Stay close to your radios (or iTunes, or whatever) Monday, because Christopher Walken is going to dazzle your ears with a guest-hosting appearance on The Leonard Lopate Show. The gig stems from an exchange the pair had during a Walken appearance last March; the Oscar-winner has since booked his Broadway co-star Zoe Kazan, stage director Jack O'Brien and Lidia Bastianich -- "a chef and friend from his childhood neighborhood, Astoria, Queens." Love it. The broadcast gets underway Aug. 16 at noon EDT from the studios of WNYC. Happy listening! [NPR]
Also in this morning's Hollywood Ink: Kenny Ortega won't direct the Justin Bieber movie... Warner Bros. decides it needs another franchise... Universal almost sank Battleship... and more ahead.
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Happy Friday the 13th! No, really: Even the most superstitious among us can get lucky at the movies this weekend, as Hollywood comes at us from virtually all angles and the best film of the year to date begins its gradual American art-house invasion. Everything seems to be going about as well as you can expect from this date, at least so far; read on for the forecast of how these might make rain at the box office.
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· Mad Men's John Slattery, who plays hopelessly sexist and nefariously hilarious Roger Sterling, directed this Sunday's episode of Mad Men. It's his first, and in it, he gets to force Pete Campbell into a "personal dilemma." Our favorite kind. Dig a mysterious preview photo after the jump. [Cinema Blend]
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Relativity isn't wasting any time clearing out Overture's closets after the studio's acquisition last month: According to a statement, the long-delayed Topher Grace/Anna Faris comedy Kids in America and the less-but-sort-of-delayed Bradley Cooper/Robert De Niro thriller The Dark Fields will arrive in theaters March 4 and March 18 respectively. In a service deal this Dec. 10, Relativity will also distribute the American-set martial arts Western The Warrior's Way, featuring Dong-gun Jang and co-staring Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush and Danny Houston. Get him, Geoffrey! [Relativity Media]
This has probably been promised before, but come on. This is a Sylvester Stallone promise we're talking about here, casually dropped while promoting The Expendables, so anything goes. That said, considering he already has Expendables 2 in mind, and he is 64 years old, maybe he means it: You have seen the last of Rocky Balboa and John Rambo.
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In another era, Harvey Weinstein would have forcibly pulled a PG-13 from the backs of the MPAA ratings board members' throats if he had to. Not so much today, when he and the makers of the documentary The Tillman Story saw its R-rating upheld for "excessive language." So, for the record: F-bombs delivered either in a sexual context or one in which your own troops fatally shoot you? Automatic "R." Are we clear? [The Wrap]
Every time a new project gets added to Ryan Reynolds's potential to-do list -- including a Green Lantern sequel, R.I.P.D., and the Denzel Washington thriller Safe House -- Robert Liefeld dies a little death on Twitter. You see, Liefeld the creator of comic-book character Deadpool, the character Reynolds played in X-Men: Wolverine and will hopefully play in a spinoff -- that is, if Liefeld can beg someone to make it.
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After following the marketing campaign for Piranha 3D and then watching the Comic-Con footage of a wet-T-shirt-contest-turned-blood-bath that features -- among other atrocities -- a busty woman getting her hair caught in a boat propeller (it doesn't end well), a busty woman getting cut in half by an errant wire, and a busty woman getting bitten on the ass by a giant killer piranha, you would have been well within your rights to assume the entire film was going to be some sexist exploitation of the female body. Not so! And the proof is in a flying penis.
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· Before Helen Mirren went bubble-scavenging for Russell Brand's rubber ducky, the two starred together in Julie Taymor's finally-coming-out adaptation of The Tempest. Click through for a bigger look at the poster, and more Buzz Break.
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MTV's journalists did the hard work of asking Eat, Pray, Love's cast about Jersey Shore's similarly punctuated mantra "Gym, Tan, Laundry," and Julia Roberts didn't mind acting like a giant grenade and refusing any knowledge of such a Confucian concept. It's Entitled Caucasian Women vs. Fistpumping Umber Humanoids in a battle of spiritual superiority, and the ladies just racked up a big point.
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If you've turned on the television at all this week -- or, gasp, read a newspaper! -- the chances are good you've familiarized yourself with Steven Slater. Or, as you might know him: The JetBlue Guy. His crazypants story -- cursing out an unruly passenger and then exiting the plane via the inflatable emergency exit slide -- has become a rallying cry for an unhappy culture of worker bees. Naturally, a movie has to come next, right? Ahead, Movieline picks five directors who would best bring Slater's story to life.
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So what does Jorge Garcia think of the fact that Weezer put his face on the cover of their album, Hurley, which they named after his Lost character? "This is really close to the top, for sure," he told MTV. "I think the [Lost] action figure still kind of trumps it, but just coming from where I come from, it's extremely special and dear to my heart that this is actually happening." Dear to his heart because he's such a big fan of the band, right? Well, sort of. "I don't recognize Maladroit so much," he admitted, laughing. [MTV]
The weekly roll-out of vintage Movieline continues today with a look at 1991 -- that year when fashion began its incremental climb to respectability (on second thought, maybe not), Robert Downey Jr. was on his first term of fame, and taking down Pretty Woman felt like a political act. Oh, and River Phoenix paid us a visit as well. It was a good year! Read on for a few more highlights.
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Young Adult is already lining itself up as a major Oscar 2012 contender before a frame of film is shot: It's written by Diablo Cody, will be directed by Jason Reitman and currently has Charlize Theron attached in the lead role, a 30-something writer who returns to her hometown to stalk an ex-boyfriend. And who might that boyfriend be? Try Josh Brolin. According to Roger Friedman (salt grain), the Oscar-nominee is circling the project. Yes, please. [Showbiz 411]
