· Johnny Depp is in talks to pick up the title role in The Tourist, the Angelina Jolie espionage thriller that has apparently been abandoned by Sam Worthington and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck due to "creative differences." And talk about trading up: Alfonso Cuaron is among the names circulating as a replacement at the helm. Sony might consider selling tickets just for the stars' top-billing negotiations alone. [Variety]
Zach Galifianakis contemplates a fairy tale, Danny Boyle readies his return, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· First Whip It crashed and burned, and now a newly cautious Fox Searchlight has abruptly halted the planned national rollout of the Jared Hess-directed comedy Gentlemen Broncos, starring Jemaine Clement. The film underperformed in New York and Los Angeles this past weekend, and after factoring in the generally withering reviews, the studio decided that a wider release would be throwing good money after bad. Don't worry, Jared. They probably would have done the same thing to Pasolini.
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Meryl Streep's daughter Grace Gummer will launch her acting career with a starring role in TeenNick's coming-of-age drama Gigantic. In a stretch, the 23-year-old will play the teenage daughter of celebrity parents, struggling with Hollywood's "star-making promotional machinery." She will co-star alongside Joe Mantegna's daughter, Gia, 19, in the series set to premiere in early 2010. Gummer is the third of Streep's four children and performed onstage in 2008's The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents. [Reuters]
A number of photos from the Johns Hopkins (standing in for Harvard) set of David Fincher's The Social Network have been circulating since shooting on the Aaron Sorkin-penned Facebook story began earlier this week. But only Movieline has* one as it appeared on the uncompromising filmmaker's very own Facebook page -- tags, comments, Likes Thises, and all. It's after the jump.
*Yet another meticulous Movieline recreation.
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ABC's V, a semi-enjoyable series revamp of the pivotal '80s miniseries, scored the highest premiere ratings for a scripted show this season. With 13.9 million viewers and a 5.0 preliminary rating in the 18-49 demo, the series seems poised to thrive during its four-week November stint, just before its four-month hiatus. Showrunning is a rough business these days. In the meantime, let's think of more "V" puns. Like "V is for Vidal Sassoon-Sponsored Aliens." That's all I've got so far. [THR]
· Here's Natalie Portman poking out of the letter with which she's best associated. (Just ask Zach Galifianakis.) Inside, she explains that famous no-nudity clause: "I'm not opposed to sexuality or nudity in a film, but I'm very opposed to pornography sites and you're pretty much giving them material if you do any of that." Take that, meat-eating internet-porn-trawling rapists!
· Kristen Stewart says her nickname for Robert Pattinson is Flippy, because he is severely unathletic: "He can barely jump rope...and god, when he tries to run!" At that point Taylor Lautner did a running hand spring into the interview, stuck the landing, flexed his abs and asked if anyone wanted a bite of his MET-Rx bar.
· Sofia Vergara, the actress who plays Ed O'Neill's Colombian hot tamale of a wife on Modern Family, often gets accused of having created a crass Latina stereotype. Newsflash: that's her actual voice.
· Wow. A gadget site blog post about Shane Hurlbut that makes no mention of Christian Bale's Terminator: Salvation tantrum.
· Ex-NFLer Bob Whitfield, the poor sucker whose earnings now fund the must-not-have fashions of She by Sheree, went off on his Real Housewives of Atlanta star ex: "I'm feeling like I'm the mad scientist and I created Frankenstein. She didn't have that nose; I put that nose on her! She didn't have them breasts, I put them breasts on her. I put some electricity on that ass and now she's sparked up and tearing up the got damn laboratory. What the f*ck? You forget who made you girl!"
The mood is one of cautious contentment since the big announcement that Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin would be tag-teaming Oscar-hosting duties this year. (Movieline, meanwhile, was pleased to see that the Academy had come around to taking our advice on such matters, and can only hope they similarly see the light regarding our upcoming post, "They Should Totally Hold the Oscars On That World's Biggest Cruise Ship.") In any case, Martin and Baldwin seem a fitting choice -- their names even sound like a throwback comedy duo; we've compiled for you a list of talents these two veterans might draw upon to spice up the proceedings.
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As we'd anticipated, the La Toya Jackson sequence cut from Brüno shortly before the film's release because of her brother's death will be added to the movie's DVD release, set for Nov. 17. If memory serves me correctly, she shows up at his house and lounges, without much fuss, on his Mexican gardener furniture set, then snacks on some sushi served on a naked gardener platter. (What? Free sushi is free sushi.) Then Brüno suggests they play "Vots in your SchvartzBerry?" He starts rifling through her contacts and reading out Michael's number in fake Austrian -- tipping her off that something is amiss. She leaves soon after. It's those killer street instincts that helped her crack the case wide open on her brother's murder. So good on ya, girl. [People]
I spoke to director Terry Gilliam yesterday, and while our interview will run much closer to the Christmas Day release date of his newest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I couldn't help but ask him about Watchmen. Gilliam twice attempted to mount Watchmen for the screen (even going so far as to pitch it as a television miniseries) but could never make it work, so I was curious what he thought of Zack Snyder's theatrical adaptation of the graphic novel, which came out earlier this year.
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Performance artist James Franco will follow up his General Hospital arc as a monochromatic Port Charles stranger with a guest appearance on 30 Rock. In the episode, which begins production this week, Franco is lured into an agent-engineered fauxmance with Jenna (Jane Krakowski). While there is a 25 percent chance that the Milk actor will be nominated for a Guest Actor Emmy even if he is wheeled around Studio 6H unconscious in a Spider-Man mask, let's hope he has more scenery to chew than last week's guest star Betty White. [EW]
· Gerard Butler is officially attached to co-star in Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut Coriolanus, a contemporary riff on the Roman political drama by William Shakespeare. He will portray Tullus Aufidius, the commander of the Volscian army and reliably shouty nemesis of the title character. Keeping in mind Butler's '09 triptych of Ugly Truth/Gamer/Law Abiding Citizen, the move underscores just how dramatically the scourge of inflation has impacted many A-listers' "one for them, one for me" philosophy. [THR]
Cedar Rapids welcomes a few new inhabitants, Helen Mirren signs up for intrigue, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· This has got to thrill Fox: TMZ reports Kiefer Sutherland, head-butter extraordinaire, racked up a $700 bar tab at San Pedro's The Spot last week. At 7 in the morning.
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CBS has ordered five more episodes of Jenna Elfman's CBS sitcom Accidentally on Purpose, which has improved upon retaining the ratings from its lead-in How I Met Your Mother. Depending on where your preferences are, Accidentally on Purpose ranges in quality between two of its cinematic predecessors, the oops-a-baby Knocked Up and the oops-a-baby-with-my-gay-friend-in-a-horrible-movie The Next Best Thing. Luckily, Elfman's series seems to be veering closer to the former. [THR]
The co-hosts of the 82nd Academy Awards will be Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, Oscar telecast producers Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman announced today. Martin has hosted the ceremony twice, in 2001 and 2003, and Baldwin is a first-time emcee. Perhaps if Baldwin introduces Oprah to Uma this time around, Oprah will thankfully just be a hallucination. [Awards Daily]
· After scrubbing a toilet on Oprah today and sharing her own OCD tip for airplane travel ("I always get a bottle of vodka and go into those nasty bathrooms and I wipe them down."), Kirstie Alley was granted a few minutes to plug her new A&E reality series. The ten half-hour episodes will document Alley's struggles to lose her post-Weight Watchers weight while raising teenagers.
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