On Friday, July 14, 2000, Bryan Singer's X-Men earned $20.7 million at the box office, on the way toward an opening weekend of $54 million. Just shy of eleven years later, Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class earned $21 million on Friday night, and should be on course for an opening frame totaling $53 million. Symmetry! Elsewhere, The Hangover Part II dropped 65 percent from Friday to Friday, but the record-breaking sequel still earned $11 million last night. That kind of scratch buys plenty of smoking monkeys. Your Friday box office is here.
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A short holiday week didn't mean we could let up with the coverage at Movieline HQ; there was just to much to see, too much know, too much to gawk at in baffled amazement. (Micheal Fassbender and Zoe Kravitz, we're looking at you.) And it doesn't stop here! We'll be around all weekend with box-office dispatches and news from both the MTV Movie and Guys' Choice Awards. Keep us company, and either way, have a splendid weekend!
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It has been an eventful casting week for Paul Thomas Anderson's untitled religious drama. First, Friday Night Lights star Jesse Plemons joined the project as Philip Seymour Hoffman's onscreen son. Then Amy Adams was cast as the wife of Hoffman's pseudo-Scientological religious leader. And today, Variety reports that Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part II actor Rami Malek has been tapped to play Hoffman's onscreen son-in-law. Congratulations to all members of P.T. Anderson's latest onscreen family. [Variety]
Disney's California Adventure amusement park, located right next door to Disneyland, is in the middle of a $1 billion renovation. The first major addition is a new "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure" ride, which opened yesterday with the help of Ariel's original voice actress Jodi Benson, who performed "Part of Your World" for parkgoers. The ride whisks passengers past scenes from the movie and concludes with an as-yet-undisclosed "surprise ending." What could that surprise be? We have nine guesses.
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With The Hobbit -- excuse me, The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey -- a year and a half away from hitting screens, what's a LOTRer to do with all that free time? If you're a West Coast Middle-earther, circle your calendar for October 2011 when the live Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring concert tour hits, performing Howard Shore's award-winning score in tandem with a digital screening of the film.
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He's barely been a member of Twitter for a week, yet Alec Baldwin is already a must-follow celebrity on the social networking platform. When he isn't tweeting political rhetoric ("Can Weiner still be Mayor in 2013?" or "Looking to me to be Romney-Pawlenty" as examples), the 30 Rock star is giving updates from the set of Rock of Ages. What kind of scintillating details does Baldwin have to offer the masses?
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ZOMG, Twi-hards: The first teaser trailer for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 is set to hit the web this Sunday, June 5 after it debuts during the MTV Movie Awards. Check back Sunday to squeeee over the trailer with your friends at Movieline, and follow along on Twitter at @Movieline as we livetweet the MTV Movie Awards red carpet! [IMDB]
Gone are the days when Shockwave seemed like one of the lamer Decepticons in the Transformers universe, and fans may have Michael Bay to thank for it. According to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Shockwave's been given a facelift for Transformers: Dark of the Moon -- and if you've seen the trailers, you've already seen his handy new upgrade.
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In honor of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's racy new one-sheet, let's all enjoy The Frisky's NSFW trip down smutty-poster memory lane. I'm sure there are a few missing -- both the censored and uncensored Battle in Heaven posters come to mind -- but it gets the job done. Which, let's face it, is a lot to be said for a Friday afternoon. [The Frisky]
Just a month shy of The Smurfs' cinematic premiere date, startling new information has come to light about the cerulean creatures: They are smurfholes. According to author Antoine Buéno's upcoming book Le Petit Livre Bleu (The Little Blue Book), Belgian cartoonist Peyo's Smurf Village is not a delightful commune of azure munchkins, but "the embodiment of a totalitarian utopia, steeped in Stalinism and Nazism." Oh! Wait until you hear what he has to say about the implications of Shylock -- er, Gargamel.
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Move over, Twilight. At the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night, Emma Watson will reportedly introduce a brand new clip from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. No truth to the rumor that it will be a video flipbook of the recent spate of Harry Potter character posters, however. Accio, jokes! [Aol]
Gentleman-thug enforcer Martin Donovan has been sent to bring loner James Franco to his boss, slick gangster Josh Lucas, in NYU professor Jay Anania's indie drama Shadows & Lies. But Franco's eating a sandwich, and you don't want to bother Franco when he's eating a sandwich. "Are you muscling me?" asks Franco's William Vincent. "You'd know if I was," replies Donovan. Watch Movieline's exclusive clip after the jump.
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In X-Men: First Class, Kevin Bacon assumes the role of Sebastian Shaw, a villainous scientist hellbent on world domination. How did Bacon transform himself onscreen from a small-town teen who just wants to dance to sneering supervillain in the sexiest comic-based film yet? You can always trace a direct line through a few important roles to illustrate what led to an actor's current success. As such, let's look at nine pivotal performances that track the evolution of Kevin Bacon.
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· With a cast of hot stars like Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Johnson, and some highly-respected veterans like Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, Uma Thurman and John Travolta, the Oliver Stone-directed adaptation of Don Winslow's Savages is already getting big buzz. Yet judging from the Moby Award-winning-worst book trailer for the novel, Stone has his work cut out for him. Click ahead to watch the badness, then stick around for more Buzz Break.
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Everyone knows that conventional multiplex projection is one of the most technically bankrupt stages of the modern film industry, but some people still take it seriously. Among them: Terrence Malick, arguably cinema's reigning perfectionist and reportedly a recent penpal to projectionists screening his latest dazzler, The Tree of Life.
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