No Cleo for Hugh Jackman; Mars attacks G.I. Joe; Thor lands in present day and Zombie unleashes a look at Michael Myers in Halloween 2.

Box Office

Marley And Me was top dog at the box office again. The Owen Wilson/Jennifer Aniston pic should bark up another $25 million over the weekend taking its total over $100 million. Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories should bank another $23 million bringing the film’s gross to around $88 million. It looks like Sandler has another $100 million grosser on his hands. Ainiston’s ex, a Brad Pitt is next with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The David Fincher film should manage another $18 million. For a film that wasn’t expected to be a huge hit it’s doing pretty darn well. Yes Man and Valkyrie should both bank another $15 million each, proving that Jim Carrey and Tom Cruise are still viable movie stars. Meanwhile Will Smith’s Seven Pounds should manage another $10 million.  Overall it’s a pretty A-List – centric time at the box office. In fact it could be 1999 and nobody would bat and eyelid.

Movie News

1. Hugh Jackman has pulled out of Steven Soderbergh’s forthcoming musical Cleo. Jackman was in negotiations to star as Marc Antony, however he has dropped out due to “scheduling conflicts”. I can only imagine that the rehearsing for the film somehow conflicts with Jackman’s hosting of the Oscars or another unknown film or stage role. As the film is looking for financing at the moment expect a replacement to be announced soon. Catherine Zeta-Jones will play the titular character.

Source: Variety

2. G.I Joe is an unknown quantity of a film. It’s got a great concept and an interesting cast (come on, it has Dennis Quaid) but Stephen Sommers did not earn a lot of fans with Van Hesling. In fact word on the street is that Sommers’ own mother disowned him following a private screening of the film. That was a joke

Anyway, here are a couple of images of the Mars Troopers from the film.

I still have no idea if this is going to be great or terrible, but the fact that it opens this August and we haven’t seen ANY footage from the film sounds like a bad sign.

Source: HissTank.com

3. News is slowly starting to leak out on Kenneth Branagh’s forthcoming Thor movie. The character of Donald Blake (Thor’s alter ego) has now been written into the current draft of the script. This is pretty big news as the film was previously going to be 100% set in the land of the Norse Gods.

Branagh will also act in the film – it’s not certain what role, but I’d bet money on it not being Thor.

Thor is due to open July 16, 2010.

Source: iesb.net

4. Rob Zombie has released an early picture of Michael Myers’ mask for Halloween 2. Well, considering the loathing of The Love Guru I’m guessing that Myers needs a disguise. Geddit? Mike Myers – The Love Guru…oh never mind.

I’m guessing at some point they’ll paint the mask and add hair. Or maybe in the new film Myers has discovered a loving of fake tan. Check it out below:

Source: Rob Zombie

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

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.

Screen Rant reviews Seven Pounds

OK, I get what they were trying to do in Will Smith’s latest film Seven Pounds… I really do. And it’s not a bad concept at all – in fact I thought it was very interesting. The problem is that over the course of two hours I felt like I had been beaten to a pulp by the idea.

The big thing with this movie is that no one knows what it’s a about – the trailer is intentionally vague and there’s a reason for that. It’s a sort of mystery, where you spend most of the movie wondering:

A. What has he done that is torturing him so.

B. What exactly is he doing for these people he’s sought out.

I’ll only go over the plot very vaguely since I don’t want to spoil any of the mystery. The film opens up with Ben Thomas (Will Smith) on the phone to 911. He is in a state of high anxiety, and at this point we don’t know where we are in the film as far as the plot (Is it a flashback? Is it taking place in real time, with the entire film’s story to follow?).

From there cut to him at his beach house – again, not a happy guy. He’s on the phone to someone by the name of Ezra Turner (Woody Harrelson), a customer service rep at a meat company. Turns out Ezra is blind, and after a bit of semi-uncomfortable humor Ben really starts to rip into Ezra in a pretty despicable way. Ezra maintains himself and never sinks to Ben’s level, finally hanging up politely.

From there Ben goes on to see a number of people including a young boy with cancer, Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) who has congenital hear failure, and a couple of other people. He works for the IRS and it’s weird to see him be so friendly with a smile on his face as he sits down to tell people they’re being audited.

There are many flashbacks in the film and in one of them we see that he was not always an IRS agent, but ran an aerospace engineering firm. How he got from there to his present position is one of the mysteries in the film.

Seven Pounds is all about the relationships between Ben and these people, especially Emily. Now it will depend on your outlook as to whether this is an emotionally powerful film or sappy and manipulative. The problem with this movie regardless of which of those points of view you ascribe to is that it’s just too damned long. It clocks in at two hours and the whole point of the film is the mystery, the reveal and the denoument. The thing is if you have half a brain you’ll figure out the “what he’s doing” part of the mystery VERY early on – and from there it will seem like it’s being dragged out for who the director must assume are the less bright members of the audience.

Once I figured it out the movie seemed to drag on and on, beating us over the head with more and more hints that were no longer needed. Not only is what he is up to obvious, but what will happen between him and Ezra as well. Then there’s the issue of Will Smith: He’s proven he’s a great actor, but two hours of him with basically a look of pain on his face was a bit much to take. Rosario Dawson was trying hard, but I think someone else could have done a better job in the role.

As I said, it’s an interesting concept about repentence taken to the extreme – and there won’t be a dry eye in the theater when it’s done… but by the time I got to the end my thought was “thank goodness, it’s about time.”

I’ve seen the poster for this but beyond that haven’t really dug into it up until now. Will Smith teamed up once again with the director and producers he worked with in Pursuit of Happyness for the movie Seven Pounds.

The synopsis of the film is very succinct:

The emotional story of a man who will change the lives of seven strangers.

In addition to Will Smith the film stars Rosario Dawson and Woody Harrelson. Italian director Gabriele Muccino impressed me with “Happyness” and I’m sure this will be quite the emotionally moving film as well (I’m a sucker for these things, although I generally don’t go out of my way to watch them).

Check out the poster and the trailer below:

[See post to watch Flash video]

Will Smith Seven Pounds poster

Official movie site: SevenPounds.com

Seven Pounds opens on December 19th.

This week we look at: The Fox 2000 remake of Brian DePalma’s The Fury, Stephen King’s Dolan’s Cadillac, Seven Pounds with Will Smith, Sci-Fi Viking film Outlander and Eli Roth decides to make movies for children.

To find out more – keep reading.

1. The remake machine rumbles on as Fox 2000 plan an updating of Brian DePalma’s Kirk Douglas starrer The Fury. The film will be written by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman. Variety

“(The film) will center on a young man with heightened kinetic powers who is abducted by the government in order to take advantage of his special gifts.”

The original film was released in 1978, and it was based on the 1976 book by John Farris. I wonder what percentage of films made by Hollywood today are remakes?

2. Former “Next Big Thing” ’s Christian Slater and Wes Bentley will star in Dolan’s Cadillac. The Hollywood Reporter

“(The film) is a thriller about a man (Bentley), who plots to avenge the murder of his wife by notorious and untouchable Las Vegas mob boss Jimmy Dolan (Slater).”

Dolan’s Cadillac is based on the short story by Stephen King. What an amazing and original idea – adapting the work of Stephen King for the big screen. I’m amazed that people don’t do this more often.

That was sarcasm… in case you didn’t get it.

3. Tom Cruise’s 13-year old son will play the young Will Smith in Seven Pounds. The Hollywood Reporter

Yes, you did read that correctly.

“The drama follows the story of a man who affects the lives of seven strangers.”

Only in Hollywood.

4. The poster for Outlander has been released and…it looks pretty damn cool. imdb.com and impawards.com

The film stars Jim Caviezel and it has an interesting plot, IMDB states:

“During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan (Caviezel), a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking’s Iron Age weaponry”

Pretty cool, huh?

5. Eli Roth, director of “torture porn” flicks Hostel and err… Hostel II will go family friendly with his next film. Reuters

Roth says:

[It] will be my first big-budget, PG-13, mass-destruction movie. I want total chaos and pandemonium.”

The film is said to be “inspired by” Transformers and Cloverfield.

Roth also stated that:

“I feel like I pushed the violence in R movies about as far as I can push it. I feel like I’m bled out. I wanna switch it up.”

God knows what that means, but we’re safe for a while… he hasn’t completed the script yet.

A big announcement is due next month.

That’s it for another week.

See you at the movies!