Oh God, indeed. According to Deadline, uber-producer Jerry Weintraub has just pitched Warner Bros. on the idea of remaking the George Burns comedy Oh God, with eyes on Betty White and Paul Rudd for the staring roles made famous by Burns and John Denver. The two haven't been contacted yet, but no matter: Now that this is in the ether, how long before it actually happens? And worse: Doesn't it feel totally uninspired? If the current Hollywood mandate states that Betty White must appear in everything, here are five movies better suited for her than a remake of Oh God.
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If Mel Gibson's first audiotaped rant to emerge from the bowels of tabloid-breakup hell was not toxic enough for you, have a listen to the eight-minute dance remix that debuted today. Ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva surreptitiously recorded the actor-producer-director in a meltdown to end all meltdowns -- which honestly, for much of the tape, sounds like just what you'd expect from a guy who acknowledges having "left my wife because we have no spiritual common ground," and then shacked up with the kind of person who would leak a tape of him going nuts after things went poorly between them. Anyone would be pissed! And then comes the final minute, and this kind of changes everything.
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The bargain bins of your local record store (assuming you still have one!) are littered with vanity albums released by movie stars who decided what they'd really rather be is a rock star. Fortunately, there are some actors who get that impulse out the way the rest of us do: through karaoke. In honor of a newly unearthed clip of Jude Law singing his heart out, here are six stars who are fiends for karaoke:
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Javier Bardem may have jumped the gun last week when he announced that he would "rock the house" on a season two episode of Glee, since both 20th Century Fox and Cory Monteith hadn't yet heard about the casting coup, but now creator Ryan Murphy is confirming the rumor: "[That's] something we'll probably do in the first half of the season." As for the possibility that Murphy will reunite with his other Oscar-winning _Eat, Pray, Love_star, he said, "No, Julia [Roberts] will not be doing the show." [Access Hollywood]
You won't like Edward Norton when he's conciliatory. Fresh off a weekend of he said/he said mudslinging, the erstwhile green menace has apparently decided to act like Bruce Banner even though he can't play him. Norton has taken to Facebook to post a note to his fans -- many of whom apparently actually cared for The Incredible Hulk -- expressing regret that he'll lay down the tattered purple sweats in The Avengers. After the jump, take a look Norton's mannered and utterly vanilla response and imagine a world where the casting decisions for a Marvel feature don't take up 72 hours of your time.
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· I mean, that's what I'm getting from this still from the upcoming comedy It's Kind of a Funny Story. You?
· Showtime has slated its Matt LeBlanc comedy Episodes and the William H. Macy-toplined Shameless for January.
· This isn't quite the summer of Adrien Brody: Despite the big Predators intake this past weekend, his thriller The Experiment is going straight to DVD.
· Joe Jonas will guest star on Hot in Cleveland as Valerie Bertinelli's son.
· Tom Colicchio wants to be more of a bear icon: "I was on Andy Cohen's show on Bravo and said I was mad at the bear community," he told the Dallas Voice. "The gay Pride parade was going on, and no one had asked me to be on a float." Fortunately, he's now booked to ride on a bear float in next year's parade in Los Angeles.
Comics legend and movie inspiration Harvey Pekar has died at his home in Cleveland. He was 70. He came to cult prominence in the '70s with his slice-of-(misanthropic) life comic American Splendor, which was adapted in 2003 as an acclaimed film starring Paul Giamatti in confrontational, gravel-voiced anti-hero mode as Pekar. His cause of death is not known at present, but Pekar had recently suffered a range of ailments from prostate cancer to asthma. Oy. Things could be better right now for Cleveland! RIP. [NYT]
God bless Gerard Butler's agent, who is nothing if not relentless. Despite a seeming lack of fans and/or likeability, the burly Scottish actor has what seems like an unending stream of generically titled films playing in a permanent loop. Quick: Tell me the difference between The Bounty Hunter, Law Abiding Citizen, Gamer and The Ugly Truth without resorting to IMDb. While you attempt to suss those out, remember that Butler also has Machine Gun Preacher in the works, too. That film was supposed to be a more serious-minded affair: Based on the true story of Sam Childers, a former drug dealing biker who found God and rescued a bunch of Sudanese children. As Marty McFly would say: Heavy. But then why does the first look of Butler-as-Childers on-set look so... ridiculous. Click ahead to answer the age old question: Is that a mullet or not?
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Megan Fox may not be saying much about her Transformers 3 departure, but Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is. "It's one of those things that built to a pressure point," the producer told Coming Soon at this weekend's Salt junket. "I think she knew and we did, I think we all tried really hard to make it work together, it just wasn't working." Fortunately, executing a character name search-and-replace for Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's new role is not that hard: "I wouldn't say a tremendous number, but yeah, absolutely there were some [script] changes." [Coming Soon]
When he's not jetting off to Hong Kong to film Marion Cotillard's tryst with a handbag, David Lynch is attempting to develop new projects of his own. Among them is Lynch Three, the final installment of a documentary trilogy chronicling the filmmaker's life and work (but mostly his work). That's where you come in -- if you've got $50 to spare.
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Congratulations to Andy Richter for caving to the pressure of the latest social networking trend. Yesterday, Conan's sidekick logged his first four tweets, which included a photo of himself on the way to ESPN's All-Star Legends & Celebrity game. Afterward, the TBS-bound comic messaged: "Had a lot of fun, played well, and in locker room saw the genitals of some of the game's greats." [@richter_andy]
Color me irresponsible, but I'm going to go ahead and deduce that Hasbro's re-introduction of Strawberry Shortcake this month at Comic-Con is a prelude to the trade story we all know is coming: The aromatic toy will have its own girl-oriented franchise in development by the end of the year. What else is there to expect from the promised "emo" version with a yarn hat and... sex appeal? "She's always been a girl that Mom and kids adore," said Jeffrey Conrad, the executive whose company licenses the character to Hasbro. "Now she'll be able to provide a little extra eye-candy for the fan boys and at Comic-Con." A direct-to-DVD release is officially planned, but come on. This could be Girl With the Dragon Tattoo for fruit-scented dolls. Developing... [NYT]
It simply doesn't seem possible for anyone to care this much about who plays the seventh lead in a comic book movie that won't be released for another two years, but leave it to Marvel to make a simple casting decision feel like an event. All that was missing from the "Let's toss Edward Norton under the bus!" e-mail that Kevin Feige sent out this weekend was an option to read it in 3D and a picture of Scarlett Johansson wearing a skin-tight leather jumpsuit. But there is good news: Once Comic-Con hits in two weeks, all these Avengers stories, rumors and innuendos will be over. But until then: Have you heard the one about Joaquin Phoenix?
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Roman Polanski is a free man today after the Swiss Justice Ministry officially rejected an extradition request from the United States. The decision ends a nine-and-a-half-month saga which saw Polanski nabbed at an airport, sequestered in jail, moved out to house arrest and finally released when, according to the Swiss, prosecutors failed to provide confidential testimony about the director's original trial and sentencing. Which of course raises many questions, including the eminently obvious: Why the hell did we even bother?
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· Happy Monday! Paramount bought a pitch tweaking elements of The Hunchback of Notre Dame into an action-comedy -- to be co-produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers 3, G.I. Joe). The specific "elements" of writers Will Block and Jake Emanuel's update of Victor Hugo's 1831 novel are not noted, but this should have been the throwback tentpole to reunite Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. Missed opportunities! Also: WTF??? [Variety]
Brad Pitt gets a new wife for Moneyball, Demi Moore gets a new mother for LOL, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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