A lot of bad movies make money every year, but most film sites didn't complain about it until New Moon arrived on the scene and broke a box office record held by The Dark Knight. Suddenly, writers who had dutifully chronicled every Transformers voice casting and G.I. Joe character poster on their blogs were bemoaning the state of cinema, and though their reactions may not surprise grizzled veterans of the Comic-Con Gender Wars, it's nevertheless amusing to see. Some are livid, some are accusatory, and all are way, way over-the-top. Here are 7 of the most threatened:
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ABC is resorting to cold, hard numbers to prove that Adam Lambert's crotch-grabbing, fellatio-simulating AMA performance should not launch a FCC investigation akin to 2004's Nipplegate. The network reported earlier this afternoon that Lambert's racy number received 1,500 phone complaints, a completely average number, while "a major PR disaster would normally prompt 15,000 to 20,000 complaints." On the plus side, ABC says at least 100 people called to say they liked it. [USA Today]
Irina Shabayeva, nicknamed "Mean-a Irina" by a fellow contestant on Project Runway, may have won the show's sixth season, but the list of items she hasn't won is perhaps more impressive: 1) fair editing (according to her), 2) exoneration from those plagiarism accusations, and 3) any of her prize money yet. She also claims the producers didn't show how friendly she was to competitor Carol Hannah Whitfield, who was sick during the final runway show. Plus, she gives to UNICEF or something. [EW]
· After outcry that the first poster de-gayed A Single Man, the Weinstein Co. has issued a new one-sheet. This one has a flower, OK? Click for full-size.
· Freed from her Liars (A to E) obligation, Kat Dennings has joined Thor, revealed Natalie Portman. We're guessing that the very contemporary Dennings is playing a friend of Portman's modern-day nurse.
· Gayle King stopped by Good Morning America today to console fans and assure them that Oprah Winfrey is "very much alive and happy." Does this mean we have to stop rioting?
· Curious about the Nine soundtrack? Here's everything you need to know.
· Katie Couric can really get down. Duly noted.
Joss Whedon recently suffered the cancellation of Dollhouse, but the Producers Guild is determined to pick his spirits back up by awarding him with the 2010 Vanguard Award at the PGA Awards in January, it was announced today. The Vanguard recognizes "achievements in new media and technology," so, I guess he's getting it for making Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog that one time? Whedon greeted the honor with a statement where the joke-to-sentence ratio was an even 1:1, as you might have expected. [Deadline]
· The score stands at Talking Polar Bears 0, Hunky Werewolves 140,700,000 when it comes to Chris Weitz's track record with effects-heavy, critter-filled tentpoles. For his next trick, he'll simplify with The Gardener, a small story from Summit about a Mexican gardener living in L.A. ... who just can't can't stop revealing his chiseled, 3% body fat physique!!! (Sorry -- old habits die hard.) Weitz also dispelled rumors the movie would be his last: New Moon has restored his faith in filmmaking. Taylor Lautner will do that to a man. [Variety]
More in Ink: Joshua Jackson moves in from the Fringe; the running of the Wichita bulls; Avatar's running time.
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Great Moments in U.S. Girl History
· 1893: Colorado becomes the first state to grant women the right to vote
· 1960: Eleanor Roosevelt named chairwoman of JFK's Commission on the Status of Women
· 1963: Betty Friedan publishes The Feminine Mystique
· 1972: Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment
· 2005: Stephenie Meyer publishes Twilight
· 2009: New Moon opens, grosses $140.7 million in three days
· 2010: The Oprah Winfrey Show airs its final broadcast
· 2012: "Daddy! No more pull-ups!"
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The Dark Knight may have had a lot of things going for it, but it didn't have Taylor Lautner's abs. Aided by a cuh-cuh-crazy gross from midnight shows on Thursday, The Twilight Saga: New Moon absolutely decimated the previous opening day record of $67.2 million set by The Dark Knight, banking $72.7 million from less screens and less theaters. Can it break Knight's all-time opening weekend record, $158.4 million? To be continued...
Full figures, after the jump:
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And so we bid farewell to another week at Movieline, where, as always, we gathered only the finest pop-cultural phenomena for your daily enjoyment. Sip a cup of our very special blend after the jump, and have a terrific weekend!
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· How do you get noticed out of a sea of auditioning comedians to win a coveted spot in Warners's live-action movie version of Yogi Bear? In T.J. Miller's case (who played Hud in Cloverfield), that would be shooting his audition with an actual bear. The bear steals the show. [via FilmDrunk]
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The CW is desperately trying to make Heather Locklear and Melrose Place happen, and who are we to stand in the way? And so it is that the writers of our five best comments this week will receive a t-shirt featuring Locklear's instant-classic, not-overwritten-at-all-why-would-you-say-that rejoinder, "I'm not so sure it dissipated." Someday, when we are all 55-year-old gay men (this happens to everyone), we will pass this line down to the twinks of the future and remember a time when TV bitchery was at its most torturously composed peak. So who are our winners?
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· Jake Gyllenhaal gives good smolder in the latest teaser poster for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Click for bigger.
· It looks like Dustin Hoffman is backing out of Little Fockers, where EW says he "had tentatively agreed to appear in what was to be a very funny cameo at the end of the film." Have the words "very funny" been associated with this franchise since the year 2000?
· Remember Adnan Ghalib, ex-paparazzo lover of Britney Spears? Sentenced to jail.
· Domestic violence victim Halle Berry is speaking out about Rihanna and Chris Brown: "Any time a woman frees herself from that kind of bondage and that kind of situation I'm proud."
· Deborah Lacey, who plays Carla the maid on Mad Men, draws inspiration from her mother, who was Bob Denver's maid in the 1960s. You don't even want to know about the Bob Denver Fingerbang Threat Level.
Uh, so there's this movie? It's called New Moon? Apparently there's some people who want to see it. The first screenings, at 12:01 am this morning on 3,514 screens across the country, brought Summit Entertainment $26,270,000, reports Deadline.com. That eviscerates the previous records held by The Dark Knight ($18.4 million) and Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince ($22.2 million). The female-skewed, Twihard-filled audiences should taper off over the weekend, but it will be interesting to see if there's enough juice here over the rest of the weekend to get Moon into the top ten openings of all time. It would have to make more than X-Men: The Last Stand's $103 million -- utterly achievable, at this rate. What about top five? Spider-Man currently holds that spot at $115 million. Never underestimate the astonishing earning power of Taylor Lautner's 18 abs. [Deadline]
By now, you've most likely heard that Lost is coming back for its final season on Tuesday, February 2, and will be holding down the Tuesday 9pm time slot for the foreseeable future. This is a great thing for America, since Tuesday is so boring and mostly filled with stuff your grandma watches. Get ready for a lot of posts that consist solely of exclamation points! [THR]
Oprah Winfrey, the biggest personality on network television, made her anticipated announcement just minutes ago that she will forfeit her daytime programming choke hold on September 9, 2011. In front of a live audience, Winfrey delivered the news and explained her departure, curiously leaving out any mention of her new Oprah Winfrey Network venture.
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