When it was announced today that Gus Van Sant's next project would be Restless, a "contemporary and distinctive take on young love" from first-time screenwriter Jason Lew, the film's logline was mysteriously kept secret. Luckily, Movieline got its hands on the script and while we won't spoil anything major (not that it's a particularly twisty affair), we can at least tell you as much as you'll learn when they make a trailer for it.
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· Fox commissioned a poster to prove that execs are, in fact, aware that they'll be broadcasting the second season of Dollhouse.
· Congratulations to Milla Jovovich, who wed director Paul W.S. Anderson, her longtime beau, over the weekend.
· MTV will be adapting the brash U.K. hit Skins for American audiences.
· In the middle of her heartfelt memorial to the late Don Hewitt, Lesley Stahl manages to slip in for no reason that he had a "difficult" relationship with onetime 60 Minutes correspondent Meredith Vieira. Meow!
· A lawsuit is broiling over A&E's plans to proceed with a Steven Seagal reality series even after it had turned down a pitch to feature Seagal living in a house with Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Weep for the wasted concept of Last Action Condo.
More than a month and a half before his Inglourious Basterds stampeded to a stunning debut weekend, Quentin Tarantino was teasing moviegoers and critics with word of a Basterds prequel if the first film opened. He'd even shot some of the footage, he said, leaving it out of the final Basterds cut just in case. And that's to say nothing of the sequels co-star Eil Roth alluded to in interviews of his own. Here we are now, $37.6 million later, and my thought returning to the potential of a Basterds franchise. Could it happen? Would you actually want one? (Warning: Spoilers follow!)
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Ryan Jenkins, the contestant on VH1's reality series Megan Wants a Millionaire who was formally charged with murdering his ex-wife Jasmine Fiore, was found dead of an apparent suicide in a Hope, British Columbia, motel room on Sunday morning. Jenkins fled California by car and boat after being charged late last week, with authorities guessing that he planned to cross the Canadian border. The 32-year-old was found hanging by a belt in a room at B.C.'s Thunderbird Motel, though TMZ now adds that a mysterious woman checked in with him. In the wake of said events, VH1 has announced it will not air the remainder of Megan Wants a Millionaire or the upcoming series I Love Money 3, in which Jenkins also appeared. [Global B.C.]
Beverly Hills Chihuahua won the top prize at Friday night's Imagen Awards, the annual event dedicated to recognizing positive depictions of Latinos in movies and TV. BHC also earned a supporting-actor award for Manolo Cardona, who plays the film's hot, sensitive gardener. Newly emboldened, the Mexican furniture from Brüno has reportedly already begun its ensemble-cast campaign for next year's Imagens. [Variety]
I guess the folks in Eden Prairie, Minn., may not have been the ideal audience for that gradual rollout Paramount Vantage had in mind for The Marc Pease Experience. Or maybe they were, considering the dead mini-major's eagerness over the weekend to dump the Ben Stiller-Jason Schwartzman comedy's corpse where no one would find it. Mission accomplished, if its four-figure gross is any indication.
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We're presuming that at some point, Amber Tamblyn told her father that she was dating David Cross -- but if not, the author blurb in Cross's new book I Drink for a Reason should surely have tipped him off. "David Cross...is a true patriot and a great American," it reads. "He is currently fucking Amber Tamblyn." Also, the author photo? Is of Tamblyn's dad, Russ. [men.style.com]
Recently, Quentin Tarantino declared that the forgotten Jason Biggs comedy Anything Else was one of the twenty best films he'd seen since he first became a filmmaker. It was a bold statement, to be sure; still, we should have assumed that the perennially over-the-top filmmaker would be capable of going himself one better. Now, by releasing a playlist of songs that inspired him while making Inglourious Basterds, Tarantino may have done just that.
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· Gus Van Sant will follow Milk with Restless, a $15 million drama for Columbia. Its log line -- beyond a "contemporary and distinctive take on young love" -- is not being disclosed, though its producing team of Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard should imply that few, if any, excruciatingly long sequences of lovers lost in the desert are likely. And thus Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is pushed back another couple of years. Thanks for nothing, first-time screenwriter Jason Lew. [THR]
Zach Galifianakis joins Schmucks, Stephen Moyer goes mortal for Priest, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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What a difference a week makes. Just last Sunday, we were all slogging through the NY Times's Weinstein Company deathwatch profile, seeing in Bob's acute case of ping-pong elbow a sad metaphor for a once-indomitable media empire on the verge of extinction. Today, the company is back at the top of their game, with the whole country buzzing about their brutal, campy, must-see Nazisploitation romp. And that's just Project Runway! We haven't even gotten to Inglourious Basterds yet. The weekend numbers are after the jump.
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Inglorious Basterds is predictably perched at the top of Friday's box-office standings, but its estimated numbers are anything but predictable: $14.3 million all told, setting it up for minimum $40 million debut weekend. It would be Quentin Tarantino's all-time best bow, and looks likely to exceed Scary Movie 4 as the Weinstein Company's best opening since its launch in 2005. Harvey is sending Bob to buy champagne as I write this, and the Sony gang is nursing a bit of vertigo after District 9 looked set to drop as much as 60 percent in week two. And people are still watching G.I. Joe. View Friday's full top 10 after the jump.
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Another scorcher in August -- but enough about Adam Lambert's sexy inflatable-termite couture. Avatar and a few other old friends kept us busy with their turbulent late-summer happenings. Join us in looking back after the jump, and have a great weekend!
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· True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård climbed a fence at a Swedish soccer stadium to save the life of a boy who was nearly trampled to death during a fan riot. The boy is OK, but Godric is reportedly burning with jealousy! (Sorry.)
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Avatar! It's all anyone can think about this week (for good or ill), and thus there was no question that our five best comments should merit their writers a spin in the Na'vi tanning beds. Just be careful when you wake up blue: Geeks may find you utterly irresistible.
So who are our winners?
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Avatar doesn't have the only trailer of interest out today -- there's also the little matter of Inception, Christopher Nolan's sci-fi thriller, which is supposed to have its teaser attached to Inglourious Basterds. According to tipster reports sent in to The Playlist, the clip is short but sweet and includes a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio fights a man in a hallway as the gravity adjusts to let them run on the walls and ceiling (like The Matrix, or Super Mario Galaxy!). [The Playlist]
