Own 'Iron Man' For the Low, Low Price of $499 (Plus Shipping)

· In what's being labeled as an effort to snag iTunes marketshare, Dell will give PC buyers the option to preload Iron Man on its new computers. Before you laugh: That incursion is being led by a man with whom Apple settled a wrongful-termination lawsuit in 2005. Never underestimate a software-wonk scorned. [THR]
· And if you act now, Paramount and Marvel may throw in five more co-releases — including Thor, Captain America and The Avengers — at no extra charge through 2011! Operators are standing by! [Variety]

After the jump: David Gordon Green gets animated, Robert Duvall ponies up and Ellen Burstyn does serious drugs with Tim Robbins.

Old Man Brad Pitt Still Front-Runner as Oscar-Hungry Paramount Pushes 'Button'

All The ऌs Have Been Crossed And The ऱs Dotted

· DreamWorks has finally closed their financing deal with India-based Reliance. Meanwhile, in a surprise maneuver, Paramount waived all of their former executives' commitments to the studio. A sovereign DreamWorks is born. [Variety]
· ABC bought Flash Forward, a pilot for a possible companion show to Lost about what happens after the entire world blacks out for 2 minutes, 17 seconds. Cue Tara Reid shouting, "I'd be perfect for that show!"-joke in 3...2...1... [THR]
· Let's Play Name the Cherry-Picked Influences: Sci Fi Channel has picked up Warehouse 13, a dramedy about two bickering FBI agents with great chemistry who are relocated to a government warehouse that stores supernatural objects. Score 10 points if you said X-Files, 25 if you got Indiana Jones, and 100 if you also happened to mention Moonlighting. [THR]
· Jude Law is in final negotiations to play Watson opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes. [Variety]
· Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman , and Who's Your Caddy? star Faizon Love will star in Couples Retreat, a comedy written by Favreau and to be directed by Ralphie Parker. [Variety]

Telluride Round-Up: Brad Pitt Qualifies For Oscar in 20 Minutes Flat

And just like that, the Telluride Film Festival is over — the sequestered Colorado tradition known for anointing and/or unveiling awards-season front-runners en route to Toronto and beyond. But with no Juno this year to charm visiting critics and distribution bosses alike, Labor Day came and went instead with rangy early takes on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Fincher's long-awaited (and reportedly just long) saga of Brad Pitt aging backwards. While we had pretty much gotten used to the film's stirring Spanish-language trailer, a few closer reads of previews emerging from the Rockies suggest the final result might be a little more complex: Extraordinary digital effects! Romance! And, alas, disappointment:

What worked for Paul Thomas Anderson the year before seemed to backfire this time. ... Fincher couldn't show one long sequence—the usual practice— because he needed to show the passage of time and the different faces of Button (Brad Pitt), so the concept of the movie would be clear. (Telluride wanted fewer, longer clips, but didn't get them until the eve of the showing.)

The 'Watchmen' Studio Blood Feud: How Bad Is It?

What looked vaguely at first like a garden-variety Hollywood legal squabble escalated late Monday into the Cuban Missile Crisis of fanboydom: A judge upheld Fox's pending lawsuit claiming that they, not Warner Bros., own the distribution rights to Zack Snyder's forthcoming graphic-novel adaptation Watchmen. The resulting mess is thick, deep and aromatic, with not just two but three studios slogging through a paper trail nearly two decades long. And perhaps the best part: Fox says it doesn't even want to be bought off, instead publicly suggesting they'd rather file an injunction against the breathlessly anticipated film's release next March than not get what it has coming.

Which won't happen (at least we don't think so) but that doesn't make matters that much better. But whatever — we love a good Hollywood blood feud as much as anybody. Follow the jump for a morning-after summary, a few pressing questions and a bit of quick-and-dirty handicapping.

'Retard' Wars Heat Up as 'Tropic Thunder' Boycott Imminent

DreamWorks Goes 'No Retard,' Yanks 'Simple Jack' Site

'Tropic Thunder' Braces For 'Retard' Backlash

Several months ago, the red-band trailer for Tropic Thunder suggested that not only could Ben Stiller's Hollywood satire be summer's most surefire gutbuster, but also that its trailer-within-a-trailer — featuring Stiller as the developmentally disabled title character of the Oscar-bait drama Simple Jack — portended perhaps the best movie never made. (And look! It even has its own Web site!) But having seen Thunder and thus the degree to which Simple Jack plays a role in the story, we think we got our fill: "You went full retard, man" Robert Downey Jr.'s Method actor (in blackface!) tells Stiller's slumping action hero. "Never go full retard."

His logic is crystalline, but alas, its political incorrectness is drawing even deeper consideration this morning as disability advocates wage war on the R-Word:

Paramount Offers Brett Ratner First-Hack Deal

· With New Line but a shadowy shingle of its former self, Billion Dollar Director Brett Ratner is packing up the Rat Entertainment boxes and moving onto the Paramount lot to marinate in soulmentor Bob Evans's pungent creative vapors. He pledges to no one in particular, "I will not be pitching art films. I want to make mainstream tentpole projects." [Variety]
· The End of Ideas: King of All Media Edition: Howard Stern is producing a remake of Rock 'n' Roll High School to be written by Alex "Bill & Ted" Winters. [Variety]
· Discovery Channel is launching a reality show that will attempt to execute many of Leonardo Da Vinci's conceptualized inventions, either sending contestants soaring on the winds of 16th Century innovation, or plunging to their bat-winged-flying-contraption deaths. [THR]
· The Dark Knight nudges Warner Bros. profits overseas past the $1 billion mark. [THR]
· Sam Raimi will direct The Transplants for Disney, details of which they're staying vague about save that it's a "four-quadrant ensemble superhero story with a comedic bent," each a vaguely horrifying ethnic stereotype. [THR]