Lifetime announced today that it has picked up the hit Bravo series Project Runway and will begin airing the series’ sixth cycle, which debuts in November. In a statement, The Weinstein Co., which produces the show with executive producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz of Magical Elves, announced that it entered a five-year deal for the show with Lifetime — a development that prompted legal action by NBC/Universal. In the same statement, the Weinstein Co. acknowledged that NBC filed a lawsuit today in New York Supreme Court in an attempt to block the series from moving to Lifetime. “We believe that this lawsuit is without merit. While good for the market for lawyers, it is always unfortunate when parties try to win in court what they have lost in the marketplace,” said David Boies, counsel to The Weinstein Co.

The NBC/Universal lawsuit asserts that the company had been negotiating with The Weinstein Co. for a year to obtain additional installments of Runway but the production company “never intended to negotiate in good faith.” It goes on to say, “Instead, The Weinstein Co. threatened to take future cycles of the program to a competing TV network unless [NBC] agreed to pay many millions of additional dollars to Weinstein to acquire a ‘package’ that included TV rights to second-tier Weinstein films unrelated to Runway.” The Weinstein Co. was contractually obligated to give the NBC-owned Bravo the right of first refusal when it got the offer from Lifetime, says the suit.

The Weinstein Co. has already begun pre-production of Runway‘s fifth season for Bravo, which is scheduled to air in June.

NBC released this statement today: “NBC Universal has continuing
legal rights related to Project Runway, including a right of first
refusal to future cycles of the series, which The Weinstein Company
unfortunately has refused to honor. NBC Universal regrettably had no
alternative but to bring legal action to enforce its rights to this
program, including the right to decide whether it is in the best
interest of the company to continue to air the show under the proposed
financial terms.”

One source familiar with the negotiations argues that Bravo was damaging the
Runway brand by airing too many repeats of the show and surrounding it
with copycat series like Top Design, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style, and
Make Me A Supermodel. “It’s a phenomenon that needs to be
protected,” the source says. “Lifetime provided a substantial offer.
NBC chose not to provide a competitive bid.” That rerun marathon
strategy, however, is what made Runway a hit in its first season. When
Bravo began to heavily repeat the show, the fourth episode of the first
season broke the 1 million mark — and the series has continually grown
from there. In fact, the show’s fourth season finale last month — in
which the “fierce” Christian Siriano earned the top prize — attracted
a whopping 5.2 million total viewers, down slightly from the 5.4
million viewers who watched the season 3 finale. (Additional reporting by Missy Schwartz)

Faster than you can say “Moment of Truth movie,” word has surfaced that a telefilm could be in the works about “the pregnant man,” Thomas Beatie. EW.com has learned that some networks, including Lifetime and one of the broadcast networks, have been shopped a project about about the 34-year-old Oregon man who was born a girl and decided to become a man a decade ago by taking testosterone and undergoing surgery to remove his breasts, according to published reports. Now married, Beatie was artifically inseminated and is now carrying a “healthy” baby. Beatie and his wife, Nancy, appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show on April 3 and are featured in the current issue of People. So far, it’s not known whether any network has yet to purchase the rights. In fact, one network executive wasn’t quite sure how to react when she first got the pitch via her cell phone. Her reaction, according to a source: “What? Who’s pregnant?”

Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari is done working the small screen, folks. EW.com caught up with the celebrity at the premiere of Keanu Reeves’ next movie, Street Kings, where she had plenty to say about her big-screen plans and nothing to report about the possibility of appearing on The Hills, despite rumors to the contrary. “I have been asked to come back by MTV a million times to be on The Hills or Laguna Beach or to do a different reality show, but I am not interested,” she says. “I am doing what I want to do so I don’t feel pressure to go back. I keep getting jobs. I feel like been there, done that. I did Laguna Beach for two years and had the best time. I feel like I need stuff that challenges me and another reality show won’t do that.”

So what’s Cavallari been up to? She recently starred in a new video for Gavin DeGraw, best known for crooning the One Tree Hill theme song. She also shot a short film that Entourage’s Kevin Connolly directed that… well, we’ll let her describe: “[It's made up of] nine different short films, and the whole thing is called Uncomfortable Moments. My short is called Dry Humping. It is about two high school kids, my boyfriend and I, who are dry humping when his dad comes home and catches us in the act. They are all really funny short, goofy films.”

Cavallari also is set to appear in a beach volleyball movie opposite David Charvet called Green Flash this summer. “That was definitely not a hard job to go to every day. And I am about to go to Canada to shoot a movie. I can’t talk about that yet, though. I’m having a good time!” — Reporting by Carrie Bell

Smallville creators/executive producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are leaving the young-Superman drama after seven seasons, though the CW will keep its longest-running and highest-rated drama on its viewership-challenged schedule next year. “We look back at 152 episodes,” Gough and Millar wrote in an open letter sent to media outlets this morning. “We look back knowing that the show will continue into season 8 without us. After much heartache and debate we have decided it is time for us to move on.” Here’s to hoping it goes better than the net’s Amy Sherman-Palladino-less final season of Gilmore Girls.

When Ben Silverman took the reins as co-chairman of NBC, one of the first projects he picked up was the Colombian telenovela Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso (Without Breasts There is No Paradise). Since then, no word. So what gives? “We’re continuing to develop it,” Silverman told EW.com during the network’s lineup announcement in New York on Wednesday. “It’s very likely, actually, to go on Telemundo. Our script wasn’t quite ready. The stuff we like, we continue to grind until it’s ready for primetime. With Ugly Betty and with [NBC's new Aussie import] Kath and Kim, we did multiple scripts – years and years of development – prior to them reaching the air. [Sin Tetas]… it’s such a cocktail to make that thing right.”