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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: December 21, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 16:39:40 +0000

It’s Sunday and therefore it’s Weekend Movie News Wrap Up time.

This week:

Baz Luhrmann gets Gatsby; Brian Helgeland adds Salt; Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise believe that four times is a charm and Parmount Pictures finally get to know Jack!

Box Office

It was the battle of the A-Listers at the box office and against all odds Jim Carrey captured the top spot with Yes Man. A weekend take of $19 million should ensue. Will Smith had to vacate his usual number one position and settle for the runner-up place with Seven Pounds. The drama should make around $15 million this weekend. The Day The Earth Stood Still crashed and burned this weekend dropping a mighty 75% and grossing just $10 million. It looks like the Keanu Reeves film will have to make its coin back on DVD. Not good. You hear that Fox?

Four Christmases grossed another $8 million helping the “comedy” cross the magic $100 million mark. Ho Ho Ho! Gran Torino grossed $115,000 from 19 locations and the Mickey Rourke drama The Wrestler might make $200, 000 only four theatres. What a body slam!

Movie News

1. The Great Gatsby will return to the big screen under the direction of Australia helmer Baz Luhrmann. The film, which is based on the legendary novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, tells the tale of Gatsby, a lonely millionaire and his long lost love Daisy Buchanan.

The book is a masterpiece and I’m quite fond of the 1970’s Robert Redford film, so I’m pretty interested to see how this turns out.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

2. Oscar winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland has been hired to polish Kurt Wimmer’s script for the Angelina Jolie action film Salt (formerly Edwin A. Salt).

Phillip Noyce will direct the film which Sony hopes will become a major franchise for the studio.

Source: Daily Script

3. Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise must have enjoyed working together on the forthcoming Valkyrie as the duo have three other projects on the boil. McQuarrie will co-write Flying Tigers which is:

” based on the volunteer fighter squadron formed to help the Chinese fight the Japanese before the U.S. entered World War II.”

According to Variety:

“McQuarrie also is writing and producing with Guillermo del Toro the previously announced United Artists project The Champions, penning the script with an eye toward hammering it into a Cruise vehicle. The British TV series transfer concerns a team of government agents rescued from a plane crash in the Himalayas by an advanced civilization and given superhuman abilities.”

McQuarrie is currently rewriting Jullian Fellows’ The Tourist, a spy thriller in which Cruise will star with Charlize Theron.

Source: Variety

4. It looks like Paramount Pictures will soon have a script for their Jack Ryan reboot. Hossein Amini will write the script for the film which has no title, no star, no director and until now no story (that we know of). At he very least it should get some talent interested.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

That’s it for now. See you at the movies.

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Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: December 07, 2008

Niall Browne — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:39:47 +0000

It’s hard to believe that we are now into December. It seems like only yesterday I was talking about the big summer releases – and now we are looking forward to next years big movies.

This weeks Weekend Movie News Wrap Up features the obligatory box office wrap up as well as:

La Beouf is The Associate; Stiller talks Zoolander 2; who is Angelina Jolie? Zombie returns to Halloween and Brownlow Vs Captain Blood.

Box Office

America just loves Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. How do I know this? Simple: Four Christmases grossed another $18 million over the weekend, keeping it the top movie at the box office despite terrible reviews. That’s only a 41% drop from opening weekend, usually an indication of a movie being very popular.

Twilight should bag another $14 million keeping it in the No. 2 position. Man, it must suck being a Studio Executive who turned this vampire flick down.

Bolt should manage another $10 million, keeping Disney quite happy with its gross. $100 million is well on target.

Bond, James Bond should collect another $8 million or so giving Quantum of Solace a little over $150 million.

Australia should manage another $6 million giving the Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman film a weak $30 million gross. Not good. After Deception flopped earlier in the year and now this – Jackman must be praying that Wolverine does well.

Punisher: War Zone flopped HUGE on its opening, grossing just $4 (four!) million – about half of what Thomas Jane’s The Punisher grossed in 2004. It looks like the movie-going public just don’t dig Frank Castle. This is the third attempt to bring The Punisher to the screen and it will probably be the last. It looks like the Lexi Alexander directed film didn’t benefit from all of the pre-release rumor that was floating about over the summer. It should make a killing on DVD, so maybe a series of straight to DVD Punisher films is what is needed. Just a thought.

Movie News

1. Shia La Beouf goes where Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Matthew McConaughey have gone before. Get your mind out of the gutter – it has nothing to do with Penelope Cruz. He will be top-lining a John Grisham adaptation. La Beouf will star in The Associate, a legal thriller based on an as yet unpublished novel by Grisham.

According to Variety:

“LaBeouf will play a student who’s about to graduate from Yale Law School when he’s manipulated into accepting a job at a prestige law firm and given privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.”

Sounds like pure Grisham. Should be another $100 million hit under Shia’s belt.

La Beouf’s Transformer producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing.

Source: Variety

2. Ben Stiller must be in the sequel mood as he’s developing a follow-up to 2001’s cult favorite Zoolander.

Stiller currently in the UK promoting Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa told The Sun:

“I’ve been trying to get Zoolander 2 together and we’ve had a few scripts. I feel that is the sequel I really would like to do some day because I like the original and I would make sure it was something new and worthy of it first.”

He also reportedly threatened another Meet The Parents.

Take these rumors with a pinch of salt a British tabloids have a habit of being creative with the truth.

Source: The Sun

3. Speaking of Salt, there appears to be some confusion of Angelina Jolie’s forthcoming action-thriller Salt.

Salt is a thriller that Jolie inherited from Tom Cruise – originally titled Edwin A.Salt. Some believe that the film may be Erika Salt, while others are of the opinion that the film will be simply called Salt – with the character called Evelyn..

Apparently in the sequel she teams up with a soldier from the US Army called Sgt. Pepper. This follow-up will be called Salt and Pepper.

Sorry – I just made up the last bit.

Source: Joblo

4. It looks like shock-rocker Rob Zombie will helm the sequel to his re-imagining/remake/rehash of John Carpenter’s Halloween.

Originally Zombie had stated that he would not return, but I’m guessing that Dimension made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo were originally signed to make the film, but they left due to “creative differences.”

Apparently shooting is due to star in March, however there is no confirmation of a script being in place.

That’s never stopped a movie though!

Source: Shock Till You Drop

5. John Brownlow will write the script for Phillip Noyce’s remake of the legendary Captain Blood.

The original starred Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone. The remake won’t have anyone half as cool.

Source: Dark Horizons

That’s it for now. See you at the movies!

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Mid-Week Movie News Wrap Up – Sept. 10, 2008

Niall Browne — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:19:53 +0000

The Mid-Week Movie News Wrap Up this week features:

The makers of Disturbia are sued, Val Kilmer gets busy, is there too much Salt for Angelina Jolie and Tom Cruise, could Colin Farrell be joining Robert Downey JR in Sherlock Holmes and will Fox be giving us more X-Men, Daredevil and Deadpool?

1. The makers of hit Shia La Boeuf film Disturbia are being sued by the rights holder of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. The Sheldon Abend Revocable Trust states that the films are too similar and that the Dreamworks film should have obtained the movie rights to the original short story by Cornell Woolrich.

Whoops.

Source: Deadline Hollywood

2. Although a lot of actors in Hollywood attach themselves to films, nobody signs on to as many as Val Kilmer. The former Batman has just signed on to two new films (take that Tom Cruise!) Kilmer has put his signature on the dotted line of Fake Identity and The Steam Experiment.

“In Fake Identity Kilmer will play ‘an American doctor working in Chechnya whose life takes a deadly turn when he helps a mysterious woman escape from her would-be assailant.’”

Meanwhile in The Steam Experiment Kilmer will star as a crazy scientist who according to CHUD:

“locks six people in a Turkish bathouse, cranks up the steam and watches for the inevitable meltdown.”

I’m a huge Kilmer fan, so I can’t wait to see anything that he’s in. Even Knight Rider when it hits these shores (the UK).

Source: CHUD

3. I’d hate to be Phillip Noyce. It looked like the director had Tom Cruise lined up to star in Edwin A. Salt, then the Cruiser dropped out only to be replaced by Angelina Jolie. Now it looks like Angelina is a tad too busy and she has had to withdraw from the film.

Who will star? Who knows – heck maybe the film will fall apart, but at least they have a male/female friendly script to shop around.

Source: Joblo

4. Joblo reckons that my fellow Irish-man Colin Farrell is in line to star as Dr Watson in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.

My thoughts – great! Farrell rocks (I’m one of the few who liked Alexander) and I’d love to see him teamed with Robert Downey Jr and Russell Crowe as Morariaty (rumored).

As a side note, my film tutor once told me a real story about Farrell that was seriously funny. I might tell it… one day.

Source: Jobo

5. We all know that Fox is shafting directors left and right these days. Following the terrible summer that the studio had this year it looks like they are trying to get geek-friendly. The studio is now looking into a Daredevil reboot and a Young X-Men series as well as a Deadpool film.

I thought the first Daredevil film was okay, it looked good but it lacked soul. With a bit of luck they can change that. However, why not give Affleck a call?

Deadpool- I’m going to guess that Ryan Reynolds is a shoe- in.

Could it all be too late for Fox?

Source: Variety

That’s it for this week! See you at the movies.

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Tom Cruise Project Update

Niall Browne — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 21:20:31 +0000

Tom Cruise – actor, legend, husband, father, religious icon and couch jumper.

Love him or loathe him, Cruise has had an incredible career and you have to admit that his place in film history is secure. However in the last few years the star has had a bit of a rough time, not only from the press, but also by the head honchos in Hollywood.

This week has seen a flurry of Tom Cruise related news, and as Screen Rant’s main Cruise supporter and apologist it has come down to me to report it.

We have seen Valkyrie’s release date change (again), Cruise drop out of Edwin A. Salt, the star realize that he has a love of comedy – as well as thriller and his friend/ mentor Paula Wagner was booted from the United Artists lot.

Following several test screenings of Cruise’s Nazi thriller Valkyrie, MGM has decided to move the release date forward to December 26th. The film has been moved all over the release schedules, with the last date being set for Valentine’s day 2009 – but it would appear that the studio wants to show the film some Oscar love. Another reason for the move is that the tests went so well that the studio feels that they could have a major hit on their hands and they want to maximise box office potential over the holiday season.

For the past few months Cruise has also shown a major interest in spy-thriller Edwin A. Salt, a film that is to be directed by Phillip Noyce. However, it would appear that Cruise didn’t like the film enough to commit and now the film is being retooled as a starring vehicle for Angelina Jolie!

It seems like Tropic Thunder has unleashed Cruise’s love of comedy as the actor is now in talks to star in chef-comedy Food Fight. The Steven Brill directed film would see Cruise star as a high class chef who is forced to cook in a school cafeteria. High-jinks will obviously ensue and I presume that a lesson will be learned.

Cruise has also shown an interest in The Tourist, a remake of a French thriller from 2005. Bharat Nalluri will direct the film which has been written by Gosford Park’s Julian Fellows.

Meanwhile, Paula Wagner – Cruise’s producing partner and Chief of United Artists has quit her post. Depending on who you believe Wagner was either fired or quit in order to return to her first love of producing.

According to Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke – Wagner’s indecision on pulling the trigger on film production was major factor in her departure. Her lack of green lighting put the $500 million funding package in jeopardy, leaving the studio no other option but to fire Wagner, move the release date of Valkyrie and greenlight several films.

Wagner had this to say:

“I’ve truly relished working with my longtime partner Tom Cruise to revitalize United Artists, and I am proud of all that we’ve accomplished in the past two years, reinvigorating the brand and developing such a strong slate of films,” she said. “But I always tell my sons, ‘Follow your passion’ — and I’ve got to follow that advice myself. As much as I’ve enjoyed my time as an executive, I have longed to return to my true love, which is making movies, so that’s what I’ve decided to do. I still believe in our vision for UA, and I am confident that Harry Sloan and our colleagues at MGM will see that vision through to reality.”

What a week for Tom Cruise.

We will have more on these films when (and if) they move forward in development.

Sources: Variety, Hollywood Reporter and Deadline Hollywood

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Angelina Jolie To Get Sex Change

Niall Browne — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:14:38 +0000

With the cash registers still ringing to the tune of $250 million from Wanted, it looks like Angelina Jolie is hot again – at the box office at least!

It would appear that Mrs Brad Pitt has landed a role that could be a potential action franchise starter.

What’s so interesting about that?

She will be replacing Tom Cruise in the upcoming movie project Edwin A. Salt!

Confused?

Read on and all will be explained…

Tom Cruise had been eying the spy-thriller about a CIA agent who must try and clear his name when he is accused of being a Russian spy, but I guess Cruise thought that it was too close to Mission: Impossible for comfort. So technically, Angelina Jolie isn’t replacing Tom Cruise – she’s taking a role that was offered to him.

Jack Ryan spy-master Phillip Noyce is still on board to direct, but it looks like Kurt Wimmer’s script might need a bit of a rewrite and a title change.

Although it seems strange that the lead character in a film would change sex- it’s not unusual (insert Tom Jones joke here).

For example: The Jodie Foster role in Flight Plan was originally written for a man, and the Sean Penn role in The Game was intended for Foster. So Jolie is hardly setting a precedent. However she is expected to net a record paycheck for a female star by signing on to the Sony film.

There’s no word on when this film is expected, but I’d imagine it’ll be a while yet considering that the script may need a bit of re-tooling.

Source: Variety

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