When we talked to Alia Shawkat a while back, she relayed rumors that the Arrested Development movie might happen as early as September, a prognosis that looks decidedly negative now. The NYDN caught up with Will Arnett at a charity function over the weekend, and he indicated that things might be on hold for a while now that he and Hurwitz have a new Fox series in development:
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Yesterday during a junket for Sorority Row, Audrina Patridge announced that her end to MTV semi-reality is drawing near: "I'm almost done with The Hills. We're in the middle of finishing these episodes, and I'll be leaving then." Patridge will instead focus on her acting career, something that her time on The Hills prepared her for: "I feel like it's helped me a lot going to auditions and sitting in front of the camera... blocking the camera out and just getting into character." Patridge is also developing a reality show with Mark Burnett.
The gang at Marvel HQ might not have thought they'd ever have a better Monday than the one last year after Iron Man opened to $100 million. Today is at least 40 times better, with reports this morning announcing Disney has bought the comics monolith for $4 billion.
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After testing a bundle of new slogans including "Remember Us?" and "Ben Silverman Slept Here," NBC has settled on "More Colorful" as the latest branding accompaniment for its iconic peacock. Not that the logo itself is actually more colorful, execs say; it's just a figure of speech they're planning to sprinkle throughout prime time. "Color is also what we strive to do in our programming," said one NBC marketing guru. About time! Look for NBC to start "doing" this particular color during Sept. 14's debut of The Jay Leno Show. [Variety]
· Among your talking points: Sylvester Stallone will return to star and direct a fifth installment of the Rambo series. Stallone turned 63 years old last month; the film will open after his 64th birthday. The previous Rambo film last year grossed $42 million domestically and $113 million overseas. The film already has six producers and executive producers on board (with likely more to come), spearheaded by Nu Image/Millennium schlock kingpin Avi Lerner. Did I mention Stallone turned 63 last month? [Variety]
More uplifting franchise rehash news, a Nicolas Cage 3D adventure, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
The weather has exceeded 100° in Los Angeles for several days now. A mountainous billow of white smoke has settled to the north, hanging ominously above the city like the stalled spacecraft of District 9. This morning, Gov. Schwarzenegger has urged 12,000 families to flee their homes before it's too late. For many, heading into a movie theater to watch a young woman have her head sanded off by a car wash buffer was the only hope for relief. Their story and more after the jump.
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In the box office derby of righteous kills, 3-D blood spatter trumped Michael Myers yesterday. The Final Destination took the top spot rather easily with $10.9 million, while Halloween II will have to fend off Inglourious Basterds for second place. Meanwhile, despite opening on almost a third of the screens as its competition, Taking Woodstock took a could-be-groovier ninth place.
Full Friday figures after the jump:
What a week at Movieline, where we wound down summer in style with a gang of our closest pop-culture pals. Sure, one of them brought along Anne Heche as his date, but what can you do? Check out the rest of the guest book after the jump, and have a great weekend!
* Actually, our commenters of the week only win a juicy British rumor that they've been cast as Catwoman, but why should the facts of the prize get in the way of your enjoyment? You're Catwoman, live it up! Go paw Shia (as the Riddler) and Jon Gosselin (as Penguin) and say hello for us.
So, who wrote our top comments this week?
Former Playmate Irina Voronina claims that she and another actress were fired from Entourage after rebuffing the actors' advances. She told Fox News: "Technically we were told there wasn't space for us to be in the shot anymore, but we knew we were fired because we weren't nice to the actors. They just treated me like a piece of meat without any respect and every conversation would start and end with "what are you doing later?'" Voronina, now a regular on Cartoon Network's Saul of the Mole Men, had appeared in previous episodes of Entourage as Ring Girl and Sexy Clubgoer. HBO has dismissed the claim as "unfounded and unsubstantiated." [Fox News]
That's the question EW writer Annie Barrett provocatively poses (somehow without using the now-mandatory term "cougar") after seeing the umpteenth commercial for All About Steve, where Bullock, fresh from wooing Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal, falls for 34-year-old Bradley Cooper. I have a few questions of my own: Is it kind of weird that a woman would ask this sort of thing about another woman? Are questions like this indirectly responsible for Bullock's suddenly waxy veneer? And, should we really worry about these things when the main issue is "Should Sandra Bullock Keep Making Movies We Know She's Better Than?" [EW]
Breaking news: Celebrity DJ Adam Goldstein, better known as DJ AM, was found dead today in his apartment in New York City. It's being reported that drug paraphernalia was found at the scene, and he had not been heard from for several days, according to his friends.
TMZ -- as ever, the leading source in these matters -- had this addition information:
There used to be only one real way to qualify your documentary for an Academy Award: Sell the movie to a distributor at a major film festival (unless a studio financed it, which, let's face it, it didn't), run it for a week in New York and Los Angeles, send in your application and wait. Book a publicist around September at the latest -- someone with heavy-duty campaigning chops. Then watch your film fall behind one or two critically acclaimed front-runners by more famous directors. Then pray that all the expense and struggle is worth at least a spot on the Documentary Branch's short list, which you can't put on your DVD label anyway. Then do it all again two or three years later with the next project.
Or you can do it like Ondi Timoner, who is gambling her superb, Sundance-winning We Live in Public on the same mass-media concepts that, ironically, doomed her protagonist. Things have changed in 10 years -- or so she hopes.
· Lauren Bacall is on Twitter, and she'd like to introduce her 19-year-old grandson Jasper Robards (via her eight-year marriage to Jason Robards). "Darlins' do not encourage him by calling him a young Brad Pitt," writes Bacall. Back off, Lynch!
· Two of your favorite people have gotten engaged, to each other: Emily Blunt and John Krasinski.
· The Playlist has a first look at Harmony Korine's upcoming TIFF experiment Trash Humpers.
· 38-year-old Matt Damon will receive the next lifetime achievement award from the American Cinematheque.
· Zooey Deschanel's in talks to appear alongside sister Emily in an upcoming episode of Bones. Let's hope her insufferable vegan posse from Top Chef Masters comes with!
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