Premiere's Movie News and Views

06.30.08: 'WALL*E' Wins the Box Office, LAFF Gets 'Wack,' 'The Women' Gets WB Push

WALL*E Beats Wanted
The big question of the weekend was, would people go see an animated flick with a nearly silent protagonist, or a butt-kickin' adventure starring Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy? Well, wonder no more, because WALL*E clanked to #1 with a weekend gross of over $62.5 million. Wanted brought up the rear with over $51.1 million, while Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway-starrer Get Smart snuck in at third $20M. Kung Fu Panda and The Incredible Hulk held steady with $11.7M and $9.2M, respectively. More at Box Office Mojo.

Rodriguez Revives 'Red Sonja', 'The Dark Knight's "A Thunderbolt About To Rip Into… Summer Movies"

With their Barbarella remake mired in what’s likely to be a long residence in development purgatory, director Robert Rodriguez and Rose McGowan are trading comic-book heroines, eyeing up a new big-screen adventure for flame-haired glamazon Red Sonja instead. After playing the one-legged, gun-leg heroine in Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, McGowan brought Rodriguez a Sonja script she rated and he bit at the chance to wipe out - for those of us who've seen it - painful memories of Brigitte Nielsen wielding the barbarian-babe’s sword in the dismal 1985 version. Both claim they’ve never seen the original and have no intention of doing so before bringing their new Sonja to the big screen in 2010.

06.27.08: 'Titans' Vs. 'Gods': It’s Clash Of The Greek Epics

Hollywood loves doing things in twos, so naturally when you hear about one big, fat Greek epic in the pipeline, another one is bound to be close behind. Sure enough, The Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier has been announced as the director for Warner Bros.’ Clash Of The Titans remake, written by Lawrence Kasdan, while Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) has been recruited to War Of Gods, a mythological tale set in war-wracked ancient Greece in which warrior prince Theseus joins with the gods to battle demons and titans. The Titans reboot is shedding the camp vibe of the 1981 original, in which Laurence Olivier hammed it up as Zeus and Harry Hamlin gave smouldering looks (in Zoolander parlance, plenty of Blue Steel) while battling Ray Harryhausen-designed critters like Medusa and the Kraken. Both new films intend to deploy the greenscreen techniques that buffed up 300 into a ravishing visual experience. War Of Gods, in fact, is being spearheaded by 300 producers Gianni Nunnari and Mark Canton.

06.26.08: Actors Prepare To Strike, Parker Climbing 'The Ivy Chronicles'

Lots of saber-rattling between the producers and actors over the last few weeks, which I’ve been following but not reporting on because, well, frankly, it’s all been a little bit dull. But it’s about to get interesting because D-Day is imminent: Monday’s the deadline for ratifying a new deal between the Screen Actors Guild (in a movie, they’d be the good guys – even their multi-millionaire A-lister members, who only make up a tiny sliver of the 120,000-strong membership) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (the cigar-chomping, roost-ruling bad guys – not that we’re prone to stereotyping). If it doesn’t happen by Monday, the Screen Actors Guild will order its members to down tools and we’ll be back where we were a few months ago when the writers went on strike. The New York Times has a feature about how Hollywood’s girding itself for the chill winds to come.

06.25.08: Spielberg Follows '39 Clues', Tarantino Finishes 'Inglorious Bastards'

Steven Spielberg’s company DreamWorks – who are in the midst of setting themselves up with a billion-dollar credit line from an Indian conglomerate so they can declare their independence from overlords Paramount – has snapped up the rights to The 39 Clues, a multiplatform adventure series launching this fall. Clues is planned as a 10-book series that will be released over two years, with collectible cards and an online game that supplies readers with clues to solving a mystery and winning the tidy sum of ten grand. Focusing on a hugely powerful family, the Cahills, who are related to Houdini and Napoleon, readers have to find the source of their power. DreamWorks wants it as a franchise, Spielberg’s eyeing it up as a directing vehicle.

06.24.08: Borat Joins The Academy, Hilary Duff Gets 'Cool'

Every year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (you know, the Oscar folk) invites a select few new faces to join their 6000-strong membership. Oscar nominees get an automatic in and so, it would appear, do spoof Kazakhstani journalists with obnoxious intentions. Sacha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, is on this year’s exclusive list, as are Josh Brolin, Jet Li and Diablo Cody.

Robert Carlyle Talks '24: The Movie'

I caught up with Robert Carlyle over the weekend at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The Scottish star of The Full Monty and 28 Weeks Later has two films in the festival: Stone Of Destiny, the true story of four students who steal the eponymous, symbolic stone (pilfered by Edward I back in 1296 to bolster English rule over the Scots) from Westminster Abbey and return it to Scotland, and Summer, in which he gives an outstanding performance as a thwarted man who's spent his entire adult life caring for his paraplegic best friend. More on those films in future but when I spoke to Carlyle, he was fresh off a plane from South Africa where he's spent the last four weeks shooting his role in 24: The Movie, in which he plays an old friend from Jack Bauer's past who reputedly becomes his nemesis. Not that Carlyle was about to admit to it - here's what he had to say, before threatening that he'd have to break my fingers if pushed to reveal any more. I believed him...

Where were you shooting in South Africa?
We were in the Stellenbosch region, the wine country. It was doubling for jungle in the fictional country of Sangala.

Who's your character in 24?
My character's called Carl Benton who is Jack Bauer's best buddy and he hasn't seen him for 10 years or something. Jack's on his travels and he comes to see Carl and hang out with him and potentially change his life. Maybe...

Is the movie sticking to the TV show's real-time format?
It is. This two hours is two hours in real time and there'll then be 22 episodes. I don't know how they connect it to the first of those 22 episodes but it's literally the third hour...

So it will lead straight into the new series?
Yeah.

Will you be in the series as well?
We don't know. I can't tell you anymore or Jack Bauer'll come and kill me. And you.

06.23.08: 'Get Smart' Comes Out No. 1, Stallone Goes Bollywood

Get Smart ruled the box office over the weekend, grossing $39.1 million to take the top spot, while the expected challenge from The Love Guru faded fast as Mike Myers’ karma-com only whipped up $14 million. That’s one on the chin for Myers and his studio Paramount – it could be back to the comedy-character drawing board unless Guru pulls that sneaky Austin Powers trick of opening limply (the original AP only nabbed $9.5 million its opening weekend) before gaining traction. But unlike Guru, AP wasn't entirely massacred by critics... Get Smart, on the other hand, now has healthy franchise potential if it can keep its oomph over the next few weeks. And Steve Carell is undoubtedly breathing a sigh of relief after last summer’s bloated turkey Evan Almighty. Shoving Guru into fourth place were brawny holdovers The Incredible Hulk and Kung Fu Panda, with the latter keeping its No. 2 spot with $21.7 million to bring its total up to $155.6 million and the former harvesting $21.5 million for a $96.5 million tally in its first 10 days.

06.20.08: Comedy Clash: 'Get Smart' Vs. 'The Love Guru', Bacon Joins 'The One And Only'

Seems a bit foolhardy pitting two of the summer’s big comedies against each other the same weekend but that’s what Warner Bros. and Paramount are doing with their respective tentpoles Get Smart and The Love Guru. Warner Bros.’ spy spoof starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway has the edge, but both Get Smart and Guru, Mike Myers’ latest attempt to manufacture a beloved comedy icon in loopy self-help maven Guru Pitka, will be swimming against the tide of bash-happy reviews. A.O. Scott of The New York Times has witheringly branded Guru, “downright antifunny, an experience that makes you wonder if you will ever laugh again”, while The Hollywood Reporter wonders whether “Guru will out-awful Get Smart.”

06.19.08: Miller Is Maid Marian In 'Nottingham', 'The Edge Of Love' Premieres In Edinburgh

Sienna Miller will play Maid Marian opposite Russell Crowe’s Sheriff of Nottingham in Nottingham, Ridley Scott’s revisionist overhaul of the Robin Hood legend, in which Crowe's Sheriff is a noble lawman struggling under the rule of a corrupt king and Robin’s a forest-dwelling hood. In time-honoured Hood tradition, Miller will bounce back and forth in a love triangle between the duelling duo.