· Robert Redford is taking up Hollywood's Abe Lincoln-movie slack -- sort of. He's actually just agreed to direct The Conspirator, a biopic of Mary Surratt, the woman convicted of aiding John Wilkes Booth in assassinating the 16th president. Casting will follow, with James McAvoy being considered for a "lead role." I know, I know, but give him a chance! Maybe he'd make a great Surratt. [THR]
Extra McAvoy news, Josh Lucas hears ghosts, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
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· DreamWorks has fuh-iiinally closed its deal with Reliance, which will flood the studio with cash and syndicate its senior debt. This is a fair and just reward for the pioneering minds that brought us the best Jason Biggs film of all time.
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Tickets went on sale today for this Friday's Avatar sneak preview -- did you get yours? That'd be an impressive feat, as Fox's Avatar website (through which the ticketing is being done) is a slow, buggy monstrosity given to timeouts, broken programming, and pages that don't load. It's not as though it's flooded with ticket requests, as near as I can tell; after thirty minutes of timeouts and reloading, I finally reached a page where I could reserve tickets for an AMC theater in LA and it still had hundreds of seats available. Sadly, my order wasn't successful until I'd spent 500-odd times attempting to enact it. Maybe we could put one o' them CG supercomputers to use here? [Avatar]
· Who knew that the title of George Clooney's upcoming The Men Who Stare at Goats should have included a spoiler alert?
· Was Brad Pitt added to Sherlock Holmes as his famous archnemesis Moriarty? The British tabloids say yes, but WB says no.
· More Robert Downey Jr.-related rumors! The actor might be resuscitating the vampire Lestat for a new big-screen series. Author Anne Rice has her lips sealed.
· Criterion has announced its November releases, including Gomorrah, A Christmas Tale, and Downhill Racer.
· Tyra Banks is promising that in honor of Top Model's short-but-not-too-short crop of new contestants, she will be wearing her real hair in the premiere -- most likely, because Miss Jay stole her weave.
Universal Pictures co-chairmen David Linde and Marc Shmuger contemplated their professional mortality in today's LAT, acknowledging that this summer's compounded misfires aren't failures but rather artifacts of a different time. (Except for Land of the Lost, which even Shmuger admits is a failure.) "[T]hese were decisions made 18 months ago, and the marketplace has changed. We have to live with that change, and Brüno didn't find an audience." Studio president Rob Meyer was metaphorically upbeat: "We've got a bad case of the flu, but by no means is this terminal." But moving The Wolf Man back to Valentine's Day 2010? Someone might at least call a doctor. [LAT]
A photo allegedly leaked from the set of Adam Lambert's album cover shoot has sent shockwaves through America's pink-walled teen bedrooms, as the singer has apparently selected the exact same outfit that Kris Allen chose for the cover of his own L.P. debut, tentatively titled Songs in the Key of America. Hopefully Allen will be the bigger man, and not resort to tearing off his friendly rival's puffy black sleeves on the MTV Video Music Awards yellow carpet, in an ugly catfight that will go down in Idol history as The Liza "Michelin Man" Minnelli Showdown of 2009. [Towleroad]
The New York Times on Sunday published the definitive piece on the bleak state of the union at the Weinstein Company, where morale (and cash flow) remains low, Harvey is struggling to refocus after his mogul-ADD streak, and theatrical grosses this year are hovering right around $1.3 million. These factors will all likely change this week with the opening of Inglourious Basterds, or at least we should hope they do -- cinema is generally better for having the Weinsteins in it, and they've got to find some way to pay for the release of The Road and Nine later this fall.
By the same token, isn't the Weinstein Company Death Watch kind of... old? Is there anything left to mine in the struggles of a corporation built on the quicksand of bombast and ambition? Most definitely. I actually found the five talking points after the jump (your mileage may vary):
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Little has been revealed about Inception, Christopher Nolan's follow-up to The Dark Knight, except that it's a thriller set within the "architecture of the mind." Still, now that the film's started shooting, People's gleaned a couple of hints just by keeping an attentive eye on the film's outdoor sets.
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Kick-Ass, Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn's indie adaptation of Mark Millar's comic series and a Comic-Con surprise sensation, has found a domestic distributor in Lionsgate. In a deal Variety described as "big," the studio has committed to "a wide 2010 release." The story follows New York City high school student named Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson, a young British actor poised for It-Boydom, having also starred opposite Carey Mulligan in The Greatest and next playing a young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy) who dons a green hooded costume -- yes, another green superhero -- and sets about a secret life of fighting crime, only to have the shit pummeled out of him repeatedly and find himself dubbed "Kick-Ass" by his legions of YouTube admirers.
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Sincerest apologies to anyone who went looking for Bandslam in this week's Weekend Receipts column, where the acclaimed teen musical-comedy's absence wasn't the oversight you might have initially thought. It was just a simple misunderstanding -- an unreasonable expectation that Summit Entertainment could sell a movie other than Twilight to young adults. And for those of you interested in knowing how the turkey sausage was made, an embittered "Bandslam insider" is more than happy to comply. Oh, and bring a grain of salt with you after the jump just in case.
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Dancing with the Stars has announced the list of contestants for its ninth (!) season including [unsavory former Republican House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay, [former Mormon teen idol] Donny Osmond, [raspy-voiced soul singer] Macy Gray, [pouty heir to the Throne of Darkness] Kelly Osbourne, [Vincent Chase fire fighter] Debi Mazar, [unimonikered all-purpose famous person] Mya, [My Fake Fiance star] Melissa Joan Hart, [former NFLer] Michael Irvin, [Rod Stewart's stepson] Ashley Hamilton, [Backstreet Brother] Aaron Carter, [squeaky voiced former swimsuit model] Kathy Ireland, [Olympic swimmer] Natalie Coughlin, [Ultimate Fighting Champion] Chuck Liddell, [5'5" pro snowboarder] Louie Vito, [martial artist and Iron Chef America Chairman] Mark Dacascos, and [we honestly have no idea] Joanna Krupa. We call the season now for Mark Dacascos. The secret ingredient is: spangles! [EW]
A happy Indian Independence Day weekend turned sour for Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan, who was detained Friday at Newark International Airport. The actor, 43, was en route to festivities in Chicago when agents pulled him aside for two hours of questioning -- and this was before he was even allowed to make a phone call. The Indian consulate later vouched for an "angry and humiliated" Khan, who was released as outrage erupted in his native country. Airport authorities declined comment about the misunderstanding, which appears to have arisen when the Independence Day parade was mistaken for the Dependence Day parade of litigation plaguing unauthorized Bollywood ripoffs of American films like My Cousin Vinny, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Hangover. Still, no excuses. Sorry, Khan. [Reuters]
· The whole point of the Wayans Family Tournament of Champions earlier this summer was to help avoid potential repeats of the family's most problematic, soul-crushing (if somehow profitable) films. But Hollywood isn't listening, and you're getting White Chicks 2 whether you want it or not. Marlon and Shawn Wayans are attached to reprise their 2004 roles as sibling G-men going undercover as two white girls; Keenen Ivory Wayans will return to direct, and all three will contribute the screenplay. According to reports, "The logline for the new entry is being kept under wraps." It's that good, people. [THR]
Spider-Man 5 and 6 get a quiet vote of support at Sony, and Will Ferrell joins Brad Pitt in hero vehicle of their own as Hollywood Ink continues after the jump.
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The good guys won this week at the box office -- and by "good guys," I simply mean a modest, smart, well-made, exciting summer movie that critics and regular moviegoers alike all seem to agree on. Now was that really so hard, Hollywood? What are the chances of a repeat any time soon? Enh, on second thought, don't answer that. Let's just savor the numbers after the jump while we can.
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District 9 cost a mere $30 million to make, and judging by its performance yesterday, it should make that budget back and then some by the end of this weekend. The alien actioner brought in $14.2 million for first place, followed by The Time Traveler's Wife with a solid $7.7 million. Faring less well were The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, which brought in only $2 million, and the teen movie Bandslam, which couldn't even crack the top ten.
Full figures after the jump:
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