Is “Mad Men” coming back?

t’s March 1st, do you know when “Mad Men” is coming back? No? Neither does anyone else. As of this weekend there has been no movement in the negotiations between Lions Gate, AMC, and show creator Matthew Weiner.

Over the weekend, I ran into Jon Hamm, the nominal star of the show. He says nothing’s happened. He and girlfriend (accomplished writer director) Jennifer Westfeldt just wrapped their indie film, “Friends with Kids,” and now head off to edit it. I saw Jared Harris at SoHo House one night. Like most of the “Mad Men” actors, he’s trapped. He can’t really start anything because the show could come back at any moment. Indeed, the way Weiner works, if “Mad Men” were all set to begin pre-production today, Weiner wouldn’t be ready to shoot until June 1st. At least. Maybe July 1st. We wouldn’t see new shows until September. Last time, “Mad Men” debuted on July 25th. Certainly AMC’s strength is to debut in summer, away from the new fall season on the broadcast networks. But now that hope is dashed.

By procrastinating so long, they’ve pushed “Mad Men” to a late fall run at best. Get with it, AMC, Lions Gate! Wrap this up. There’s nothing Weiner could want than any other star show runner has ever gotten. This stalling is only making the companies and the network look bad, and not attractive to other TV producers.

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‘J. Edgar’ kissing scenes between Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer

E! Online’s Marc Malkin talked to screenwriter Dustin Lance Black on Oscar night about the biopic he wrote, ‘J. Edgar,’ currently filming.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover and Armie Hammer of ‘The Social Network’ as his lover.

“Yes, certainly there’s a relationship between these two guys,” said Black. “And it wouldn’t be a Dustin Lance Black script if it didn’t have a little gay kissing in it. So the answer is yes.”

He added, “Those who want to see that will be pleased I think it’s done in a very tender way, surprisingly.”

A new Wonder Woman of America

America's new Wonder Woman! Bad guys better get out of town!

A new Wonder Woman has finally been cast for the remake of the classic ‘70s super hero TV series.

The gorgeous Adrianne Palicki, who wowed viewers and Hollywood honchos alike during her brief turn on Fox’s cancelled "Lone Star," will put on her bullet-proof bracelets to play the role made iconic by Lynda Carter.

Palicki was thought to be perfect for the role, and she was the only actress invited to do a screen test. Perhaps Palicki’s statuesque beauty had something to do with it—standing at 5’11”, she’s the ideal height to portray an Amazon crime-fighter.

Prolific producer David E. Kelley teamed with Warner Bros. to bring the series back to television, but not without some hiccups.

The concept was initially shot down by all the major networks. NBC finally gave the green light for Kelley and Warner Bros. to produce a pilot in late January.

In the remake of the classic D. C. Comics character, Wonder Woman/Diana Prince is not just a vigilante crime fighter in modern Los Angeles, but also a successful corporate executive. The series will follow the character trying to balance being a super hero, a businesswoman and a singleton.

Grammys: On a Night of Bold Performances, Safe Choice Lady Antebellum Rules

On a night of bold and flat-out weird performances, the 53rd annual Grammy Awards ultimately played it safe by heaping awards on the country-rock trio Lady Antebellum.

Canadian rockers Arcade Fire (pictured below) claimed album of the year for "The Suburbs" and got to perform twice, including to close the show. Their first performance, one of the rawest of the night, featured BMX riders with cameras mounted to their bikes.

Also read: 10 Rockers and Rappers to Follow on Twitter

But Lady Antebellum dominated. The Nashville-based group, formed in 2006, won record of the year, song of the year, country album, country song, and country performance by a duo or group with vocals for "Need You Now."

When it came to performances, the standout performers were the artists who took the wildest risks.

Cee-Lo Green and Gwyeth Paltrow did a duet that included Green looking like a peacock-ified Elton John and a gaggle of puppet backup singers.

Also read: Aguilera's National Anthem Fumble: Another Reminder It's Not All About You

Justin Bieber and Usher performed a medley that included corny canned dialogue about how they met, drummers dressed like ninjas, and a guest appearance by Jaden Smith.

Also odd -- but compulsively watchable -- was an Eminem performance that segued from a duet with Rihanna into a tribute to his mentor, Dr. Dre. It was Dre's first live TV performance in a decade, but he hadn't been gone from the scene long enough for many viewers to realize he had left it.

Bob Dylan also stood out, but seemed like part of a different show: He and his band wandered out onstage to perform "Maggie's Farm" like the Grammys were just another stop on a freewheeling carouse.

Mick Jagger's first Grammys appearance was in a tribute to Solomon Burke that exploded with energy. "Mick Jagger is crazy fresh!!!," tweeted Kanye West, getting it exactly right.

Barbra Streisand made the bold move of showing up, making an exceedingly rare live TV appearance.

Lady Gaga, a master of stealing shows, offered a straightforward performance of her new single, "Born This Way" -- once she emerged from an egg. Her midriff-baring outfit did little to steal attention from the Madonna-inspired song. Later she won best pop vocal album for "The Fame Monster," wearing a leather bubble-butt thing you can try for yourself to make sense of (left). She also won best female pop vocal performance and best short form music video for "Bad Romance."

Aside from the standout numbers, the telecast bounced around amiably from a tribute to Aretha Franklin to Miranda Lambert to a driving perfomance by Muse to a Motown-influenced Bruno Mars number.

Leelee Sobieski Cast in Robert De Niro's 'Rookies' Pilot for CBS

Leelee Sobieski has been cast in CBS' Robert DeNiro-produced "Rookies," TheWrap has 

confirmed.

The "Joan of Arc" actress joins an impressive team: "Clockers" writer Richard Price wrote the pilot, and James Mangold ("3:10 to Yuma") is directing.

Also read: DeNiro, Price Team for 'Rookies'

De Niro's Tribeca Prods. and CBS TV Studios are producing the series, which will follow six rookie cops who patrol especially dangerous areas.

De Niro and Price are executive producing.

The casting was first reported by Deadline.

One Wicked Witch: Mila Kunis May Fly to 'Oz'

This is definitely not your grandfather's wicked witch.

"Black Swan's" Mila Kunis is in talks to play the Wicked Witch of the West in Sam Raimi's "Oz, the Great and Powerful," TheWrap has learned.

Academy Award nominee James Franco remains in talks to play the Wizard. Robert Downey Jr. and Johnny Depp had been reported to be considering the role.

Joe Roth is producing the Walt Disney Picture movie, which is slated to be released in 2013.

The movie is about a young magician who is forced to flee from a traveling circus. His hot air balloon gets caught in a tornado, and he winds up in Oz, which is run by a pair of wicked witches.

Details of Dramatic Changes for Oscars Telecast

Oscar producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer explain to The Hollywood Reporter that they are taking a radical departure from past shows.

The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality.

“We’re doing six or seven scenic transitions during the show, but they are each sort of a different concept,” Cohen explains. “In other words, one might be a scene from a film, one might be a more specific time in history, one might be a specific event, one might be a specific genre. The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011 -- not literally, but metaphorically -- and take the audience, both in the room and on television, to a specific time and place.”This year’s Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure from past years. Producers of the Feb. 27 show are abandoning the concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of “projections” to give the show a constantly changing look.

“Our design this year is actually going to reflect more content than you would usually expect of an awards show of this type,” producer Don Mischer tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with fellow producer Bruce Cohen in the Kodak Theater. “We’re using our environment to take us to different places, different times, and it will change dramatically. The look will change from act to act.”

Producers plan to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history.

Pressed for more detail, Cohen adds, “This is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar, so we go to an animated environment to present that Oscar -- actually two, animated feature and animated short -- but the reason we are there is to celebrate that this is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar.”

The transitions, Mischer explains, will not be long segments, but 30-45 second set-ups. “We are not going back to teach history, but to put the awards in context.”

The design scheme grew out of the theme that the two producers devised once they began working on the show back in June. In an extensive review of past broadcasts, they were struck by the two-fold nature of the assignment. On the one hand, they have to come up with something new and different. On the other, they wanted to recognize the previous 82 years of Oscar history.

 “Is there any way to approach the show where those two ideas are working together and not fighting each other with every single decision?" they asked themselves. The solution, they decided, was somehow to combine the old and the new.

To that end, they cast Anne Hathaway and James Franco -- two of the youngest hosts to ever front the Oscars -- as audience surrogates for the journey.

“Yes, they are famous, but they are on their way up,” Cohen says of the two stars. “They are not untouchable, they are not unreachable. We hope they will offer [the audience] a way in. So everyone come along, and we’ll see through the eyes of these two up-and-coming stars.”

The hosts’ job, he says, will be “to take the audience on this journey of a show that will hopefully start in one place, and if it all goes according to plan, it will take you back to where we started at the end.”

To realize that on stage visually, the producers have been working with production designerSteve Bass, who’s previously worked with Mischer on such shows as the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards and We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.

While the production has moved into the Kodak to set up the show, it’s been using the daytime hours to hang the physical scenery on which the projections will be displayed, and then during the night another team has been programming the projections. Working throughout this weekend, the goal is to have the whole system up-and-running by Monday.

So how did the two producers sell the concept of their novel approach to the Academy and ABC, since it wasn’t simply a matter of constructing the sort of physical models that have been used in the past?

While the two producers walked the Academy and ABC through what they call “the story of the show,” Cohen admits, “We weren’t able to show them what the actual images would look like, but we were able to show them what the images would be. For better or worse, I think they have a very clear idea in their heads of what we think the show is going to be. We’re kind of as curious as they are [to see] when it’s all up this weekend, how similar what we’ve had in our heads for the last month or two is to the actual experience.”