Just kidding around

Bryan Batt and Alan Cumming have the drinks. Jonah Hill, Jack McBrayer and Paul Rudd are smiles near the top of the traditional party. Christy Turlington and Erection dysfunction Burns Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott Kristen Wiig ignores Jon Hamm's point. People in the NBC comedy family came through the SVA Theater on Monday evening for just about any Cinema Society screening of Lionsgate's "Pals With Kids," which reunites "Bridesmaids'" cast people Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd and Jon Hamm for author-thesp Jennifer Westfeldt's directorial debut. "It absolutely was really merely a tapestry of watching many people inside our existence get this seismic, profound transition to being a parent and the way everyone handled it in different ways,Inch Westfeldt mentioned. With this particular many comedy stars area, there has been a few shenanigans on set, but no pranks according to Adam Scott, people went while using 1990's. "In my opinion Mel Gibson and Joe Pesci managed to get happen round the 'Lethal Weapon 3' set which involved it," Scott mentioned. Near the top of the traditional afterparty, where the "SNL" gang hung out together, Wiig tossed a cheeseburger with a partygoer alongside her, sang along for the music and spoken with Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill. Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com

Winter lull for Broadway

'The Road to Mecca'Broadway suffered its worst week since the first week of 2012, with overall Rialto box office tumbling more than $3.4 million and attendance down by nearly 25,000, despite the addition of two new previewing productions.The bad B.O. mojo was spread pretty evenly among the 27 shows on the boards, with only smash hit "The Book of Mormon" ($1,493,754 -- up 2% and setting yet another house record at the Eugene O'Neill) and just-shuttered "The Road to Mecca" ($250,244 -- a 14% uptick in its final week) increasing their haul over last week. Among the hardest hit were the recently recast revival of "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" ($530,319), and tourist magnets "The Phantom of the Opera" ($621,644) and "Mary Poppins" ($627,330), all of which were down more than 30% against last week. One-man show "Shatner's World: We Just Live In It" didn't inspire the final week rush that rose to meet "The Road to Mecca," as the renowned actor and Priceline spokesmodel ended his three-week Broadway run with a $295,534 take (albeit for only six performances), down 6%, though that was still enough to beat out "Godspell" ($279,527, down 22%). If there is a silver lining for legiters in this week's numbers, it is in the performance of the previewing productions. The Philip Seymour Hoffman-toplined revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" ($661,262 in seven perfs) cracked the top 10 list ahead of its March 15 opening and suffered the least decline compared to last week, down only 4%. Tuners "Once" ($525,050) and "Jesus Christ Superstar" ($370,699 for four perfs) also opened strong, playing to nearly full houses. Overall Broadway cume was $16,890,525, an increase of almost $2 million against the same time last year, when 26 shows were running. Attendance stood at 192,998, or 75.7% capacity. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Broadcasters sue Aereo startup service

The broadcast networks and a host of stations and studios have filed suit against Aereo, a service seeking to provide customers with Internet streams of major broadcast stations in the NY area. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, is seeking to halt Aereo, set to go public on March 14, as well as unspecified damages. The station plaintiffs -- which include WNET, Tribune's WPIX, the Fox Television Stations and Univision O&O groups -- say that the company's plans infringe on their right to public performance, and that the streams of the signals would represent unfair competition. A separate suit was also filed by ABC, Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal and WNJU, also seeking an injunction and damages. Federal courts have shut down the web streaming of TV station signals by companies like FilmOn and ivi, but Aereo has suggested that it could overcome the legal hurdle by setting up a service in which signals are captured by a tiny antenna for each individual subscriber, rather than the traditional one-to-many transmission The broadcasts are converted to a digital format and sent out over the Internet and to mobile devices. Aereo is charging $12 per month, and investors include Barry Diller's IAC. The problem for broadcasters is such streaming services undercut the lucrative retransmission fees they receive from cable operators. "It simply does not matter whether Aereo uses one big antenna to receive ...broadcasts and retramsmit them to subscribers, or 'tons' of 'tiny' antennas, as Aereo claims it does," the WNET-Fox suit stated. "No amount of technological gimmickry by Aereo -- or claims that it is simply providing a set of sophisticated 'rabbit ears' -- changes the fundamental principle of copyright law that those who wish to retransmit plaintiffs' broadcasts may do so only with plaintiffs' authority." In the other suit, the networks said that Aereo's "miniature antenna scheme is an artifice," and noted that it "digitally transcodes, converts and compresses the programs so they can be retransmitted through the Internet to its subscribers." A spokesman for Aereo said the company had no comment. Contact Ted Johnson at ted.johnson@variety.com

UTA Signs Oscar-Winning Director Asghar Farhadi

EXCLUSIVE: Asghar Farhadi, the Iranian director who won the Best Foreign Language Academy Award for A Separation, has signed with UTA. The family drama set in Tehran has earned critical and popular support throughout the international film community after its world premiere a year ago at the Fajr Film Festival in Tehran, where it earned Farhadi the Best Director award. It won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival and landed Sony Pictures Classics as distributor before making its U.S. debut at the Telluride Film Festival Film. That is where the agents began courting Farhadi. The film also won both a Golden Globe award and a Cesar awards before winning the Oscar. UTA is Farhadis first agency representation.