The old tabloid saying that celebrities always die in threes proved its eerie power once again this week, as the entertainment world was rocked by the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson in a span of just under 48 hours. As sad as the deaths of McMahon and Fawcett were, the unexpected death of Jackson left us with far more questions than answers: How did it happen? What does this mean for Brüno? What happens to those Beatles songs? As we await for the answers to those questions, we have his music, some great memories and some excellent coverage from MTV to help us cope.
Meanwhile ...
• Michael Bay is probably thanking his lucky stars that the brewing charges of robot racism he was facing and his somewhat petulant e-mail to the suits at Paramount were all but forgotten in the wake of Michael Jackson's death. And even though Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen suffered a critical drubbing, it hardly seemed to matter to Joe Moviegoer: The film made some $60 million on Wednesday and will likely rack up over $100 million more before the weekend is over.
• In the face of a Holocaust-movie shortage, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences expanded next year's Oscar Best Picture category to include just about every movie that gets a release date in 2008. This ought to benefit a few films, but who knows what it will do for the ratings.
• And in other news rendered (temporarily) insignificant, Vulture buddy Nikki Finke got paid, Perez got punched (which seemingly benefitted the Black Eyed Peas) and Moneyball got scrapped.
Until next week, folks!
Previously on Vulture...
