AP Photo/Ross D. FranklinAmerica's Team is taking a cue from American Idol.
Yes, Tony Romo and Terrell Owens are about to get some stiff competition for best known Dallas Cowboy with news that former superstar receiver Michael Irvin has teamed with the producers of The Biggest Loser to launch a reality series in which 12 "football neophytes" will vie for a spot on the Cowboys' 80-player training camp roster.
The yet-to-be-titled show will air on Spike TV in the spring and pit six receivers against six defensive backs in an NFL version of Survivor. The show will include appearances by former Cowboys like Deion Sanders and owner Jerry Jones.
The Cowboys are no strangers to the world of reality TV. Their training camps have been chronicled on HBO's Hard Knocks. And, before squirreling away Jessica Simpson, Romo wooed former American Idol Carrie Underwood.
"I’ve been waiting to do this since the first time I watched American Idol," Irvin told the Dallas Morning News Thursday. "American Idol is about singing and dreams. This is about football and dreams."
Meanwhile, in the day's other big deal news...
• Newly minted Oscar nominee David Fincher is having serious issues with his follow-up to the The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Paramount has failed to renew the option on the rights to Torso, a graphic novel about Eliot Ness' quest to bring down Al Capone.
• Newly minted Golden Globe winner Colin Farrell is hooking up with Keira Knightley for London Boulevard, a crime drama about a recently sprung felon who tries to reform his bad-boy ways by becoming a handyman for a reclusive young actress. Cameras roll this summer.
• Ving Rhames is set for a film adaptation of Athol Fugard's 1982 play Master Harold. . .and the Boys. He'll play Sam, the role Danny Glover originated on Broadway, a waiter who acts as a father figure to a young man (Freddie Highmore). The film is now shooting on location in South Africa.