Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: January 18, 2009

Sunday has rolled around again and that means that it’s Weekend Movie News Wrap Up time.

This week: 

 We have the box office rundown; Don Quixote rides again; Emmerich lays Foundations; Scott Pilgram gets a cast and Juno what Diablo Cody is doing next?

 Box Office

The US public showed their lack of taste once more with Kevin James’ Paul Blart: Mall Cop capturing the top spot over the Martin Luther King weekend with an estimated $35 million. Badass Clint Eastwood drives Gran Torino into the runner-up position with a gross of $26 million over the four days. I’m betting 78 year old Clint could kick James’ ass in a fight. Can somebody arrange that, please?

My Bloody Valentine 3-D should slaughter about $25 million over the long weekend. Talk about making a killing at the box office. Speaking of killing, Hotel For Dogs should bark up $18 million.

Rap biopic Notorious made an excellent $24 million. Now for older readers this is not a remake of the Cary Grant/Alfred Hitchcock movie. Just warning you.

Daniel Craig’s Defiance expanded from 2 theaters to 1,789, the WWII film should make about $9 million.

Brad Pitt has landed himself another $100 million grossing film with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Time will tell if this has legs following Oscar nominations.

Top Gun Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie is still flying high with a total gross of $80 million.  They thought he was out, but he came back!

Movie News

1. It looks like Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is going to ride again  – maybe. Gilliam has finally regained the rights to the project after ten years in legal limbo. The Johnny Depp starring film started shooting almost a decade ago when co-star Jean Rochefort left the project due to back problems. The film was shut down, never to regain momentum.

Gilliam tells Empire:

“Tony (Grisoni) and I have started rewriting Don Quixote just this last week. [We] finally got the script back. I re-read the greatest script ever written and realise we gotta get rewriting! I really wanna knock that one out in the next month or so.”

He went on to say:

“[I'm] starting to think I was lucky, because maybe the film will be better seven years later. It will have matured a bit longer.”

So will Gilliam be able to get the film back up and running and will Depp saddle up once more? Following the success of the Pirates of the Caribbean films Depp is a much bigger star now and much more in demand. Will he rejoin Gilliam? Well the two are obviously still tight as Depp is one of Heath Ledger’s replacements in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Time will tell – but come on, would somebody please give Gilliam a break it seems like every film that he directs is jinxed.

Source: Empire

2. Science Fiction fans are going to have a major pain in the Asimov when they discover that Independence Day director Rolland Emmerich is attached to direct Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.

According to Variety:

“Originally published as a series of eight short stories in Astounding Magazine beginning in 1942, Foundation is a complex saga about humans who are scattered on planets throughout the galaxy, living under the rule of the Galactic Empire.

A psycho-historian who can scientifically read the future sees an imminent empire collapse, and sets to work preparing to save the knowledge of mankind.?”

It sounds a bit too literary for Emmerich, but I’m sure he’ll be able to dumb it down.

Source: Variety

3. Kieran Culkin and Chris Evans will join Michael Cera (Superbad) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) in Edgar Wright’s movie adaptation of Scott Pilgram. Evans will play Pilgram’s nemesis Lucas and Culkin will portray his gay roommate Wallace.

The film starts shooting soon in Toronto.

Source: AICN

4. Juno writer Diablo Cody will write a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew for DreamWorks. Err… wasn’t this made in the last 10 years and called 10 Things I Hate About You?

Well, if the shrew fits and all that. Ahem.

Source: Collider

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