Weekend Movie News Wrap Up: November 8, 2009

This week:

The box office sings A Christmas Carol; Faceman visits Dark Fields; Michael Fassbender fires A Single Shot; High Fidelity guys re-team with Lay The Favorite and Helen Mirren sees Red.

Box Office

Christmas came early for Disney with A Christmas Carol. The motion capture Jim Carey film managed to snag around $31 million over the weekend.

Michael Jackson’s This is It banked about $13.4 million over the weekend after dropping less than 42 % from last weekend.

George Clooney’s The Men Who Stare At Goats and Milla Jovovich’s The Fourth Kind were almost neck and neck over the weekend with a weekend take of just under $14 million for each film.

Paranormal Activity just keep knocking at the door marked profit with another $8.5 million.

Cameron Diaz’s The Box opened with a disappointing $7.8 million. This poor opening means that the Richard Kelly film will not be in the financial Darko for a while.

Meanwhile, Couples Retreat laughed up another $6.4 million and Jamie Fox and Gerard Butler’s Law Abiding Citizen banked just under $6 million.

Where The Wild Things Are took in another $4 million while Saw VI scared another $2 million from audiences.

Movie News

1. The A-Team star Bradley Cooper has signed on to star in the thriller Dark Fields.

“(The Film) is described as a what-if story about a designer drug that can make you rich and powerful. Eddie (Cooper) is a down-and-out New York writer until he possesses a pill that gives him the ability to access the full capacity of his brain. He soon realizes that his newfound intelligence and success come at a hefty price as mysterious forces begin to pursue him.”

Neil Burger the director of The Illusionist will direct the film.

Source: Variety

2. The rather excellent Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds, 300) has signed on to star in A Single Shot.

“Fassbender plays a poacher who finds himself on the run from a gang of hardened killers.”

Forest Whitaker, William H. Macy and Thomas Haden Church will co-star in the film which starts shooting next year.

Source: Variety

3. High Fidelity creative duo Stephen Frears and D.V. DeVincentis are set to re-team with Lay The Favorite. The film is “a dramedy set in the world of geeky gamblers”.

The film is based on the forthcoming memoir Lay the Favorite, Take the Dog by Beth Raymer.

According to The Hollyowood Reporter:

“Raymer’s memoir is set amid a group of fiftyish math geeks who figure out how to work the sportsbook system in Las Vegas for their own profit. It centers on a woman in her early thirties who has made a series of bad choices but achieves a redemption of sorts when she meets and then becomes involved with the gamblers.”

Interesting.

I once bumped into Frears on the street outside my apartment – it’s a small world.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

4. Helen Mirren has signed on to Bruce Willis’ and Morgan Freeman’s the big screen adaptation of WildStorm/DC comicbook Red.

Mirren adds extra credibility to the film which already has a pretty good cast.

Source: Variety

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