Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: January 11, 2009

In this Weeks Weekend Movie News Wrap Up::

Clint Eastwood drives to the top of the box office with Gran Torino; Ewan McGregor is Pierce Brosnan’s Ghost; Sienna Miller will not be visiting Nottingham; Morricone is not a Basterd; Moore, Neeson and Seyfried know Chloe; the Joker may have the last laugh in Batman 3 and Farrell, Weir and Harris are on their Way Back.

Box Office

Clint Eastwood showed his star power by capturing the number one position at the box office with a fantastic $30 million gross for Gran Torino. Clint’s Oscar touted movie was making good bank on limited release but it looks like the American masses love the ageing action icon. The film should have good legs and a final gross of  $100 million is not out of the question.

Bride Wars should claim the runner-up position with about $20 million showing that women will watch Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson in just about anything. David Goyer’s The Unborn had a good start and should gross about $18 million. Okay David – you have Monday to celebrate and then it’s down to getting Chris Nolan to start writing the next Batman movie.

Not Easily Broken surprised many and should bank $6 million by Monday, which isn’t bad for a movie that’s only showing in 724 screens. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Bedtime Stories inch closer to the magic $100 million mark and Tom Cruise shows that he’s a bigger star than Will Smith as Valkyrie has out grossed Seven Pounds.

Movie News

1. We thought that The Ghost was going to be a Pierce Brosnan and Nicolas Cage team-up, but it looks like Cage has dropped out and Ewan McGregor has stepped in as the ghostwriter for the former British Prime Minister in the Roman Polanski helmed thriller.

Source: Pierce Brosnan

2. There’s more trouble in Nottingham as it appears that Sienna Miller has dropped out of the next Russell Crowe, Ridley Scott team-up. Miller was due to star as Maid Marrian in the re-imagining of the popular legend.  The film has had numerous delays because of weather, script troubles and reported fights between Crowe and Scott.

There’s no official reason as to why Miller made (maid?) the descision but if you believe the unreliable Page Six then it’s because of Crowe’s vanity:

“Originally the movie was about a love triangle between Maid Marian, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham. It is now all about Russell’s Robin Hood. Literally, 40 pages of script were redone and now are just devoted to him and his massive ego. It’s amazing.”

Sounds to me like it’s all a lot of Crowe bashing, but I’m sure we will find out more in the near future.

Source:IMDB

3. It was previously reported that master soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone would be scoring the music for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, however he will now be composing Giuseppe Tornatore’s Baaria instead.

It could be worse, he could have gone on to score Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables.

Source: Playlist

4. Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson and Amanda Seyfried will star in director Atom Egoyan’s Chloe.

Accpording to Variety:

“Moore will play a successful doctor who suspects her husband (Neeson) of cheating. She tests his fidelity by hiring an escort (Seyfried) to seduce him. The move creates complications that put her family in danger.”

It sounds very 1990’s and that’s not a bad thing!

Neeson will next be seen in Taken while Seyfried was in the smash hit Mama Mia – yikes!

Source: Variety

5. The Dark Knight producer Charles Roven spoke with MTV about the follow-up to the mega grossing  film. The producer (although coy) did indicate that The Clown Prince of Crime may appear in future instalments of the Bat-franchise. Roven said:

“We have to separate the actors from the role. On a personal level, Heath (Ledger) was a friend of mine. We had worked together before The Dark Knight, but I still think that The Dark Knight is its own thing, and we have to separate them.”

If they decide to recast I think Joaquin Phoenix woul be a good choice – it’s a shame that he has “retired.”

Source: MTV

6. Colin Farrell and Ed Harris will star in Peter Weir’s The Way Back alongside Jim Sturgess and Saoirse Ronan. According to Variety:

“The thesps are in final negotiations to star for Weir in the fact-based story of a group of soldiers who engineered a grueling escape from a Siberian gulag in 1942. Weir wrote the script, based on the memoir by Slavomir Rawicz. Farrell plays a tough, tattooed Russian; Harris an American; and Sturgess portrays a young Polish inmate. Ronan will play a Russian on the run who meets up with the fugitives.”