may the force be with you

"The market forces that exist today make it unrealistic to spend $200 million on a movie," said Lucas, a near-billionaire from his feverishly franchised outer-space epics. "Those movies can't make their money back anymore. Look at what happened with 'King Kong.'" The portly Lucas, whose "Star Wars" sequel was nominated for the Oscar in makeup, was clearly in Yoda mode at Saturday's Weinstein Co. party — Harvey Weinstein's first Oscar bash since he abandoned Miramax to Disney last year. "I think it's great that the major Oscar nominations have gone to independent films," Lucas told me, adding that it's no accident that the "small movies" outclassed the spectaculars in this year's Academy Awards. "Is that good for the business? No — it's bad for the business. But moviemaking isn't about business. It's about art!"

Was that a smirk? "In the future, almost everything that gets shown in theaters will be indie movies," Lucas declared. "I predict that by 2025 the average movie will cost only $15 million."

You heard it here first.

And if the business of Hollywood is in the midst of painful downsizing, so are the parties.

For his traditional post-Oscar splash at Morton's, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter trimmed the guest list — make that amputated it — by 500 people.

Meanwhile, in the wee hours yesterday, it was business as usual in the garden of the Chateau Marmont. While Sienna Miller flirted up a storm with five guys at her table, the prohibitive favorite for Best Actor, "Capote" star Philip Seymour Hoffman, sat with pals until nearly 3 a.m., eschewing his red-carpet beauty sleep. Oscars? What Oscars?

And it says something that the brightest bauble on the Oscar social scene this weekend very well might have been an ­empty-eyed flibbertigibbet I have sworn never to recognize (though it was impossible to avoid this person as she repeatedly stepped on her floor-length, strapless Diane von Furstenberg dress in the muddy grass at Barry Diller and von Furstenberg's mogul-infested picnic lunch, ruining the dress and threatening wardrobe malfunction).

Other scenes from the Saturday picnic:

Shirley MacLaine showering Joan Collins with compliments for her wide-brimmed hat — "Darling, it wasn't expensive, but it does look fabulous," Collins agreed — and then lifting up the prime-time soap diva's red sarong skirt to reveal her nut-brown thigh — a whole lot of it. "Are you wearing underwear?" MacLaine inquired. "Pants, darling, always," Collins answered grandly, using the Britspeak for "panties."

"Syriana" writer-director Stephen Gaghan pursing his lips and declaring: "These organized campaigns for Oscars, it's gross. I can't do it. It's just not in me. But you only need 700 votes to win. I do know one actor who personally talked to 700 members of the Academy." "Syriana" Best Supporting Actor nominee George Clooney? Gaghan just laughed.

Diana Ross confiding that her 17-year-old son with the late Norwegian tycoon Arne Naess Jr., Evan Olaf Naess, was applying to nine colleges. "So far he's heard back from two — he got into Arizona and Morehouse. Oprah called Morehouse for him. Nobody says 'No' to Oprah."

Barry Diller rushing to rescue Shannon, his beloved Jack Russell terrier, who somehow found her way onto the Spanish-tile roof of the Diller-von Furstenberg hacienda and ran back and forth, perilously close to the edge. Guests watched with concern, and then relief, as Diller lured the pooch to safety on the roof-deck. "She's a Connecticut dog," Diller told me. "That's the first time she's ever done that."

Warren Beatty turning the tables on a gossip columnist and, instead of satisfying my curiosity about his next project, peppering me with a series of intrusive, deeply personal questions about my so-called love life.

Later on, back at the Weinstein Co. party, William H. Macy lent moral support to his wife, Best Actress nominee Felicity Huffman, as she braved the pre-ceremony jitters. Macy told me: "I will be sooo happy when it's Monday."

source:http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/397167p-336664c.html