Universal announced today that it will begin issuing some of its retail movies with the Blu-Ray version on one side of the disc and a DVD version on the other. Dubbed "Flipper," the studio hopes it can woo on-the-fence consumers who want to future-proof their home video collection but don't want to shell out money for a Blu-Ray player yet. Yes, yes, HD-DVD attempted this idea years ago, but could their dual format disc foil jewel thieves hiding out in the middle of the lagoon? [Coming Soon]
Two weeks and $480 million later, Summit Entertainment -- the small indie studio who prior to Twilight mania was best known for modest filmed entertainments like Never Back Down and Sex Drive -- are now left with a two-headed challenge: one, finding a place to stow that obnoxious amount of New Moon money, and two, figuring out the best way to make even more. The series's third chapter, Eclipse, is already in post-production, where it will eventually receive its finishing coat of vampire glitter and be buffed to a high sheen before rolling off the assembly line this coming June. (Yes, June. It will be a good half-decade before you'll not be hearing which team is up or down in the Northwestern Hunky Monster Conference.)
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The ongoing drama surrounding Roman Polanski's held-up bail continues today, with a Swiss official saying the filmmaker "will not leave jail before Friday, the bail must be posted in the coming days." That would come more than nine days after his most recent bail appeal was granted, and a little less than a week since electronic surveillance and monitoring equipment was installed in Polanski's home in Gstaad. Polanski still owes 3 million euros (or roughly $4.5 million) to the Swiss justice ministry; where's loyal devotee Harvey Weinstein when you really need him, anyway? [AFP]
Three months, six months, a year... who's even counting anymore when it comes to the delays on the Peter Jackson-scripted, Guillermo del Toro-directed, two-part adaptation of The Hobbit? Besides a few zillion fans, that is. And probably New Line and MGM. And theater exhibitors. And heaven only knows which other interested parties are rolling their eyes today at the latest hold-up affecting Jackson's billion-dollar baby.
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· Helen Mirren, Tom Hanks and Tommy Lee Jones are among the Oscarrific stars reportedly in talks to join Mother: The Indira Gandhi Story, a long-gestating, Bollywood-produced biopic of the former Indian prime minister who was assassinated in 1984. Mirren would reprise her signature role as Queen Elizabeth II, while Hanks and Jones would take on the roles of -- deep breath -- Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Respectively. Emily Watson and Albert Finney may also drop in as Margaret Thatcher and Peter Ustinov, the latter of whom was awaiting an audience with Gandhi when she was killed. "Queen of Bollywood" Madhuri Dixit is attached to the title role, having narrowly edged out this year's ambitious awards-season lock Sandra Bullock. [Telegraph via The Wrap]
Brian Grazer and Ron Howard makes their own Indian deal, the new My Fair Lady picks up a director and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· Harry Potter and Hermione Granger will nakedly make out in the upcoming Deathly Hallows movies. According to director David Yates, one scene will include "a horcrux [carrying a piece of Voldemort's soul] defending itself by producing nightmarish visions, and one shows Hermione and Harry embracing and kissing. It's something intriguing and sensual for Rupert [Grint] to react to, and Dan will be bare for that." It's going to be some Equus/Zeffirelli/Wizard of Oz business, from the sound of it.
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Roman Polanski had plenty to be thankful for over the holiday weekend, including -- if reports coming out of Switzerland are accurate -- his imminent move to house arrest, the aid of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a busy Alpine snowplow, and whoever designed the half-assed, non-GPS electronic bracelet he's slated to wear after leaving his detainment facility. Now if only he could afford to take advantage of all of it.
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Wilhelmina Slater's been revealing the fear behind her vampiric stare lately, and now Ugly Betty's lifespan seems equally transparent: the ABC comedy earned its lowest ratings yet on Friday, finishing even behind a Jay Leno Show rerun. Creator Silvio Horta has said the show needs better ratings to survive, meaning it's probably high-time to call the show doomed. When will he announce this is the final season? Next month? Next week? Someone, anyone, take the braces off this inevitability. [TV By The Numbers]
· People's got the first look at Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan in...well, they're calling it The Karate Kid. I thought it got a name change?
· John Hillcoat (The Road) wants to add Amy Adams to his next film, The Promised Land.
· Ian McKellen is not a fan of Little Britain's Daffyd, the self-described only gay in the village: "I have to confess that I am little disquieted at times by the way that gays are portrayed, particularly on television...I know Matt Lucas will say that he is gay and it is not offensive but I don't think it gets the right message across. If you are gay you don't have to be camp."
· The status of Reese and Jake, a celebrity couple without a cutesy nickname (Rake? Jeese?) is in flux.
· If the sadly underseen Fantastic Mr. Fox didn't quench your animation thirst, why not try a stop-motion interview with Jason Schwartzman as J. Jonah Jameson as Wes Anderson? (Just go with it.)
High five to our friend The Playlist, who breaks the story that Paul Greengrass has walked off of the still-untitled fourth installment of the Jason Bourne series (suggestions: The Bourne Situation, The Bourne Sabbatical, The Bourne Bourne) a week ago. Playlist cites Universal's order of a rewrite on the script without OKing it with Greengrass, and general grumpiness following a bumpy ride getting the Green Zone to screen, as the causes of the "creative differences" about to be cited in trade reports. Will they kiss and make up? [The Playlist]
Brothers is many things: a family drama, a study of grief, an exploration of the darkest reaches of human nature, and a remake. One thing it isn't? A war movie. At least according to the people who made it.
"Obviously a big part of the movie is the war," producer Ryan Kavanaugh told Movieline, "but we don't really see it as a war movie, per se." Is this a clever marketing ploy on Kavanaugh's part? A sly verbal manipulation to distance it from previous box office failures? Kavanaugh admits to dabbling previously in what one might call "categorically lax" marketing tactics. "I made a movie called 3:10 to Yuma," he admits, "which we called an 'adventure thriller.'" One can only wonder what kind of semantic slight of hand Kavanaugh could apply to Brothers. Sibling conflict drama? Romantic psycho-dramedy?
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Morning shows haven't been so great at handling this Adam Lambert thing (remember CBS's blurry double-standard?), but it was probably poor form for Good Morning America to cancel Lambert's performance and line up Chris Brown shortly after. Now, after controversy broke out about the booking, GMA has decided to cancel Brown's performance, though his interview with GMA anchor Robin Roberts will simply be rolled up to 20/20 instead. (Which reminds me: Where is the Dateline tell-all with the drunk Ewoks?) [NY Post]
Movieline reported in October that Roger Avary had begun whispering sweet, incarcerated nothings in his Twitter followers' ears. For some reason it took Ventura County officials -- and the rest of the world, apparently -- almost a month to pick up on the writer-director-manslaughterer's accounts of life as "#34," resulting in Avary being bounced off his cushy, year-long work furlough and back into full-time jail over the Thanksgiving holiday.
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· Paramount, the studio that shepherded Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity from festival novelty thriller to $107 million horror phenomenon, has stood by their man, acquiring distribution rights to follow-up Area 51. (This comes despite a NY Times story that suggested the studio had passed, and the $10 million sci-fi feature had no takers.) Like Activity, it employs staged found footage to tell the story of three teens who set out to the extraterrestrial-harboring air force base in Nevada; also like Activity, it relies heavily on the powers of suggestion, proving the fake alien autopsy you don't see is far more chilling than the one you can. [Variety]
More to come in Ink: Piven's back on the big screen; This Is It comes home; Ride Along with Ice Cube.
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