News from Get The Big Picture

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7 September 2008 12:12 PM, PDT

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

For the weekend of July 18th, the top twelve movies at the American box office were responsible for a quarter-billion dollars of business, led by The Dark Knight's record-shattering debut. Fast forward eight weeks, and the top twelve could only manage $51 million, with the new number one movie making less than $8 million.

Bangkok Dangerous, the Asian action remake starring Nicolas Cage squeezed a little blood out of a turnip to stop Tropic Thunder's run at the top. But just barely. Based on the Sunday estimates by Box Office Mojo, Bangkok made $7.8 million this weekend, while Tropic Thunder made $7.5. Because these are estimates and not final figures, there is still a chance Tropic Thunder could win again. If so, it would mark the second straight movie to hold on to number one for a month.

The House Bunny came in third place,

Colin Boyd

7 September 2008 7:00 AM, PDT

Iron Man will get a glorious two-disc DVD release at the end of the month, and it's loaded with special features.

You know how most DVDs have the movie on one disc, with the commentary and maybe the trailer thrown on there to boot, and the second disc is all the features? That's not the case here. Both discs are exploding with bonuses:

Disc One - Hall of Armor, the six-chapter Invincible Iron Man, deleted and extended scenes, and Iron Man Iq

Disc Two - I Am Iron Man (which has seven chapters), Wired: The Visual Effects of Iron Man, Robert Downey's screen test, a look at scene rehearsal with the cast, the hilarious and properly included "Wildly Popular Iron Man Trailer to be Adapted into Full Length Film" from The Onion, plus trailers and galleries.

That's plenty. I mean, seriously, that's a good DVD. Here are some samples

Colin Boyd

7 September 2008 4:49 AM, PDT

Sony and Coca-Cola will have a new worldwide promotion in conjunction with Quantum of Solace this November, as the soft drink titan looks to more aggressively market Coke Zero. It's the first time Coke has tied into a movie since the first Harry Potter movie seven years ago.

Variety reports that Coke Zero will be seen in the film, but that Daniel Craig won't drink it. Instead, his silhouette as Bond will be used in commercials that you'll start seeing later this month. Cleverly enough, the product will repurposed as "Zero Zero 7" during the promotion.

Coca-Cola adds to the stack of marketing money being poured into the 22nd James Bond movie. Ford, Heineken, Smirnoff, Omega, Virgin Atlantic, Bollinger, Sony Ericsson and Sony Electronics also have scratch-my-back deals with the film.

Colin Boyd

7 September 2008 1:03 AM, PDT

We talk about casting a lot, whether it's speculation (anything with the names Depp, Jolie, or Crowe attached to it in the past year) or concrete (love Sacha Baron Cohen in the Sherlock Holmes comedy, not as much Robert Downey Jr. in the action-drama update of the same character).

Sometimes there are casting notes that make you step back and wonder what the producers and director were thinking, and it could be in a good way or a bad way. Personally, I think Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobra Commander in next summer's G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra could be a stroke of genius. I think he's up to it, and anyone who saw him in The Lookout or in Stop/Loss would be inclined to agree. There's a lot more going on with this guy than just Third Rock from the Sun.

MTV recently asked G.I. Joe producer Lorenzo

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 10:54 PM, PDT

LL Cool J once proclaimed, "Don't call it a comeback." Now, he's pitching Old Spice.

Mickey Rourke, on the other hand, has just put a bow on one of Hollywood's most unlikely comeback stories, as his film The Wrestler won the Golden Lion for best film at the Venice Film Festival.

The movie marks something of a comeback for director Darren Aronofsky, as well, whose 2006 movie The Fountain was troublesome for critics and audiences alike, and was now well-received in Italy two years ago.

"Darren Aronofsky came here a couple of years ago and fell on his ass," Rourke said frankly at the awards ceremony. "I am glad he had the balls to come back. I don't think he wanted to come. I said, 'You've got to come'."

Rourke is suddenly a prohibitive Oscar nominee for his work as a professional wrestler forced into retirement, although he did not receiving

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 8:13 PM, PDT

I remember it like it was, oh, six months ago: Lindsay Lohan posing nude in front of and behind see-thru silks to recreate a famous Marilyn Monroe pictorial for New York Magazine. It does not appear that Lindsay will follow Marilyn to the pages of another magazine.

The troubled actress and singer has turned down an offer from Playboy in the area of $700,000. Think of all the rehab that money could buy!

"If there's nudity, then the answer's no ... She's not going down the [New York] magazine road again," Lohan's rep told Playboy. It was to be an eight-page topless spread in conjunction with the magazine's 55th anniversary.

I suppose you can take the position that Lindsay's being classy, but since she's already posed naked, I hardly see the difference. What this really means, though, is some other young starlet will take the offer (probably for significantly less money), and they'll get

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 4:48 PM, PDT

There's one more big box office record out there for The Dark Knight, but don't hold your breath that it will catch Titanic. However, the Batman sequel did get its name in the record books once again this week, becoming the all-time highest-grossing first run film in IMAX history.

The previous mark was held by The Polar Express, a movie about a couple of potheads on the run from a murderous dealer...oh wait, that's something else. Anyway, The Polar Express made $45 million in its initial release (IMAX has brought the film back on a few occasions for the holidays), which represented about 15% of its total domestic gross. The Dark Knight has made $55 million - and counting - since hitting IMAX less than two months ago.

Overall, the film has made in the ballpark of $925 million worldwide, with better than half of that amount coming from U.S. ticket sales.

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 3:05 PM, PDT

The Hollywood Reporter says that Terry George (Hotel Rwanda) is in negotiations to write a sequel to Inside Man, the superb Spike Lee heist movie from 2006. Not surprisingly, Lee is angling to return to direct Inside Man 2 and says, "I want the script to be even better than [Russell Gerwitz's original], and Russell wrote a really good script."

The film was the director's biggest hit to date, grossing over $175 million worldwide, and he said in Toronto this week that Clive Owen is interested in hopping about the follow-up, as well.

This would fall in the category of a good sequel, at least on paper. There's nothing in the story that prevents a second verse, and since they're going with a different storyline, it could help flesh out Owen's bank robber a little more. I'm all for this one.

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 11:33 AM, PDT

The worst weekend in how long? Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls is predicting a $44 million weekend for the top 12 movies in the United States, and you'd have to go back to September 2001 for a weekend that bad. There were other things on people's minds that month, of course.

Only one weekend in this decade has failed to hit $40 million with its top 12, and that was in 2000. Both top movies on those weekends, incidentally, starred Keanu Reeves.

So what does $44 million mean? It means that Nicolas Cage's new flick, Bangkok Dangerous, is opening with a whimper; the Friday estimate is just over $2 million, so the weekend figure may be in the high sixes or low sevens. Think about that: $2 million on opening day. For the number one movie in the country.

I would pin a lot of this on the opening weekend of NFL, which, as everyone knows, is the

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 10:43 AM, PDT

Earlier this summer, Forbes reported that Keira Knightley is currently the second-highest earner among actresses, based on her checks for Pirates 3 and Atonement. It was only five years ago, of course, that we were forced to answer the question, "Who the hell is that girl?" Now she's in the stratosphere of her career.

And as far as beautiful young movie stars go, there's none that can hold a candle to Knightley in period dramas at the moment. There are better actors, yes, although she's no slouch, but can you think of anyone with her status who can look so contemporary and transforms so easily to a bygone era? She must be a costumer's dream.

Speaking of, The Duchess opens in the U.S. on September 19th, and it's a historical drama about the many loves of 18th Century aristocrat, Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire. Some critics of the film

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 7:21 AM, PDT

I'm certainly not the first to say it and I know I won't be the last: Damn...Summer Glau is hot.

The 27-year-old Texan first caught our eye in Firefly, which naturally led to Serenity, which probably had something or other to do with landing a gig on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Glau plays the terminatrix Cameron (gee, I wonder where that name came from...) and season two kicks off Monday night on Fox.

Even though we don't cover TV as a general rule, a couple of weeks ago, we shared some posters from Gossip Girl, so it's only fair to move the spotlight to another network now, right?  I mean...look at her. Can you blame us?

Summer Glau: Reason number four we should bring back Battle of the Network Stars.

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 4:28 AM, PDT

The Hollywood Reporter announced that Denzel Washington will team with Allen and Albert Hughes (Dead Presidents) for a futuristic drama called The Book of Eli. Denzel will play a lone hero who tries to save what's left of civilization after it becomes a wasteland in the near future.

Think I Am Legend without a different kind of antidote, I guess.

Denzel will co-produce the film with Alcon Entertainment, a division of Warner Bros. "This is an epic tale, a thriller set in a future uninviting yet hopeful, and its hero could not be batter [sic] suited to Denzel Washington," said Alcon brass in a statement. "The Hughes brothers will bring a bold, contemporary edge to the story and we're excited to have this be our next film."

Colin Boyd

6 September 2008 1:10 AM, PDT

Here's a pretty significant foundation for a movie disguised as political news: The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that Ohio may lose a $100 million film production to neighboring Michigan if certain incentives aren't met to keep the film in the Buckeye state. Incentives are a big deal these days; just ask Jon Favreau, who wants California to remain competitive with other states by offering studios tax breaks to shoot more in the movie capital of the world. Seems strange, but when you consider that more and more domestic and international locations are now being used instead of California, Favreau has a point.

So, too, does Ivan Schwarz of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission, who finds himself in a fight to keep a major motion picture out of Michigan, which has passed incentives - the largest in the country, in fact, at a 40% rebate.

Here's the movie: Torso, based on Cleveland's unsolved

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 11:59 PM, PDT

Undeniably, this is big news. Not because we think it could save a franchise that got off track the last time around but simply because it's improbably that, ten years after they started, Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire would want to return to Spider-Man.

Apparently, that's the deal, or so says Nikki Finke. Over at Deadline Hollywood, Finke says Sony has the go-ahead from both actor and director for Spider-Man 4, and Sony doesn't want to recast Mary Jane, even though...well...let's just say Kirsten Dunst doesn't exactly make or break this movie.

The other big news is that Sony may want Spidey 4 and 5 shot back-to-back. I would have to believe five would be it for the current incarnation of Peter Parker. Raimi is actively pursuing other things at this point and by the time a fifth movie is released, Maguire will be closing in on 40. No foolin'. Spider-Man 4

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 10:09 PM, PDT

You'll never catch me wavering on my definition of what's needed for a good movie. The first thing, the most important thing, is a good screenplay. The second thing is good performances. Together, they can cover up a whole lot of problems. So when I read in The Hollywood Reporter that the crime thrilla Bone Deep will star Paul Walker and Hayden Christensen, my first thought was, "Jesus, they better have a really good script."

The pair of actors, neither of whom will soon be mistaken for Olivier, join a cast that already includes Matt Dillon, playing "a hard-boiled detective" and Chris Brown, T.I. and Idris Elba. Walker will play the leader of a group bank robbers whose $20 million get-rich scheme is foiled by Dillon and a wet-behind-the-ears sleuth played by Christensen.

Bone Deep was co-written by its director, John Luessenhop, and is currently in pre-production.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 8:57 PM, PDT

It was indeed sad to hear that both Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes had passed away so suddenly and within 36 hours of each other. Then I learned, as many others did, that they're both in Soul Men, which opens this November.

The title is a tip of that to the song "Soul Man," of course, but how many people knew that's actually an Isaac Hayes tune? Sam & Dave performed it back in the 1960s, though to the majority of us, the version recorded by The Blues Brothers is the one stuck in our heads from time to time.

Making it all the more bittersweet is that the movie is about a pair of singers who reunite 20 years after their last performance to honor the memory of their former bandleader, who has just passed away.

There's a trailer for the film now, which co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and is directed by Spike's cousin,

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 5:46 PM, PDT

The career restructuring of Tom Cruise will continue, whether you like it or not. Cinema Blend is reporting today that they've received word from a well-placed source that DreamWorks is considering casting Tom as the villain in 2010's Shrek Goes Fourth.

I can only imagine that the studio was over the moon with his cameo in Tropic Thunder, and they might even be speculating that Cruise's career may be in full rebound mode in a couple of years. It is also believed that Shrek 4 director Mike Mitchell is something of a Cruise fan, which couldn't hurt. Expect Shrek Goes Fourth to be an origin story, of sorts, explaining how he wound up in the swamp in the first place.

My guess is he used to live somewhere much nicer until he started making movies like The Love Guru.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 2:44 PM, PDT

Bangkok Dangerous

Starring Nicolas Cage and Shahkrit Yamnarm

Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang

Rated R

You hear all the time that sex and violence in movies and television has desensitized our society, and dangerously so. We're warned about letting our children play Grand Theft Auto, meanwhile their grandparents sang along as Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. Sorry, but I don't see much difference.

Sex and violence is around us all the time and it always has been, intertwined in a way that it probably shouldn't be. Of course, Jack the Ripper never downloaded porn or watched a slasher movie, so what set him off?

On the surface, Bangkok Dangerous brings to mind those images of sex and violence, not separate but rushing together. Bangkok, as you probably know, has one of the world's most liberal sex trades - you want it, you got it.

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 1:40 PM, PDT

The Toronto Film Festival has begun, and that means big stars in huge press conferences. Among them is Gerard Butler, who was fielding questions about his new flick, the Guy Ritchie caper RocknRolla.

Of course, he wasn't just answering questions about that film. Superhero Hype! asked if Butler has been updated on the rumors of a 300 follow-up. The talk is that the movie will get another chapter, although Zack Snyder hasn't specifically said whether it will be a prequel or a sequel. Both options have their merits, to be sure.

Butler, however, doesn't seem to be making reservations for another night dining in hell.

"I've heard some backroom chatter, but nothing more, so I don't know if it would be a sequel or a prequel," Butler responded. "I don't want say anymore than that, because I really don't know. I haven't read anything. I can't see it myself--sequel for me absolutely not,

Colin Boyd

5 September 2008 10:01 AM, PDT

I didn't care for the first trailer for Jim Carrey's Yes Man. True, a lot of that is because I don't care for Jim Carrey. Nothing worse than a guy who used to succeed when he tried to be funny but now only tries harder to be funny and doesn't succeed.

Ok, there are a few things worse than that; you're right.

Still, how long has it been since we had a good Jim Carrey comedy? Bruce Almighty, if you liked that, was five summers ago. If you thought we was already at the end of his rope by that point, then you'd have to go back to The Truman Show, which was a full decade ago.

The sad thing is, I guess Carrey didn't realize that he was at his best in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which is not at all the Jim Carrey character people have grown to ignore.

Colin Boyd

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