As America recovers from quite possibly its most carb-loaded Thanksgiving ever (apocalypse angst = good for the boxed-stuffing industry), we turn now to the last person in the country not struggling to close his pants: New Moon breakout wolf Taylor Lautner. May his abs be a shining beacon to all of us mortal fatties. More on New Moon's second week of dominance -- and the little Sandra Bullock football movie that nearly toppled it -- after the jump.
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It was an interesting Thanksgiving frame at the box office -- and one that foretold a couple of benchmarks about to fall. The Blind Side managed to work its way up the number-one spot, and its impressive hold and family-friendly potential mean that Sandra Bullock might hit another career best just months after achieving it with The Proposal. Don't cry for number-two contender New Moon, though -- today, it should pass the entire $192.7 million domestic gross of the first Twilight. Instead, save your tears for The Fantastic Mr Fox, which expanded into over 2,000 theaters without much fanfare. The full results, after the jump:
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As you may have heard by now, the Obamas' first state dinner the other night was party-crashed by Michaele and Tareq Salahi, two uninvited guests who managed to sneak in, get their pictures taken with heavy-hitting politicos including Joe Biden and Rahm Emmanuel, and then immediately post the evidence to Facebook (oh, they would be those people who try to make their lives appear more fabulous through social networking). There are a lot more wrinkles to the story, but here's one of the most notable: Michaele is rumored to be a contender for Bravo's The Real Housewives of Washington DC. Will this epic breach of Secret Service security help or harm her reality TV aspirations?
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It's been a quiet day after Thanksgiving, but news is now breaking that golfer Tiger Woods was hospitalized today in serious condition. Says the Orlando Sentinel: "Woods, 33, pulled out of his driveway in the Isleworth community about 2:25 a.m. when he struck a fire hydrant, and then drove into a tree at his neighbor's property, FHP reported...The airbags in Woods' Cadillac Escalade did not deploy, which means the vehicle was traveling under 33 mph." [Orlando Sentinel]
When your series is one of the lowest-rated on network television, a ratings plateau may provide cold comfort. And yet, in a way, it's good news for The Jay Leno Show, which just went a two-week stretch without slipping any further in the ratings. The more charitable among you can crack open a bottle of Martinelli's Sparkling Cider in his honor. (Sorry, we're Team Andy.) [THR]
· Any guesses on what command this Italian GQ Style photographer gave Emile Hirsch to get his cover shot? Click for bigger.
· Thor apparently has roughly ten thousand speaking parts, because it still isn't done with casting. This time, Hurt Locker breakout Jeremy Renner is being whispered about for Hawkeye, who'd appear in The Avengers as well.
· Popeater's got a list of the most forgotten Playboy celebrity centerfolds of all time.
· How did Susan Boyle celebrate her performance on Today this week? By retreating to a cafe to suck her thumb and start crying. Ooof.
· While dissecting the state of the Superman franchise, Anne Thompson investigates the rumor that the Wachowskis and protege James McTeigue were once attached: "It's hard to imagine such hard-R types taking on what one blogger described as the 'Big Blue Boy Scout.'" Yes, except that they made Speed Racer?
Michael Bay might say he's got no hard feelings for the frequently Bay-bashing Megan Fox, but the actress was conspicuously absent from a Transformers 2 cast and crew reunion in New York this week. Instead, says Page Six, "Tyrese Gibson held court at the center of the action and needed two security guards to keep all the women at a safe distance. A spy reports, 'He caused such a commotion that two guards were called in to keep the girls away from him.'" Man, Tyrese Gibson's publicist really does not like Megan Fox. [Page Six]
Speaking of Twilight, avowed sparkle-vampire hater Miley Cyrus has rededicated herself to taking the series down. "I think it's bad," Cyrus told Sirius XM's The Morning Mash Up!, which is a show, apparently. "People get too into it...When guys look at supermodels and they're like 'that's the perfect girl' that's what those kind of movies do to us. You know what I'm saying? They're like thinking that's what girls should be like and not everyone is going to be Edward [Robert Pattinson], hate to say it." [Us]
Did you all have a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday? Here at Movieline, we celebrated by folding up a copy of EW so that its New Moon photoshoot would pay tribute to the holiday in the most homoerotic way possible: by reconstituting the friendship between British plunderer and noble Native American to induce the maximum amount of OMG's. (Sorry, Kristen Stewart. This makes you a smallpox-covered beige trenchcoat by default.) Expect some light posting today while we work through our tryptophan hangovers. Stop in and say hello from time to time, won't you?
· We've been slipped an advance look at the FYC ads for New Moon set to run in all trades the Monday after Thanksgiving. Scoff all you want -- we think we've more than made our case for why it has a decent shot at everything, including the big one.
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A wave of melancholy swept over Port Charles during this afternoon's General Hospital, mainly because Franco was conspicuously absent from its Thanksgiving activities. Good news though: the actor, who will return to daytime next week, is taking another swing at Saturday Night Live on December 19. NBC also confirmed that Blake Lively (who co-starred with Franco during an SNL sketch in September 2008), will host December 5 and New Moon star Taylor Lautner will headline the December 12 show. [EW]
Are you ready for some hot, sexy, Halloween costumes/cinematic antiheroes next year? You're in luck, as a new photo has been released for Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin as a disfigured gunslinger, while figurine photos have been leaked for the dour new remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger. Which scarred visage is most deserving of your kisses? Check out the full-size pics below:
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· DreamWorks is claiming that Shrek Forever After will be the last Shrek film. I'm glad the studio is sticking to the terms of our restraining order.
· Oprah Winfrey will interview Barack Obama for the first time since he took office for the ABC special Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special.
· Celebrity nudity connoisseur Mr. Skin is excited about new technology: "If you watch a movie on Blu-ray, something you thought was just a shadow will suddenly be revealed as a breast or a butt."
· In an interview with EW, New Moon director Chris Weitz conceded that he adapated the book so that there's "less time without RPatz." Yes, he actually said "RPatz." Someone's got a Livejournal handle!
· By the way, that New Moon fan who claimed to have been bitten at a screening? Not so much, says TMZ. Can they get to the bottom of whether Katie Holmes talked through it?
Oscar pundits who had been keeping several slots warm for Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones may have realized that the film isn't the slam dunk they expected. The Guardian gave the film two stars out of five and called it "so infuriatingly coy, and so desperate to preserve the modesty of its soulful victim that it amounts to an ongoing clean-up operation." Just as harsh was Todd McCarthy in Variety: "When it sticks to the everyday neighborhood inhabited by its characters, The Lovely Bones...finds a reasonable equilibrium between drama and production values. When it ventures beyond it, heaven turns into Hades." [Variety, The Guardian]
Andy Richter is the perfect candidate to knock Jay Leno down a peg, particularly for voicing that he'd kinda like The Tonight Show back. Conan's announcer and sidekick admitted recently that NBC is a big ball of sad, so why wouldn't he challenge himself to greater candor? It's like a sport now. Richter admitted in a new interview that Jay Leno's mistiness for The Tonight Show's 11:35 timeslot shows his character -- and he ain't a regular Atticus Finch.
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