Also in this Thursday edition of The Broadsheet: Warner Bros. sets some very important dates... Jerry Lewis is done with the MDA... Faye Dunaway is not getting evicted, says Faye Dunaway... and more ahead.
Rumor has it that this week the apes will rise. So in honor of our primate cousins and their varied achievements on film, Movieline will honor one great movie ape/monkey/chimp each day who embodies an admirable quality found in monkeykind. Today we're commemorating an orangutan trained as a jewel thief who butts heads with Jason Alexander, Faye Dunaway, Paul Reubens, and Rupert Everett. He is Dunston of Dunston Checks In, and he'll coax you into adoration -- using his bare hands.
There's been a nasty rumor circulating around Hollywood the past few weeks that a Sex and the City prequel is in the works with Blake Lively, Selena Gomez, Emma Roberts and Elizabeth Olsen in the lead roles. About that: the series's executive producer Michael Patrick King responded to the rumors and set the record straight.
Sad news: According to an L.A. Times report, former NFL all-pro defensive end and actor Bubba Smith passed away this week at the age of 66. Smith was reportedly found deceased in his Los Angeles home, likely having succumbed to natural causes. While known for his outstanding pro-football career in the '60s and '70s, Smith followed sports stardom by transitioning into an acting career highlighted by his iconic turn as the gentle florist-turned-cop, Moses Hightower, in all but one of the Police Academy films.
Party like it's 2005! According to a Facebook posting from Exhibitor Relations, Margaret -- Kenneth Lonergan's long, long, long, long, long delayed follow-up to You Can Count on Me -- will arrive in theaters on Sept. 30 via Fox Searchlight. The film stars Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Allison Janney, and Anna Paquin, and deals with the aftermath of a tragic school bus accident. [Facebook]
Death continues to wreak fateful havoc in the lives of doomed young persons in next week's Final Destination 5 (Death doesn't like to be cheated... out of an opportunity to rake in more money!), but who knows what inventive, grotesque kills await? Play Movieline's "Guess the Death" and take a stab (ding!) at predicting how each of the film's cast members (including Emma Bell, Tony Todd, and David Koechner) will meet their maker, based on clues found in these five new stills.
Before Captain America: First Avenger was released in July, much was made about how the title -- and title character in his red, white and blue -- would play in foreign markets. In fact, three countries (Russia, Ukraine and South Korea) even decided to release the film with the Marvel-approved shortened title The First Avenger. Following a successful showing stateside, good ol' Cap made his worldwide debut in many big foreign markets over the weekend; as the numbers trickle in, it looks he's got some pretty enthusiastic allies.
Two and a half years ago, Universal announced that Clue was getting a big-screen revamp in the form of a global caper directed by Gore Verbinski. Well, most of that information remains true: Clue, Gore Verbinski, and globetrotting are all part of the picture, but Universal has dropped the property in favor of its other board game-based projects like Candy Land, Battleship, Ouija, and the Taylor Lautner-attached Stretch Armstrong. Now, here's what makes Clue different than other board games -- at least in my eyes: It rules, and those properties don't. In order to protect the valor of Clue, Movieline is offering three ways for the film to retain the sinister cool of its original film and game(s). Frankly, Miss Scarlet, we give a damn.
· As if your crush on Mila Kunis wasn't big enough, the Friends With Benefits star used fluent Russian during a press conference last week to dress down a female reporter who wondered why Justin Timberlake stopped being a musician. Sure, you could deduct points from Kunis's badass scorecard because she was actually born in the Ukraine -- thus making her Russian language skills slightly less impressive -- but don't be a hater. Click ahead to watch, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
I have disturbing news about those countless movies in which pairs of characters switch bodies and walk two moons in each others' Reeboks: They're often good! Seriously. From Big and Vice Versa to the Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday remake and the Katherine Heigl TV movie Wish Upon a Star, the switcheroo trope is a proven success model. There are exceptions, of course -- such as Like Father, Like Son and The Hot Chick -- but it's hard to screw up a formula that forces its stars to go so broad. Then there's 17 Again, which forces its stars (including switcheroo movie The Change-Up's Leslie Mann) into a story about grim adulthood and Zac Efron hair. It's bad with Garnier succulence!
The gods of cinema and/or the slow news day have smiled on film buffs worldwide with the discovery of The White Shadow, a long-lost silent 1923 melodrama by a young director named Alfred Hitchcock. It's no Vertigo, but hopes are that it'll help us determine how The Master got there.
Another day, another billion dollar smash out of Hollywood. On the heels of the worldwide success of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Paramount announced that Transformers: Dark of the Moon has crossed the billion dollar threshold as well. Not only is Dark of the Moon the first film in the franchise to hit that mark, it's also the first film in the history of Paramount to reach such lofty financial heights. Congratulations, Michael Bay! Blow something up in celebration. [Deadline]
Also in this Wednesday edition of The Broadsheet: Laurence Fishburne is Perry White in Man of Steel... Paul Schrader and Bret Easton Ellis team up for the feel-good movie of the year (guessing)... Alec Baldwin will host the season premiere of Saturday Night Live... and more ahead.
Big news on the Gotti front of the non-legal variety: Fiore Films has just announced that Ben Foster has signed on to star in Barry Levinson's star-studded crime family biopic, Gotti: In The Shadow Of My Father as John Gotti Jr. opposite John Travolta and Al Pacino. The project will be a reunion for Levinson and Foster, who worked together on the 1999 period drama Liberty Heights.
Rumor has it that this week the apes will rise. So in honor of our primate cousins and their varied achievements on film, Movieline will honor one great movie ape/monkey/chimp each day who embodies an admirable quality found in monkeykind. Today, we look to the fearsome potential in the primate race, as embodied by Ella in George Romero's 1988 horror pic Monkey Shines. Who is at fault when a monkey kills... for her master?
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