Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: June 21, 2009

This week:

First there’s The Proposal and then there’s The Hangover; Moneyball gets thrown a curve-ball; Scream 4 isn’t Neve Campbell’s favorite scary movie; it looks like The A-Team won’t be Common and there’s an up and coming Red Dawn.

Box Office

Sandra Bullock scored the biggest opening of her career with The Proposal. The romantic comedy which co-stars Ryan Reynolds grossed $34 million over the weekend.

The Hangover remained a popular choice and moved into the runner-up spot with a weekend take of $26 million. With $152 million in the bank after three weeks, it looks like this is going to be a hugely profitable film and franchise for Warner Bros.

Up took in another $21 million from Friday to Monday giving the Pixar film a mighty $224 million tally.

Jack Black’s Year One opened a disappointing third this weekend with a gross of $20 million. It’ll need good legs to see a decent profit.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 stole $11 million from audiences over the weekend giving the Denzel Washington/ John Travolta thriller a total gross of $43 million.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian took in another $7 million giving the Ben Stiller comedy a stellar $155 million.

The interstellar Star Trek took just under $5 million to give the film a $239 million total tally.

Land of the Lost’s total now stands at $43 million after taking almost $4 million over the weekend. Not a good total for a film that cost a reported $150 million.

Eddie Murphy’s Imagine That dropped 43% from last weekend to $3 million. The film now has a terrible total of $11 million.

Terminator Salvation rounds out the top ten with $3 million. The Christian Bale film now has a total of $119 million.

.

Movie News

1. Columbia Pictures has scrapped production of the Steven Soderbergh directed, Brad Pitt starring, Moneyball – even though the film was due to start shooting on Monday!

Apparently when Steve Zaillian handed in the latest draft last week it wasn’t what studio head Amy Pascal had expected and she got cold feet on the film due to the $50 million budget. The sports drama has now been put into turnaround in the hope that another studio decides to make it.

According to Variety

“Moneyball is based on the bestselling Michael Lewis book about Billy Beane (Pitt), the former phenom who undermined his playing career by taking a big paycheck before he was ready, who resurfaced as Oakland A’s general manager who found success fielding competitive teams for low cost, compared to the payrolls of league rivals like the New York Yankees.”

Source: Variety

2. It’s looking like Scream 4 will not star Neve Campbell.

Franchise creator Kevin Williamson twittered:

“Trying to figure out a Sid-less scenario. She won’t do it. This sucks.”

David Arquette and Courtney are in negotiations to return.

There’s still no news on whether Wes Craven will return to direct.

Source: Ace Showbiz

3. Common was mooted as a possible candidate to play B.A Baracas in the big screen version of The A-Team. Looks like they’ll have to find another actor to step into Mr. T’s shoes.

The actor-rapper has signed on to the Queen Latifah sports film Just Wright.

Considering that the film starts shooting in July, it looks like he’ll be unable to join Liam Nesson and Bradley Cooper in Joe Carnahan’s film.

Source: Variety

4. Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck and Adrianne Palicki have joined the cast of MGM/UA’s Red Dawn remake. The new version is rumored to feature an invasion of Chinese troops on U.S. soil, instead of Russians.

Dan Bradley will direct the film that is set to open on September 24, 2010

Source: Hitfix

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