Yes! Jason Statham-Michael Bay fights for all! Statham's lingerie-model squeeze Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has reportedly received an offer to take over the female lead in Transformers 3, a cherished title that will no doubt lead to off-camera alpha-male skirmishes ("Hey bloke, take it easy!" "'Bloke' is my tiger, asshole, have you been introduced?" Etc. etc.) and a run on bronzer that should likely drive the Dow back above 10,000 for the remainder of the summer. Oh, and congratulations, Rosie. [Deadline]
· Har har! Jesse Eisenberg will star as a pizza delivery man with a bomb strapped to his chest in the previously announced 30 Minutes or Less, also starring Aziz Ansari and Danny McBride. Ansari will play a hungry civilian whose pizza consumption is disrupted by said bomb, which is part of McBride's character's plot to get the duo to rob a bank. Any crushed red pepper for your corny headline? Oh, forget it. [THR]
Alison Pill rounds out Woody Allen's latest, Alice in Wonderland nears a milestone, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· Jackie Chan's your fly-squashing Miyagi in the upcoming Karate Kid remake, and now we finally get to see his studied stoicism in new clips from the film. Jaden Smith even gets cuter than Trey Smith, who's been the Smith scion of adorableness since "Just the Two of Us." [Cinema Blend]
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One of the big questions about the second installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is just how producers plan to film the series epilogue, which picks up with the surviving characters almost twenty years later. Now, thanks to spy photographs from the set, we have our answer: by forcing the film's young actors to wear prosthetic jowls and dowdy clothes. Needless to say, the following photo may be a big spoiler, in that it's spoiling just how unfabulous middle age can be:
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This really should be one of those "presented without comment" kinds of things: I'm not much of a fashion commentator, and even if I were, there are no words. Nevertheless, the garment at right was in fact worn by an attendee at Monday night's Sex and the City 2 premiere. Spend 10 seconds of your day making a guess, and even if you know right way, spend the balance of that time asking, Say whaaaa?
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1. Why?
2. Rob Reiner is attached? Again, why?
3. According to Pajiba, the film will be set behind the scenes of a telenovela, presumably necessitating brand new characters and a passel of story changes. So...do we really need to call this Soapdish?
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You sort of wanted the Law & Order and 24 finales to come from behind and apply a Nielsen piledriver to Dancing with the Stars, but they couldn't even TKO The Bachelorette. L&O and 24 brought in 7.6 million and 9.3 million viewers, respectively, while DWTS and The Bachelorette premiere garnered 19.1 million and 9.9 million. Yep, with wins in all key demos, too. If Sam Waterston had busted into a frisky quickstep while S. Epatha Merkeson eased into the splits, they'd have had a chance. As such, no dice. Dun-dun. [Zap2It]
· Futurama is coming back in a month, and here's a promotional image expertly designed to
· Will Filipina singing sensation Charice join Glee next season?
· Tina Fey will be honored with the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. "I assume Betty White was disqualified for steroid use," she said in a statement.
· Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go finally has a release date: October 1.
· Michelle Yeoh, Victor Garber, and Jean-Claude Van Damme have joined Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom. Yes, this means that Charlie Kaufman has officially written lines for the Muscles from Brussels.
Dating Zac Efron may have a downside. When his ghost-whispering weepie Charlie St. Cloud got moved up to July 30, the actor was suddenly locked into a game of movie chicken with his girlfriend Vanessa Hudgens, whose Beastly was set for the same date. Now, Beastly has blinked, and the film's been pushed back (potentially to 2011). Will this ease tensions in the Efron-Hudgens household? Honey, Vanessa still hasn't forgiven him for that whole bronzer-stealing incident. [Coming Soon]
From career semi-retrospectives to cement-disfiguring rituals outside the Chinese Theater, the build-up to this weekend's Prince of Persia release has been quite gratifying for Jerry Bruckheimer. But an interesting tandem of news items circulating today make a case for the megaproducer's least-celebrated attribute (if you believe it): This guy is great with writers!
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In this installment of "How Desperate are the Marketers of Piranha 3-D Today?", let's browse the Twitter feed belonging to Derrick, the soft-core porn impresario (and Piranha 3-D perv) around whose Wild Wild Girls empire the film's viral campaign is based. And I do mean "viral," because this is the kind of stuff that makes you wish you had some antibiotics lying around.
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In response to the death of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones -- who was killed during a police raid with a camera crew for the A&E series The First 48 in tow -- Detroit mayor Dave Bing banned all reality show camera crews from police ride-alongs. Said Bing: "When we found out [that a camera crew was on the scene], I immediately called [Police Chief] Warren Evans and [deputy mayor] Saul Green and [said], 'That's the end of that.'" [The Detroit News]
I've heard of a lot of excuses for canceling tours over the years, but bless Christina Aguilera's heart for coming up with a new one: Her movie debut as a leading lady, Burlesque, is coming out this year, and she wants to be on her A-game. Thus the sad news that the star has scrapped her entire 20-date summer tour to focus on the film and her fourth album Bionic. Except... there's a problem.
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Add this to the list of numbers that make Sunday's Lost finale ratings a bit underwhelming: 15 million. That is the number of viewers who watched Betty White's episode of Saturday Night Live earlier this month when you factor in digital recorder numbers. According to preliminary figures, that would lift White over Lost's epic primetime closer by nearly 2 million viewers. Lost's own DVR stats are pending, but it'll be awfully close. Take that, Smoke Monster. [Media Decoder]
Acclaimed Iranian filmmaker -- and recent Cannes lightning rod -- Jafar Panahi is reportedly leaving jail today on $200,000 bail. The director of The White Balloon was said to have been imprisoned for his support of the country's opposition party and begun a hunger strike last week. His cause was publicized in part by a petition boasting signatures by Robert Redford and Steven Spielberg, while also noted at a festival press conference by compatriot Abbas Kiarostami. Developing... UPDATED 9:15 a.m. EDT: Panahi's wife confirmed he's free: "We are taking him to the doctor." [AFP]
