You may not love Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, or that two-bit scene-chewer Abigail Breslin, but would a chance encounter with the movie star you hate -- or an afternoon, a dinner, an evening -- change that judgment?
Following the bombshell news that Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child out of wedlock, his estranged wife Maria Shriver has issued comment on the matter. "This is a painful and heartbreaking time," said Shriver in a statement. "As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment." [THR]
Because it's Tuesday, it's time for news about another planned Hollywood remake. The latest? The 1988 Jean-Claude Van Damme pre-ultimate fighting fighting film Bloodsport, which ScreenDaily reports director Phillip Noyce will shepherd back to the big screen with help from writer Robert Mark Kamen (The Karate Kid, Taken). Before you bemoan the fact that one of the key VHS rentals from your youth will be updated for today's audiences, let's consider five actors who could make this particular update worth fighting for.
When the credits role on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in July, Warner Bros. will be out of the magic business -- but not for long. Faster than you can scream, "Accio, a new wizarding franchise!" the studio has commissioned a screenplay for an origin story -- and possible franchise -- about Merlin.
Also in this Tuesday edition of The Broadsheet: Get ready for two versions of Arabian Knights (sort of)... Gasper Noe and Bret Easton Ellis could team up... Jean-Claude Van Damme gets sued... and more ahead.
The reason Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver split up has finally come into focus: The former governor fathered a child with a member of their household staff.
Something tells me that when you were playing Nintendo Duck Hunt back in '87, you never thought to yourself: "This is a true work of art that enhances the public good." Nearly 25 years later though, that is exactly what the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts is saying about Duck Hunt's sophisticated spawn by allowing the medium to be recognized as a legitimate art form that deserves federal funding.
Horror remakes and sequels are a dime a dozen, but low-budget flicks like Paranormal Activity have boosted interest in making yet more moneymakers, no matter how redundant they sound on paper. Enter The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes, a new "found footage" sequel to the classic horror pic that will shoot this summer for a January 2012 release. What say you, Movieliners? Will this familiar concept be drawn thin or reinvigorated by the whole "found footage" shtick?
And now for a scoop from 1936 that'll make James Cameron dance: Apparently Nazis may have used "a twin-camera Zeiss Ikon system" to film Olympic sensation Jesse Owens, whose athletic dominance was especially powerful in pre-WWII Berlin. The 3-D technology was employed to accurately declare winners in footraces. That strikes me as pretty amazing footage -- or at least an above-average Reebok commercial. [Variety]
The Black Swan money train keeps picking up dollar bills. The Darren Aronofsky film opened in Japan over the weekend, and the $6.1 million earned there pushed Swan over the $300 million plateau in worldwide receipts. Not bad for a $12-million budgeted psychological drama about a ballerina. Wonder why this one struck a chord with so many? [Deadline]
Yabba-dabba-reboot! Seth McFarlane -- the mad genius behind Family Guy -- has been given the go ahead to bring Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones back to television in 2013. Deadline reports the deal as having future possible film components as well, so let's just clear the air right now and promise to never forget the abomination that was the 1994 live-action Flintstones movie. After the jump, a sneak peek at what it'll be like when McFarlane gets his hands on Fred and Barney, Family Guy-style.
The MMA sequel Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown has a new trailer, and it's got everything: Topless young men getting sweaty in the gym, winsome love interests who may or may not be strippers, at least one slo-mo jump-punch, and plenty of Michael Jai White, who co-stars as an aging MMA veteran-slash-mentor and makes his directorial debut. "Why exactly are you in this thing?" asks a comely young lady. "I need this," answers Beefy Never Back Down 2 Ingénue #4. Don't we know it.
May 16 marks the 21st anniversary of Jim Henson's death, so I hope you've recovered emotionally from that jarring new photo of the Muppets; you'll need to be in peak spiritual condition to survive the following clip without withering into a pile of tears. In 1990, soon after Henson died of a streptococcal infection at age 53, his Muppeteer colleagues helped stage a magnificent memorial that culminated with a giant medley of his favorite songs. It's tortuously gorgeous.
According to ScreenDaily, Matt Dillon has been cast opposite Malin Akerman in Matthew Wilder's Inferno, one of the two dueling Linda Lovelace projects currently in development. He'll play Chuck Traynor, the abusive husband of Lovelace who allegedly forced her into porn. James Franco is in discussions to play the same role in the other Lovelace project, fittingly titled Lovelace. [ScreenDaily]
Roger Ebert today takes his sequel angst to Newsweek, where the beloved critic inveighed once more against the slow, suffocating death of original, sophisticated projects for grown-ups coming out of Hollywood. Of course the End of Ideas at the movies is nothing especially new, nor is the migration that Ebert cites of filmmaking talents like Mike Nichols, Barry Levinson and Todd Haynes -- to say nothing of actors like Al Pacino and Kate Winslet -- to the more expansive narrative climes of premium cable TV. But here's a somewhat radical idea: What if, at the end of the year, we held theatrical films to the standard of the made-for-TV movies that have often surpassed them?
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