6 articles
Friday Box Office – The Avengers Continue to Soar as Battleship Founders
19 hours ago | Collider.com | See recent Collider.com news »
For the first time this month audiences had more than one new release to tempt them into theatres. Trouble is, no one seemed particularly tempted by the three titles that lined up to take down The Avengers. With an estimated $15.3 million on Friday, the Marvel superheroes are now assured their third weekend title with a projected $55 million. That won’t be a record, but who cares? At $1.048 billion worldwide, the film is already Disney’s highest-grossing release of all time. In second place, Universal’s Battleship took in an estimated $9 million from its 3,690 locations for a projected $26 million first weekend. Not only is that well below expectations for the pricey live-action boardgame, it’s also less than John Carter earned for its debut back in March. Draw your own conclusions. After opening to $4.1 million on Wednesday, Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator took in an estimated $5.7 million on Friday towards »
- Nicole Pedersen
'Moon' Helmer Duncan Jones' Next Project Is Biopic Of 007 Creator Ian Fleming, Film Shoots This Year
22 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Duncan Jones is a man who's had his fair share of suitors. The one-time commercials helmer made one of the most exciting directorial debuts in recent memory with 2009's "Moon," and followed it up with last year's hugely enjoyable sci-fi thriller "Source Code," a film that managed to be a pretty modest little hit ($150 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. And as such, he's been courted for some pretty major Hollywood projects, taking meetings to direct "Man Of Steel," "The Wolverine" and "The Hunger Games" sequel "Catching Fire," but ultimately not taking any of them. Indeed, things have been quiet on the Jones front: the actor's been developing passion project "Mute" and an secret sci-fi project inspired by "Blade Runner," but all we've seen from him in the last year was a commercial for a bank.
But now there's firm word on what Jones' next film will be, and it's not only a surprise, »
- Oliver Lyttelton
'Grosse Point Blank' Writer D.V. DeVincentis To Pen 'The Night Stalker' For Edgar Wright & Johnny Depp
20 hours ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
One of the more intriguing announcements of the year has been the potential team-up between megastar Johnny Depp and Edgar Wright, the director behind "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World," on "The Night Stalker," a remake of the 1970s Darren McGavin-starring TV movie and subseuqent show about Carl Kolchak, a reporter investigating supernatural and science-fiction based cases. After all, Depp's output has been disappointing of late, but if anyone can reinvigorate the actor, it's Wright, in his first brush with a major A-list star.
The film certainly isn't coming in the immediate future: Wright has both "The World's End" and "Ant-Man" brewing before the end of the year. But it's certainly something that they're serious about, as the duo, and studio Disney, have just hired a writer for the project. According to Heat Vision, D.V. DeVincentis, who co-wrote the scripts for John Cusack »
- Oliver Lyttelton
Cannes: Jackie Chan Nixes Rush Hour 4
just now | EmpireOnline | See recent EmpireOnline news »
At a Cannes press conference to hype up his latest movie — globe-spanning treasure-hunting caper Chinese Zodiac — Jackie Chan announced that he’s done with bone-crunching action for good, but added, “In the future I’ll still do Karate Kid 2, Rush Hour 4…”This statement, combined with the fact that Rush Hour director Brett Ratner flew into France to help his buddy promote Chinese Zodiac, got us wondering whether the fourquel is actually already underway. But when Empire sat down with Chan after the press conference, he made it clear that he won’t be re-uniting with Chris Tucker any time soon.“No, no, no! I don’t want it to happen at this moment,” he announced, shaking his head furiously. “Probably another five or ten years. Then will be Rush Hour 4 – boom, we’re coming back! And at that time I might retire. Us being old guys might make it a more interesting story. »
Cannes: Latest On Zorro Reborn & Silence
just now | EmpireOnline | See recent EmpireOnline news »
Gael García Bernal is in Cannes to help get the word out on his latest movie, No, a gripping (if un-Google-able) drama about the campaign that brought down Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1988. More on that soon, but while we were in Bernal’s presence we asked for an update on two other projects he’s linked to: rapier-slashing reboot Zorro Reborn and Martin Scorsese’s long-gestating epic, Silence.Zorro would be a change of pace for Bernal, given that his IMDb page is currently devoid of Hollywood blockbusters. Is he worried he might be selling out? “You know, I feel like an outsider now, more than ever,” he says. “I make career deisions that are not necessarily in accord with the expected narrative. But I don’t want to be the boring guy that always says, ‘I don’t want to do a commercial movie”, so I might challenge that by doing one! »
Cannes Review: Age & Illness Test Love In Michael Haneke's Unflinching 'Amour'
1 hour ago | The Playlist | See recent The Playlist news »
Michael Haneke makes it clear from the opening of the film exactly where he's going in "Amour." Kicking off with a literal bang, a team of police offers force open the door of a flat in France, and with masks over their mouths, they walk around the apartment, open the windows and finally find what they're looking for. A dead body, respectfully surrounded by flowers, lays in a bed. And in pure Haneke fashion this when he throws up the title card for "Amour," a movie that is, to put it simply, two hours of a woman dying.
Yes, "Amour" is as unrelenting and unflinching as you might expect from the provocateur, but there is tenderness within that marks a bit of a new direction for the helmer. Our introduction to Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva) finds them during happier times. The couple attend a concert performance by »
- Kevin Jagernauth
Cannes: BBC Films to Produce Simon Curtis Drama 'The Golden Lady,' New Saoirse Ronan Film 'Testament of Youth'
1 hour ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
BBC Films is adding new projects with “My Week With Marilyn” director Simon Curtis and “Hanna” star Saoirse Ronan to its slate, the company announced in Cannes Sunday. Curtis will direct the drama “The Golden Lady,” which tells the real-life story of how Maria Altmann and a young lawyer fought to reclaim several Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis, including a famous portrait of Altmann’s aunt. Playwright Alexi Kaye Campbell wrote the screenplay, and Origin Pictures’ David M. Thompson (“The First Grader”) is producing. Ronan is attached to star in the World War I drama “Testament of Youth,” which “Calendar Girls” co-writer Juliette Towhidi adapted from the 1933 Vera Brittain memoir about how the war affected the women of the U.K. and her years as a nurse and journalist. “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman of Heyday Films is producing. The two new projects join a roster of »
- Jay A. Fernandez
Cannes Review: The Good and the Bad of Cristian Mungiu's Post-Palme Drama 'Beyond the Hills'
3 hours ago | Indiewire | See recent Indiewire news »
Romanian director Cristian Mungiu seemingly came out of nowhere in 2007 to snatch the Palme d'Or for his last feature, the tightly constructed abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," a distinctly powerful work. With so much pressure on the filmmaker from this early stage, Mungiu faced an impossible task, as his less appealing follow-up clearly demonstrates. While technically impressive and occasionally quite provocative, Mungiu's latest feature-length effort, "Beyond the Hills," is at once more ambitious and flawed -- in other words, only 50 percent post-Palme slump. Another story of close friends hiding secrets from various forms of authority, "Beyond the Hills" takes inspiration from Tatiana Niculescu Bran's novels as it follows former childhood pals Voichita (Cosmina Stratan) and Alina (Cristina Flutur) under punishingly dour circumstances. Like "4 Months," the new movie presents a scenario involving close friends »
- Eric Kohn
Bombs Away! ‘Battleship’ Sinks To $25M Torpedoed By Still Strong ‘Avengers’; Lame ‘What To Expect’ Behind Limp ‘The Dictator’
7 hours ago | Deadline Hollywood | See recent Deadline Hollywood news »
Saturday 9:30 Pm, 6th Update: These Friday, Saturday, and weekend numbers for North America from my sources are way worse than anyone expected. Every film tanked except Marvel’s The Avengers which keeps sucking all the air out of the box office for the 3rd straight weekend. Demonstrating just how disastrous the new movies opened, audiences gave Universal’s Battleship only a ‘B’ CinemaScore, Lionsgate’s What To Expect When You’re Expecting a ‘B-’, and Paramount’s The Dictator a ‘C’. And yet none of the affected studio moguls expect to lose their jobs. At Universal, Peter Berg’s military vs aliens actioner did only John Carter-low grosses (which is why the star of both pics, Taylor Kitsch, will be asking “You want fries with that?” very shortly). But Battleship already made $230M internationally, thus mitigating its $209+ budget and advance bad buzz in North America. At Paramount, Sacha Baron Cohen »
- NIKKI FINKE
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