This Week:
The Basterds have landed at the top of the box office; Karl Urban takes a bite out of Priest; Summit attempts to grab Jodie Foster’s Beaver; Rosario Dawson boards Unstoppable; The Twilight Saga: Eclipse begins; Pandorum is pushed back and is it a trick or a treat for Trick r’ Treat?
Box Office
Quentin Tarantino scored the biggest opening of his career with Inglourious Basterds. The Brad Pitt film shot up an impressive $37 million over the weekend giving The Weinstein Company a much needed financial boost. The R-rated Nazi killing epic will have a chance of cracking $100 million if word of mouth is good.
District 9 dropped less than 50% this weekend after banking an estimated $18.9 million. With $73 million already in the bag it looks like this $30 million film will be very profitable.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra banked another $12.5 million. The action-figure movie has now taken an impressive $120 million. The sequel should be out in a couple of years.
The Time Traveler’s Wife took $10 million this weekend. With a television series on the way it looks like someone somewhere thought that this would be profitable.
Julie & Julia is playing as expected. Just down 25% from last weekend The Meryl Streep starrer banked $9 million this weekend. The film has now made a healthy $59 million.
Robert Rodriguez’s Shorts didn’t open as well as his buddy Quentin Tarantino. The directors latest family film grossed a meek $6.5 million. It was probably very cheap so it’ll turn a profit.
G-Force’s total now stands at $107 million after making $4 million. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince brought in another $3 million. With $290 in the bank already it looks like this Potter pic might just limp to the magic $300 million barrier.
The Ugly Truth and Post Grad were pretty much neck and neck with just under $3 million each. One has a grand total of $82 million and the other will finish it’s run with under $10 million.
Movie News
1. Star Trek and Lord of the Rings star (we’ll forget about Pathfinder) Karl Urban has signed on to Priest.
In the Scott Stewart directed film, Urban will play Black Hat, an evil vampire in the Paul Bettany film.
Hollywood really has gone vampire crazy lately. Let’s hope it doesn’t suck!
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
2. Summit Entertainment is in “advanced talks” to buy Jodie Foster’s The Beaver. The Mel Gibson starrer follows a depressed man who starts wearing a hand-puppet of the titular beaver.
I’m looking forward to this quirky dramedy.
The Beaver starts shooting in September.
Source: Variety
3. Rosario Dawson has jumped on board Tony Scott’s action-thriller Unstoppable. The runaway train film stars Scott favorite Denzel Washington and Captain Kirk himself, Chris Pine.
The film has had a start-stop momentum from when it was announced earlier in the year with Washington leaving the project when 20th Century Fox wanted him to make the film for less than his usual $20 million pay day. An agreement was reached and the film regained its drive.
Unstoppable arrives on November 12, 2010
Source: Variety
4. Earlier in the week cameras started rolling on The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.
That’s right you can now start anticipating new news featuring Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and company. The hugely successful vampire series has been a massive hit with teens and fans of vampire fiction.
Creator Stephenie Meyer’s bank manager is also very interested in the books too!
Join Edward and Bella at a cinema near you when The Twilight Saga: Eclipse opens on June 30, 2010.
Source: Coming Soon.
4. If you’ve been waiting to see the Dennis Quaid/ Ben Foster sci-fi horror, Pandorum, then you’re going to have to wait a while longer. The film has now been pushed back a week to September 25th, moving it away from coming out at the same time as the Megan Fox starring/ Diablo Cody-scripted Jennifer’s Body.
Pandorum will now open opposite Bruce Willis’ Sci-fi actioner Surrogates.
Source: Shock Till You drop
5. Speaking of release dates – Michael Dougherty’s Trick r’ Treat finally has a concrete release. The long-awaited film will be out in time for… you guessed it: Halloween. Trick r’ Treat will be available on DVD and Blu-ray from Tuesday, October 6.
Source: Shock Till You Drop
That’s it for now. See you at the movies.
Ryan Reynolds Drops Out of 'Highlander' Reboot 
No Loki in 'Avengers 2' 
'Man of Steel' Director & Writer on What Has to Happen in 'Man of Steel 2' 
'Man of Steel' Ending Controversy 
My goodness another vampire film.
So let me get this straight Mel Gibson, won’t play Mad Max but will play a guy that walks around wearing a Beaver hand puppet,,,
W,,,,,T,,,,,F,,!!!
Its a sad state of affairs when a studio thinks they have a better chance opening their film next to a movie about Bruce Willis fighting robots than a movie about Megan Fox killing teenagers.
WTF is right 790. I mean really….WTF!???Uncle Mel….C’MON!!!!!!
Sucks about Pandorum, but not that much of a wait. I’m really excited about that one; great actors.
What’s up with this move from opening against a stupid teen slash-fest to going against a known draw in Bruce Willis? What are these people thinking? Oh, I forgot, this is Hollywood; thinking is for the writers.
Fans of vampire fiction? I am a fan of vampire fiction but I have no interest in Twilight. I know a lot of people do but I don’t. From everything I hear about it, it just doesn’t sound like vampire lore to me.
All those films sound awful, except for Unstoppable.
I am going with 790 on this one, a beaver hand puppet for Mel? I’d rather see him back as Riggs in another Lethal Weapon flick before this.
I am so sick of hearing of a new vampire movie or vampire tv series. Good lord, that idea is being way overdone. How is it even possible to have an ORIGINAL idea about vampires anymore?