In celebration of Taylor Hackford’s Parker opening in theaters soon, the Playboy Mansion hosted a special screening of the action adaptation starring Jason Statham as the titular thief with a code.  Also in attendance were the finalists of the “Art of the Heist” competition, whose submissions were on display for everyone to see.  After an extensive behind-the-scenes tour of the mansion, the winner of the competition was announced and the partygoers were treated to an early screening of Parker.  We’d love to show you everything that went down, but since some of it wasn’t exactly legal…

Also starring Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Clifton Collins Jr., Wendell Pierce and Bobby Cannavale, Parker opens on January 25th.  Hit the jump to check out images from the event, including Miss April/May/September 2012 and a video from the winner of the art competition.

NBC joined Fox in the early pickup/renewal game last night with series orders for Whitney, Up All Night, Smash, and Prime Suspect.  So far, the news continues accentuate the positive — only renewals and more pilot pickups, no cancellations.  The most confident reports indicate NBC will renew Parenthood for a full third season order.

More circumstantial reports update on the fates of Chuck and Harry’s Law. This makes the fourth May in a row where Chuck has lived on the bubble, and somehow a fifth season is very much in the works.  The deal isn’t official, but all signs suggest Chuck will continue to brighten the airwaves through 2012 with a 13-episode order.  Meanwhile, NBC is expected to renew Harry’s Law for a second season.  This will give creator David E. Kelly something to do next year, since NBC has reportedly passed on his Wonder Woman pilot.

Details on series orders for The Playboy Club, Awake, and Grimm.

After last night’s huge influx of news from Fox about series pick-ups, renewals and cancellations, it’s now NBC’s turn to announce some of their new series that we can look forward to in the fall. As of now there seems to be some dissension amongst the news outlets online as to whether or not Wonder Woman will actually get picked up, and other potential series like The Playboy Club are rumored for a pick-up but we haven’t heard anything official yet.

After the jump, check out the four new series that have definitely been picked up to premiere sometime this fall including a new sitcom from stand-up comedian Whitney Cummings, another comedy from Christina Applegate, a Broadway musical series from producer Steven Spielberg, and the stateside remake of the British crime drama Prime Suspect.

With Patrick Lussier’s (My Bloody Valentine 3D) revenge thriller Drive Angry 3D getting released this weekend, I was able to interview most of the cast earlier today.  Since we’ve been covering the film since its inception, most of you know it’s about a felon (Nicolas Cage) who is chasing the people who killed his daughter and kidnapped her baby. The vendetta/rescue spins out of control and the chase gets bloodier by the mile, leaving bodies everywhere.  Along for the ride are Amber Heard, Billy Burke, David Morse and William Fichtner (who just about steals the movie as a character called “the accountant”).

During my interview with Cage and Heard, we talked about how the finished film compared to what they thought it would be when they signed on, working with the 3D cameras, the action scenes, and Heard told me about her Playboy TV pilot and Cage talked about what fans can look forward to in the Ghost Rider sequel called Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.  Hit the jump to watch:

Approximately half the population think Amber Heard appearing in a Playboy bunny outfit on television every week is a fantastic idea.  At least one of those people works for NBC and, per Variety, is in talks with Heard to play one of the leads in the network’s drama pilot Playboy.  The series centers on a group of women working in the New York Playboy club in the 1960s and thematically explores the nation’s coming sexual revolution.  Chad Hodges (Tru Calling) penned the script for NBC’s first pilot order of development season.

Heard will next be seen in Drive Angry, which opens February 25.  She plays Chenault in the Johnny Depp-led adaptation of The Rum Diary, due later this year.

NBC issued its first pilot order for this development season to Playboy.  According to Variety, the script comes from Chad Hodge (Tru Calling) and centers on a group of women working in the New York Playboy club in the 1960s.  Naturally, the time and place of the setting will be used to explore the nation’s coming sexual revolution.

There were once 22 Playboy clubs around the world.  The hourlong drama comes at a time when Playboy Enterprises hopes to revive the brand, with plans to launch around 20 locations in the next few years.

Hit the jump for details on the bodybuilding comedy HBO is developing with Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine).

Brett Ratner has established himself as one of Hollywood’s most successful directors with eight features films grossing over $1.5 billion worldwide. Best known for the Rush Hour films, X-Men: The Last Stand and Red Dragon, the filmmaker is releasing his 90-minute, re-edited and remixed version of the Bollywood film Kites, starring Hrithik Roshan and Barbara Mori.

Kites: The Remix follows J (Roshan), a mortally wounded man left for dead in the harsh terrain of the Mexican desert, who is on a quest to find the love of his life, Natasha (Mori). It is a story of passion that goes beyond boundaries and cultures, and defies every rule, and it was that relationship that caught the attention of Ratner, when he initially saw the film.

While at the film’s press day, Brett Ratner talked exclusively to Collider about how this unusual project came about, why he decided to re-edit a Bollywood film and what he thinks it will take for a Bollywood movie to make it big in America. He also talked about his next projects, the chances of Beverly Hills Cop IV and Playboy coming to fruition, and the TV pilot for Chaos that he recently directed, and says his next directing gig will be Tower Heist which he wants Ben Stiller to star in.  Check out what he had to say after the jump:

So it’s pretty much common knowledge that a film chronicling the life and times of Playboy founder and Viagra enthusiast Hugh Hefner has been in the works for a long while now. While an announcement was made some time ago that scribe John Hoffman was set to tackle the script for director Brett Ratner (thing’s got class written all over it), it now seems that a new writer is being courted to pen the screen play for the long gestating biopic. A writer who’s name just screams “period piece about a smooth, urbane, swinging businessman who created the ultimate gentleman’s periodical,”… Diablo Cody. Yes, you read that right. Straighten your ears and bow tie, and go ahead and hit the jump to read more.