Welcome to The Daily Avatar, your trusted source for breaking Avatar news, styles, sports (including the latest round of Mountain Banshee Ball trades) and Na'vi wedding announcements.
Paramount might not have a shoot date for Star Trek 2, but they have set a release date -- June 29, 2012. Of course, part of what made the 2009 reboot so successful is that it slipped from its original winter 2008 release date, giving director J.J. Abrams more time to perfectly polish it in post. No word yet on a storyline, but we can only hope that studio brass will take into account Zachary Quinto's breathlessly narrated Kirk/Spock sex scene and go from there. [Coming Soon]
After we broke the story that Michael Fassbender would be in Knockout, Steven Soderbergh's action-vendetta picture starring Mixed Martial Arts champion Gina Carano, the rest of the casting notices quickly fell into place, with The Playlist reporting that Michael Douglas, Dennis Quaid, Ewan McGregor had all signed on. Now they report that Channing Tatum, the pretty-faced pugilist of Fighting and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, has also joined the super smash melee. Tatum's part is small -- he plays a military commando sent to retrieve Carano after she goes Palin. For more spoilerific details, head to Playlist. [Playlist]
· Confirming a scoop first reported here a while back, John Malkovich told an Italian talk show recently that he's definitely in for the role of Spider-Man 4 villain Vulture. And because apparently comics adaptations are all anyone in Hollywood pays to make any more, the actor will also join the cast of the espionage thriller Red, adapted from the Wildstorm/DC title. Malkovich replaces John C. Reilly, joining Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman in the most prestigious fanboy-courting cast this side of Thor. (Which coincidentally just got less prestigious; details below.) Shooting launches this month, and we'll see the presumably awards-courting results when Red opens Nov. 19. [Variety]
That Thor update as promised, plus more comics-casting news (of course) as Hollywood Ink continues after the jump.
Another spectacular weekend overseas puts Avatar $460 million short of Titanic for the all-time box office record -- so close! Domestically, its $49 million haul puts it at seventh-highest grosser of all time, poised to overtake Star Wars in a matter of days. On the flipside of the equation, critically trounced McChick flick Leap Year (womanly, yes, but I hate it, too!) pooped in its pot o' gold, while two-times-the-Cera didn't prove to be two-times-the-cash for the underperforming Youth in Revolt, no matter how mercilessly he tickled our belly buttons from the inside. Hard numbers are after the jump.
As predicted, Avatar piled on another top-ranking Friday at the box office, lining itself up for its fourth consecutive No. 1 finish come Sunday night. As usual, it wasn't even close; despite Avatar's 47-percent drop from last Friday -- its steepest one-week slide to date -- it still took in more than double the amount of its closest new competitor Daybreakers. Among other debuts, the beleaguered Leap Year sank into fifth place, while Sandra Bullock's cash-seeking missile The Blind Side showed its first signs of possibly running out of gas. Click through for the full Top 10.
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One week down, 51 to go. And if they're anything like this one, they'll fly by with whimsy, curiosity and grace. (Unless you're at NBC, in which case: Hang in there!) Read on for some of the week's top stories from our ceaseless churn, and have a great weekend!
· Breathe easy, Lost nuts. Pop-culture-friendly Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reassured a tense America today that he did not "foresee a scenario" in which the SOTU would preempt the show's final-season premiere. [Wonkette]
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If you were touched by Mariah Carey's Daydream single "Always Be My Baby" in the '90s, the tears will come right back when she serenades you with her eight-octave hiccups and monotone lyric changes. "You'll always bee a paaa-HAAARRR-tt of mmeeeee... she'll begin, just before muttering something incoherent to "Director Leeeeeeee Daniels, that little shit, I'm drunk up here, dammit. Rawr." You and your fellow commenting champions can also sing the "doo-doo-DOO-dum" parts in drunken unison, as long as you bring small animals for our chanteuse to pet. So who's leaving with the aural bliss?
This just in from The Tonight Show writer Todd Levin's Twitter: "Holy crap--Conan came out swinging tonight!" Yup. Put the kids safely to bed -- you're gonna wanna catch Coco tonight. [@toddlevin]
Conan O'Brien has even more to consider now that Fox has thrown its hat into the ring for the Tonight Show host. This afternoon, the New Corp.-owned channel announced that if Conan would like to quit the Peacock, he "would be a great fit for Fox." If Fox decides to go the late night route, it would have to persuade its affiliates to give up airtime for the potential show first. [LAT]
Often, the Movieline staff is struck with awe, surprise and/or bafflement over things that actually happen on this beat in any given week. Assuming we can fully process these nuggets of hilarity, audacity, mendacity, judgment lapses and other pop-culture currency, there really is only appropriate response worth summoning at the end of it all: Say whaaaa? With this in mind, welcome to, well, Say Whaaaa?, your weekly catalog of head-scratching developments and other incredulity worth remembering. (Complete with the Say Whaaaa? Singers, of course. Welcome them!) Enjoy, and comment away with your own suggestions as well.
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· Summit released the poster for Remember Me today. This is how powerful Robert Pattinson's face is: He's consumed approximately half of Emilie de Ravin's head, and you're still swooning. Click for bigger.
· "Like anything, it's a process," Tobey Maguire says about the Spider-Man 4 delays. "We're just in the midst of the process. We have a lot of great stuff in terms of story and script. We're just trying to dial it in and get it ready as quickly as possible."
· The media may have been interested in what Jay Leno had to say in his monologue last night, but viewers weren't, to judge by his ratings drop.
· Can we expect Sookie to get with new werewolf Alcide on True Blood? "Hello, he's hot!" says showrunner Alan Ball. "And hello, so is she. Two hot people in some intense situations and, for whatever reasons, there significant others are not there...they're human."
· White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs promises that the State of the Union will not pre-empt Lost. Yeah, well, we all remember Obama's public option promise, Gibbs. I'm not relaxing yet!
Well, that was fast: A mere eight days in, America has produced first roundly-loathed film of both the new year and the new decade. The critical excoriation (and likely middling box office) for the Amy Adams/Matthew Goode romcom isn't quite the start Universal was hoping for after a horrendous 2009, but on the bright side, things can only improve. Just ask the nine unfortunate souls below, who appear to be holding out the same hopes for themselves.
This week, Lost fans have been buzzing about a petition for Disney to develop a Lost attraction at one of their theme parks (so much so that Movieline came up with five necessary suggestions for such an endeavor). Executive producer Carlton Cuse responded by tweeting that he'd like to see Disney make "a big Lost E-ticket ride," a comment I'd mostly brushed off until a trusted source revealed there's more to the story.
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