If Hollywood was a reality show, Scarlett Johansson would be that pretty girl on the show that all the other contestants (especially the women) are inexplicably allied against in a display of outsized vitriol that makes you mutter, "Jesus! Is she really that bad?" OK, fine, she would be Sierra from this season of Survivor. Yes, I still watch it. Anyway, our poor Scar-Jo was once the victim of an out-of-nowhere bathroom wall slander from Lindsay Lohan, and now Transformers vixen Megan Fox is piling on.
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At first (and even second and third) glance it looks like the kind of story accidentally left out of the April Fools Day news cycle. But there it is, straight from the opium den that is Universal: Keanu Reeves is attached as the lead in Jekyll, a revisionist retelling of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of Dr. Jekyll and his evil alter ego Mr. Hyde. And really, that's not even the insane part.
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· John Singleton will direct The Wheelman, an adaptation of a new videogame, with Vin Diesel set to star as an expert driver who something something vrooooooooooooom screeeeeech KAPOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!! [Variety]
Click through for more Ink.
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Devoted Twitter acolyte Michael Sheen had been oddly silent on the site since Tuesday, when he announced his arrival for fittings and imminent shooting on the set of New Moon. This morning, just minutes before the Vancouver Police Department was to launch a rescue mission against Sheen's genre captors, the actor signaled that he is indeed alive and well -- if just a little disturbed by his co-star Dakota Fanning.
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Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or lost in space at the movies. This week, Paramount backs up Brinks trucks to multiplexes worldwide, a delivery service fails to deliver, and a ferocious Tilda Swinton kicks back a drink or 12. It's all after the jump.
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· Cross another project off Brett Ratner's prodigious IMDB page: Conan's producer said today that "timing issues" have bumped the filmmaker and part-time publisher off the project, which was one of three Ratner recently told us he had short-listed as his next movie. No worries, though! There's always Trump Heist or Beverly Hills Cop IV. OK, never mind, you might worry a little about that last one if you want.
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Sometimes there are movies that are constantly held back from release by cruel distributors, and in that time, they acquire a legend. Every time a release date is set and then yanked, a thousand movie bloggers cry out in agony, sure that they're being deprived of a cult classic. Here's the thing, though: sometimes, the movie in question just isn't that good. It happened a while back with the Mr. Show feature-length spinoff Run Ronnie Run, which was held hostage by New Line for years until it acquired a reputation so outsized that creators David Cross and Bob Odenkirk had to break the news that it wasn't really a film they were that proud of. And it's happening again with the long-, long-delayed Amber Heard horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. Will general audiences ever see it?
I already have.
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Fresh off its triumph-ish premiere this week in Rome, Angels & Demons last night made its first appearance for the New York press. A full review is no doubt forthcoming, but my first impressions have proven difficult to shake on the day after, thus requiring immediate digestion (and perhaps a few mild spoilers) in the latest installment of The Movieline Nine.
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Kiefer Sutherland has surrendered to authorities and has been charged with misdemeanor assault for headbutting designer Jack McCullough, says TMZ. Meanwhile, Us Weekly believes it pretty much has the definitive version on how the fight went down:
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Oh hey, Prison Break. Remember that show? Fox is airing its series finale next week, and to promote this august occasion, the excited network sent a prison rape joke to LGBT magazine The Advocate.
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· The new cover of EW pronounces Adam Lambert the "most exciting American Idol contestant in years," adding, with a small asterisk, "And Not Just Because He Might Be Gay." Really, we're still wondering about that? Hey, here's a solution: live in Los Angeles and be gay, and then you will probably have learned at some point that Adam Lambert is gay, because he's gay.
· A new poll of moms found that they believe Jennifer Garner is a better mom than Michelle Obama. Congratulations, Jennifer Garner. You're famous.
· Here's the plot of the new James McAvoy/Elizabeth Banks starrer The Details: "Story concerns a couple, to be played by McAvoy and Banks, who discover an infestation of raccoons in their back yard." I looked in vain for the parenthetical "(whose leader will be voiced by Will Ferrell)."
· Lost creator Damon Lindelof sheds some more light on the whole not-explaining-Libby thing: prematurely killing off a character makes an actress kind of not want to come back.
· Why did Zachary Quinto refuse to debase himself at the Star Trek premiere by flashing the Vulcan salute at, like, someone from Hollyscoop who brought a digital camera and yelled at him really loud? According to Page Six, it's because he's got uncooperative fingers.
For at least a few days, Fox was thought to have limited its total damage from Wolverine LeakGate to 1 million downloads and one massively confused studio front office. But in the same Wednesday conference call where Rupert Murdoch said the worst was behind News Corp. in general, Peter Chernin chimed in with new piracy stats quantifying what "worst" really meant.
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As you might expect from any film featuring the government-OK'd, graphic slaughter of dolphins off the Japanese coast, the acclaimed documentary The Cove has finally proven a little too distasteful for that country's representatives to bear. And now, with the Sundance fave slated to appear at next month's Los Angeles Film Festival, Japan's annoyance appears to have turned to action.
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· Katie Holmes, last seen on Broadway running for her life from several white people in navy blazers, will star in Miramax's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Co-written by Guillermo Del Toro, Dark is based on a 1973 TV movie about "a young, Suri Cruise-type who moves in with her father and his girlfriend and discovers they are sharing the house with devilish creatures." [Variety]
More Movieline takes on today's trade headlines after the jump.
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· Kiefer Sutherland will be charged with misdemeanor assault for headbutting designer Jack McCollough. This could have serious consequences, as it might constitute a parole violation. (He's supposed to be "obeying all laws," like the one that goes, "Thou Shalt Not Headbutt the Toast of Fashion Week.") This whole, unfortunate incident is really putting me in an awkward position. Because on one hand, Kiefer is a beloved Eastside drunk, and he once wandered up to my table at a dive bar and said, "GHRRRAahhhhdop lasdfjassbrrrr." And I'll always cherish that. But on the other hand, I never leave the house without my Proenza Schouler high-waisted tapering pants. Why, God? Why make me choose sides?
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