The general rule of thumb on public message boards is to take seemingly official disclosures with a grapefruit-sized grain of salt. So: Here's your salt, and now here are a few teasing head-ups about Megan Fox's Transformers 3 replacement from a Michael Bay associate who has no reason to lie.
Hey, Mike Myers! You haven't toplined a film since the 2008 bomb The Love Guru. What have you been up to since? "Right now, I'm kind of obsessed with Col. Sanders," says Myers, who has produced over 15 oil paintings of the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder. "There's no chicken in the paintings. It's just not a subject that usually has serious portraiture applied to it. Now, he's just a two-dimensional person, and it just tickled me to paint him." [LAT]
· James Franco is taking his WTF road show to San Francisco, where he'll star in Fox's upcoming Planet of the Apes prequel Rise of the Apes. Franco is dialed in to appear as a scientist stuck in the middle of the developing war between humans and apes; Rupert Wyatt will direct, and Fox will open the film June 24, 2011. I like the title, but considering the original, mightn't Gigantic Spoiler Alert of the Apes be more appropriate? [Deadline]
Gary Oldman lends his voice, Scream 4 casts its probable victims, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or franchise-ending at the movies. This week an ogre says goodbye, an SNL semi-hero says hello, and a real legend quietly sneaks into the art house. And: Fearless box-office prognostications! Tell me I'm wrong after the jump.
· New Olympic mascots Wenlock and Mandeville appear in an animated short called "Out of a Rainbow" which explains their origin story. Cute, but where's the part where they discuss their stint on The Simpsons? They're supposed to be rainbowed versions of Kang and Konos, right? [Youtube]
Nothing personal against Sarah Jessica Parker, seriously, but someone has to be held responsible for the harrowing, encroaching reality of Sex and the City 2. If she'd just walk away from the property -- its by-the-numbers grotesqueries and unwatchable desert caravans -- it would all end, and the civilized world could return to swatting away bloated comic-book flicks and video-game adaptations. If you happen to agree and want the opportunity to personally bring SJP to the light, then does Warner Bros. ever have the contest for you.
It seemed as though Bret Michaels had put his health troubles behind him -- he was even well enough to blame porn for them -- but today, the rocker was readmitted to the hospital after suffering a "warning stroke" and feeling numbness on his left side. Worse: tests conducted there revealed that he also has a hole in his heart. His doctor calls his conditions operable and treatable, and we certainly hope that's the case. [Us]
Simon Cowell appeared on Oprah today and, after touting the American version of X-Factor, he laughed off Oprah's question about the state of American Idol. "I'm not gonna say anything," he said. "Wouldn't change a thing. Everything's perfect." As for who should replace him, Cowell said something vague that could be taken as a swipe at Ellen Degeneres: "I think primarily, you've got to have somebody on that panel who actually knows what they're talking about." Not Justin Bieber, in other words? Sorry, Seacrest. [<a href="
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/05/simon-cowell-jokes-american-idol-is-perfect.html">Zap2It]
A judge in L.A. today issued a warrant for Lindsay Lohan's arrest when the starlet failed to show for a mandatory "DUI progress-report hearing." By now Lohan's excuse is relatively well-known: She was visiting Cannes and, er, her passport was stolen. Her team says she's spent the last few days working with the State Department to get a replacement (the U.S. Embassy in France denies this), while French authorities say she never even reported the original stolen in the first place. As a result of the warrant, says the U.S. Customs Agency, Lohan will be arrested when attempting to reenter the country. Which of course raises the question: Why even bother coming home?
· People are freaking out that Angelina Jolie doesn't look much like herself on this new Salt poster. Is it the Bieber bangs? Click for bigger.
· James Franco will star in Ricky Stinicky, about a bunch of men who hire an actor to get them out of excuses they've made to their wives.
· The Cannes movie about a murderous tire, Rubber, has landed a U.S. distributor in Magnet Releasing.
· Pee-wee Herman is taking his act (and, presumably, his iPad) to Broadway.
· The next winner of America's Next Top Model will land the cover of Italian Vogue. Oh my God, the season premiere is going to feature Tyra in Mario overalls shouting about a-spicy meatballs, isn't it? Bet me.
Apparently, when nobody was looking, Justin Bieber was cast as one of the Volturi in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Or maybe it's just a scowly, (un)dead ringer pictured above at right in the Eclipse banner just released. At left, Eddie Munster seems to have made the cut as well. Congrats to both. [Summit Entertainment]
The latest MPAA ratings bulletin reveals that Eat Pray Love -- that globetrotting, face-making paean to one woman's post-Franco self-discovery -- received an R from the association's ratings board. Unless someone spiked Julia Roberts's dialogue with a sexually connoted F-bomb, not even the folks at Sony seem to understand how this might have happened.
Hey, everybody, good news! Movieline's parent company MMC has a spare $5,000 to offer to one lucky registrant for an e-mail address at Mail.com. I can guarantee you that's about $5,000 more than Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, AOL or any of those other cheapskate enterprises are offering these days. Click through for more about your potential payday.
They're back! Infamous White House party crashers Michaele and Tareq Salahi were stopped by the Secret Service last night when their limo was headed for another state dinner, this one for Mexican president Felipe Calderón. Bravo still hasn't confirmed that the two are cast members of the upcoming Real Housewives of Washington D.C., but they've supposedly banked a season already, and in the Salahis' defense, they have to fill their staged catfighting time with something now. [NYDN]
There's nothing like a $50 million lawsuit to worsen your cancellation woes. Just days before Heroes was axed, graphic novelist Jazan Wild filed a lawsuit against NBC Universal for allegedly basing a Heroes story arc on his Carnival of Souls digital book series. According to Wild, the show's fourth season violated his copyright by introducing settings, storylines and a carney character virtually identical to those found in his successful three-installment collection. [EW]
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