron and Fox 2000, reports Variety. Though Witherspoon is still negotiating to star, she is producing along with Marc Platt.

Witherspoon secured rights to the vocalist’s life from the Lee estate and brought the project to Fox 2000. She then approached Platt, who produced the “Legally Blonde” movies, and Ephron, who counts herself a major fan of Lee’s music. Ephron is writing the script and is attached to direct, as well. 

My predictions are getting ever closer to the mark as I learn to read Flixster's Bullseye data with more nuance.

This weekend's preliminary boxoffice results have an awful lot in common with the Bullseye from Thursday and the conclusions I was able to draw from it barreling into the weekend.

I put the weekend's winner, "The Other Guys," in the upper $30 million range, just below the opening of "Grown Ups" two months ago. It landed at $35.6 million.

I estimated a low-teens opening for "Step Up 3D," which came in at $15.5 m.

And with major interest still percolating around Christopher Nolan's "Inception," I predicted a fourth weekend haul of $18-$19 million. Final initial tally? $18.6 m. All of the info Flixster piles into its unique activity/interest nexus is starting to make sense.

On the flip side, I definitely over-estimated the holdover appeal of "Dinner for Schmucks," placing it above "Step Up" and just under "Inception." But it landed much lower, at just $10.5 m. Schmucky, indeed.

That said, the upcoming August 13 Bullseye looks to be the most exciting of the summer: Julia Roberts in "Eat Pray Love" taking on Sylvester Stallone and Friends in "The Expendables." I'll weigh in on Thursday, as usual, with how these two -- and the youth-skewing "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World" -- are shaping up in the days and moments before release.

Ahmet Zappa has signed with Anonymous Content for representation. The management-production house will also rep Zappa's Monsterfoot Prods. and Kingdom Comics.

The writer-producer-actor has a first-look deal at Disney, where he is producing the fantasy films "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" and "The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless," based on his own novel.

Zappa continues to be repped by CAA and attorney John LaViolette.

Sure, Tom Cruise is getting beat up these days. "Oh, no, 'Knight and Day' isn't doing all that well domestically. He sucks!" "Boo, it's not doing that great internationally. Ha, ha."

Now comes this report from Vulture that Cruise is taking a pay cut -- a drastic one, according to the story: He's going to be paid scale in order to get "Mission: Impossible 4."

And to show how little faith Paramount has in his star power, say the spitters, the studio is going to take on a financial partner in the form of Skydance Prods., the company run by David Ellison, son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison.

Now, a studio taking on a financial partner on movies is nothing new. All of the studios do it, especially on tentpoles. In fact, it's more of a novelty when they don't. (The "Harry Potter" movies, for example, are one of the few movies that Warners doesn't share with frequent partners Legendary Pictures or Village Roadshow.)

But don't cry for Cruise.

Relativity has won the bidding war to the movie rights for Nicholas Sparks' upcoming novel "Safe Haven," with Temple Hill's Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey the lucky producers attached.

Sparks' reps opened the bidding Monday afternoon, with Offspring, run by Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot, taking the book into Disney and Fox; Temple Hill taking it to Sony and Relativity; and Di Novi Pictures, headed by Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan, handling Warner Bros.

Warners was thought to have been a front-runner since it's adapting Sparks' "The Lucky One," with Zac Efron circling the starring role, and plans a fall shoot.

But Temple Hill partnered with Relativity on "Dear John," which stars Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried and grossed more than $110 million worldwide.

The Classification and Rating Appeals board has upheld the R rating that the rating administration slapped on Yael Hersonski's documentary "A Film Unfinished," which recounts the story of a Nazi propaganda film made about Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto.

After the appeals hearing, which was held Thursday, CARA said the movie will retain its R rating, which was approved by a 12-3 vote, because of "disturbing images of Holocaust atrocities, including graphic nudity."

When the movie was first branded with the restrictive R, Adam Yauch, who founded Oscilloscope, which is distributing the film, called the decision "bullshit" and argued, "This is too important of a historical document to ban from classrooms."