In high school, my friend Monica would sit behind me in class and draw pictures of cockeyed old men in wizard hats with patchy chest hair and scary, idiotic grins. It was weird and unsettling and hilarious (and I should be ashamed for encouraging it), but that was the point. In the case of the new Puss In Boots poster, we get all of that unrestrained, ambiguous sexuality, but with little of the winking creepiness. It's just creepy -- the way a strutting cat with a sincere stare in jaunty boots ought to be, frankly.
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With a whopping $489.1 million global box office take under its belt, surely Warner Bros. could afford to settle its legal dispute with the tattoo artist who copyrighted Mike Tyson's tribal face design that Ed Helms sports in The Hangover Part II. And while details are hazy on WB's dealings with said artist, it appears that the beef has now been "amicably resolved." No digital erase-job for the DVD release! Creative copyright ostensibly protected! Happy endings for all! [The Wrap]
Did you spend long nights tossing and turning in bed after seeing Pixar's 2006 animated feature film Cars -- asking yourself answer-less questions like, "Why are there sidewalks in a film world where humans don't exist?" Or, "Where do baby cars come from?" Was your mind blown when you heard that this weekend's Cars 2 introduces dinosaurs into its 21st century carscape? If so, you are not alone. Box Office Magazine was also troubled by these existential Cars queries and sat down with Pixar head John Lasseter to get some answers.
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With Transformers: Dark of the Moon exploding into theaters at the end of June, what better time than now for GQ to take a look back at the career of Michael Bay. The complete oral history of Bay appears in the July issue of the magazine -- fingers crossed for some serious Bad Boys 2 coverage! -- and a new online excerpt reveals exactly why Megan Fox was fired from the threequel at the start of production last May. Hint: It had something to do with those Hitler comments.
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Not a week after his Mad Men colleague John Slattery told Movieline he envied Jon Hamm's forays into film farce, Hamm himself is weighing in on his potential for a career in comedies. He was hilarious in Bridesmaids, and hilariously hard-boiled (thanks to that "gritty" dialogue) in The Town -- so why he shouldn't he ready for marquee funny roles?
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You know that report about Darren Aronofsky wanting to spend $130 million on an "edgy retelling" of Noah's Ark? Well, he's really serious! In a new interview with IFC.com, the Black Swan director gave a few more details about his biblical dream project.
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Isa Dick Hackett, daughter of Philip K. Dick and chief executive of Electric Shepherd Productions, is currently overseeing a number of her late father's works to the big screen. One of them is Ubik, Dick's 1969 science fiction novel about a group of people experiencing strange shifts in reality in a future where psionic powers are widespread and the lines between life and death are blurred -- and Hackett's confident that Michel Gondry is the filmmaker for the job.
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Before Twilight, Summit Entertainment was a small studio you never heard of; Open Road is hoping to follow the same path. The distribution company founded by AMC and Regal Theaters has acquired Stephenie Meyer's The Host, which has Saoirse Ronan already lined up as star in a dual-role. Andrew Niccol is set to direct. Twi-hards, get excited! [Deadline]
Here's the official alphabetical listing of Woody Allen's Bop Decameron (which took a cue from Movieline when adding Ellen Page a couple months ago): Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page. The minor cast includes Antonio Albanese, Fabio Armiliata, Alessandra Mastronardi, Ornella Muti, Flavio Parenti, Alison Pill, Riccardo Scamarcio and Alessandro Tiberi. Is this the post-2000 Woody Allen cast of everyone's dreams?
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With Green Lantern out in theaters, interest in Robert Smigel's lost script for a comedic take on the ring-wearing superhero has begun anew. The former Saturday Night Live writer and hand behind Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog wrote the film with Jack Black in mind back in 2004, but Warner Bros. scuttled the planned adaptation -- perhaps, in part, because of fan outrage on the Internet toward a less-than-faithful take. Not that Smigel has any hard feelings.
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· How bad do the editors of The Onion want to win a Pulitzer Prize? So bad that they started a new nonprofit advocacy group to campaign for the award (Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes), and enlisted Larry Crowne star Tom Hanks to film a video for their cause. Hanx! Click through to watch the double Oscar winner's impassioned plea, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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Disney has just announced a new, mystery Pixar project. Due in theaters in 2013, all we know is that the film will be an original feature and not a sequel. So go ahead and mark these Pixar-related dates down on your calendar: June 24 (Cars 2); June 22, 2012 (Brave); June 21, 2013 (Monsters University); and now Nov. 27, 2013 (Untitled Original Pixar Project). Exciting! [Deadline]
The Internet was abuzz with speculation last week about what exactly Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was planning with the mysterious new website Pottermore. Another Potter tome? An encyclopedia? An online role-playing game? A theme park? Well, whatever Pottermore turns out to be, count Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe among those not interested in seeing more adventures of the Boy Who Lived.
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Sad news to pass along: TMZ reports that Jackass star Ryan Dunn was killed along with another passenger in a car accident in Pennsylvania early Monday morning. Dunn appeared in all three Jackass theatrical films, as well as Jackass 3.5. The 34-year-old tweeted a picture of himself seemingly out at a bar with friends in the hours before the crash. UPDATE: Police say excessive speed contributed to the crash. Said MTV in a statement: "We are devastated by the tragic loss of Ryan Dunn - a beloved member of the MTV family for more than a decade." [TMZ, NBC/Philadelphia]
Of all the 2011 summer blockbusters once thought too big to fail, Green Lantern probably sat upon the least stable foundation going into opening weekend. Featuring a mid-eschelon comics hero played by box-office cipher Ryan Reynolds, the CGI and marketing budgets soared even as buzz maintained below that of fellow comic-book/graphic novel adaptations Thor, X-Men: First Class, and the forthcoming Cowboys and Aliens and Captain America -- to say nothing of the lingering word-of-mouth around Super 8 or the global hype accompanying next week's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Then came the reviews, and then came the fizzle -- not a failure outright, but with an estimated $350 million (or more) tied up in the franchise hopeful, we all join Warner Bros. this morning in asking, "What's next?"
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