When most movies are set for release on DVD, the director and stars will make the interview rounds to get the word out. Oh, hey, remember how much you loved our movie? Well check it out on DVD and Blu-ray! But things aren't that simple when you're dealing with the biggest movie ever. So cancel the radio tour: In preparation for Avatar's home video release on Earth Day (April 22), James Cameron went to the Amazon. Seriously.
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Someone get famous horse racing announcer Dave Johnson on the phone. Because with the top three films at the box office separated by less than $2 million, this weekend's race is going to come down to the official box office numbers on Monday. And down the stretch they come! Fix yourself a Mint Julip, because it's time for some weekend receipts.
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If you've stopped laughing at the idea of Ridley Scott co-running MGM with his brother Tony, prepare to start up all over again. While promoting next month's Robin Hood, Scott has finally gone on record about the long-rumored original script called Nottingham with words that would surely make Harvey Weinstein proud. For those of you who don't remember: that screenplay supposedly saw Robin Hood as the villain, Sheriff Nottingham as the hero and had an ending not dissimilar to The Dark Knight (Robin Hood is killed, Nottingham continues to use his visage to keep hope alive amongst the less fortunate). Says star Russell Crowe: "I just wasn't into doing that. For a start, if you're a public servant and the public, through taxes, is paying you to do a job, you'd better be well meaning. So it wasn't interesting to me in that incarnation." Sounds reasonable. What did you think, Ridley?
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The English tabloids are nothing if not imaginative. Just a few days after they had Robert Pattinson lined up to star as Kurt Cobain, there comes word that Johnny Depp wants to make Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides something even Ke$ha will love. The "Day & Night" gossip blotter of The Daily Express reports that Depp is keen on having Mick Jagger join the fray as one of Keith Richards's shipmates in the fourth installment of the franchise. "He thinks they would be perfect [as pirate elders]," reports a "movie insider," who then went ahead and made up another James Bond casting rumor. [The Daily Express]
Sad news, everyone: Dixie Carter, who famously portrayed Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women, died this morning at age 70. Let's just go straight to the AP report:
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Who's Logan Lerman, you ask? Well, in addition to starring as the titular Percy Jackson in February's fever dream kiddie pic, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, he's also apparently lined up to play Peter Parker. Sony has placed the 18-year-old on the top of their list to play Spider-Man in the Marc Webb-directed reboot of the mega-franchise, ahead of better known young actors like Jesse Eisenberg and Anton Yelchin.
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Meinhardt Raabe, one of the few surviving Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz, passed away on Friday from an apparent heart attack. Raabe's appearance in the film was uncredited, but as the Munchkin coroner he famously proclaimed that the Wicked Witch of the East was "most sincerely dead," a strong diagnosis considering she got crushed by a house. [New York Times]
When Katherine Heigl talked about leaving Grey's Anatomy last month, she cited her movie career as one of the main reasons for the departure. And if that career means holding a bottle of Maalox on an elevator -- like in this brand new clip from her summer rom-com Killers -- then good for her! There's a joke here about audiences needing Maalox after watching this thing, but really. Why bother? [Rope of Silicon]
As part of the wall-to-wall media blitz happening with Kick-Ass at the moment, Movieline's favorite teenager, 13-year-old Chloë Moretz, gets her due in the New York Times this weekend. The profile (online now, in the paper tomorrow) traverses much of the territory you'd expect -- her character, Hit Girl, might curse, maim and kill, but it's okay because Chloë's so aware and adjusted! -- but does reveal one interesting bit of minutia: Quentin Tarantino is safe for children.
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Probably, yes. The adaptation of Emily Giffin's romance novel has added yet another good looking face to its cast of good looking faces: Colin Farrell. Fresh off his uncredited appearance in Crazy Heart, Farrell will join Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski and Melrose Place "star" Colin Egglesfield in the tangled web of infidelities among friends. It's like one of those CBS comedy pilots, but with cursing! [Production Weekly via The Playlist]
What do three Oscar nominees, a Gossip Girl and will.i.am have in common? They're all in Date Night! Hell, even Common himself gets a few lines. The Tina Fey/Steve Carell comedy only runs 88 minutes in length, but it still finds time to squeeze more than 15 recognizable faces into thankless supporting roles. After the jump, a handy guide to the appearances. Spoilers, of course. Though considering everyone plays almost exactly to their specific type, not really.
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Score one for the traditionalists? If Date Night (a better than expected $9.5 million on Friday) can hold off Clash of the Titans ($7.8 million) for the remainder of the weekend it will become only the fourth non-3D film released this year to lead the box office. And they said two dimensions were dead. Elsewhere: don't look now, but the assumed disappointment that was How to Train Your Dragon experienced a scant 19% drop from Friday-to-Friday and has slowly become one of the biggest hits in 2010. Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is writing that "Suck it, Pixar!" e-mail right about now. The top-five after the jump.
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And so another week flies by at Movieline, where we've harvested only the finest, organically grown beans of news and commentary for your consumption in Week in Review. Brew a pot and have sip, won't you? And have a great weekend!
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· I'm pretty sure Mickey Rourke made it through this NSFW foreign ad for nonalcoholic beer by getting wasted and improvising new lines, but God love him for it. "Here's to little dogs and the g*ddamn revolution!" Indeed, Mickey. Two things that never go out of style. Video after the jump:
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Movieline's commenters might think that Conan-betraying Max Weinberg has nothing to do with their blithe lives. That is a shame, because today Max Weinberg is forcing an intern to tally up all the times our commenters of the week have thought about him -- and he'll use that number to bargain for a staggering pay raise, one that you are not invited to share. It's an E Street Shuffle in the most down-low way imaginable. So, which of this week's commenters gets to take it personally?
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