When Nicolas Cage makes a big action movie with Jerry Bruckheimer, we usually expect to lose a few innocent bystanders in some sort of chase, whether it's via careening Porsche, plummeting F1 fighter, or accidentally flung hairpiece. However, their new film The Sorcerer's Apprentice is committing the cardinal sin of injuring non-extras; first, a car stunt went haywire earlier this week, and now there's been another vehicular crash.
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In an alternate universe, Henry Cavill could have been one of the most famous actors in Hollywood by now. The 26-year-old Tudors star has been a near-miss for some of the most iconic roles in recent film: he screentested for James Bond in Casino Royale, was a finalist for the Caped Crusader in Batman Begins, and was author Stephanie Meyer's first choice to play the role that eventually went to Robert Pattinson in Twilight. Now, as Cavill makes the rounds to promote his part in Woody Allen's Whatever Works, he's opened up to MTV about the part that came closest to being a reality: the Superman reboot. And that got us thinking -- since Warner Bros. is still considering yet another new take on the franchise, we felt it was the right time to chart the relative career successes of the men who've come the closest to donning Superman's cape.
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Some things should just be off-limits -- even for Nikki Finke, who interrupted a relatively minor news break on Tuesday to take swipes at one of the most respected film distributors in the world. And in an especially rare counterattack, Finke's readers stood up to her.
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So: Mia Farrow has been video-blogging her hunger strike to raise awareness for the crisis in Darfur. She insists that she won't eat for 21 days, or until humanitarian groups are allowed back into the region, whichever comes first. It's a pretty intense gesture for anyone to make -- let alone one of Hollywood's most enduringly wispy waifs. But the most harrowing part might be that almost no one is tuning in.
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· Vulture premieres the poster for Woody Allen's upcoming Whatever Works, which literally looks like they pulled a paparazzi shot out of Bauer-Griffin and did a background erase. Why tout a sexy starlet like Evan Rachel Wood when you've got a Curb Your Ethusiasm outtake and Ed Begley Jr.'s name first in the credit block?
· Gossip Girl producers have finally cast the pivotal role of Serena and Dan's half-brother. The actor chosen is a white guy who looks like every other white guy on the show. OMG?
· Steven Soderbergh is going to start laying the crazy track for his 3-D musical Cleo by injecting an animated character to star opposite Brad Pitt in Moneyball.
· The Karate Kid remake currently features only one of its titular words.
· Nicole Kidman would rather buy a soft drink than the poor little girl from Slumdog Millionaire.
Publicists for both Kiefer Sutherland and Proenza Schouler designer Jack McCullough have clammed up since their headbutting altercation at a party two nights ago, but a rep for Brooke Shields says she's less than happy about being dragged into the middle of this fight club. Which story does she appear to be siding with?
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The winds from the coming Trek-ocalypse are whipping the walls of Movieline HQ, forcing immediate evacuations for all non-essential personnel. Those of us who remain are committed to bringing you the latest news from the eye of the storm, including J.J. Abrams's date with Charlie Rose and some mindbending Kirk-on-Kirk (and even Spock-on-Spock) action.
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· The Office's Mindy Kaling has signed a two-year, 7-figure contract with NBC that would keep her writing and performing on that show while developing a new comedy for her to star in. Movieline Twitter Dispatch readers, meanwhile, have already gleaned the inside scoop on this negotiation through a series of 140-character dispatches sent between its various key figures: Kaling has been sleeping with Jay Leno forever, and this was an ironclad stipulation of his return. [THR]
More INK after the jump.
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If you thought Mickey Mouse was pissed that one time Joe Jonas tried standing up to him, you'll really want to keep your distance from Disney HQ today: A report late Tuesday cited a 97% plunge in the movie division's operating income, which suffered from a lack of hits, a surfeit of bloat and a fragmented vision that will receive immediate, possibly bloody front-office attention.
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As you might have heard, Barbarella is dead. After three years of divorce drama, illicit affairs, creative inertia, studio haggles and aggressive press manipulation, Robert Rodriguez yesterday pulled the plug on his long-rumored remake of the 1968 sci-fi camp classic. The film was supposed to launch his Planet Terror muse/paramour Rose McGowan -- for whom Rodriguez left his wife and children in 2006 -- to international superstardom, but as he announced on Tuesday, it's his fatherly responsibilities that scuttled the $70 million project in the end. If you're as confused as I was, refer to the convenient Barbarella timeline after the jump for one last walk along the project's sad, tortured path.
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· We'd like to ask that all Robert Pattinson's impressionable young fans ("SQUEEEEEEEEEEEAL!") kindly turn away for a moment that we might share this tender love scene opposite Javier Beltran in Little Ashes. [via Towleroad]
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In what sounds either like an episode of 24 gone awry or a particularly violent Mad Lib sprinkled with random celebrity names, it's being reported that last night, Kiefer Sutherland headbutted and broke the nose of Proenza Schouler designer Jack McCollough while angry, for some reason, about Brooke Shields.
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After Slashfilm broke the news that Eclipse director David Slade had once bashed the Twilight series he was later hired to join, a ripple (puberty?) was sent throughout Twilight fandom, forcing Slade to issue a mea culpa. He is very, very sorry, he tells Twilight Lexicon -- he was only being rude and insensitive at the time because he was promoting an Xbox cartoon about a dog made of cold cuts:
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The Princess and The Frog is Disney's first hand-drawn animated feature since 2004's forgotten Home on the Range, and is being touted as a return to the studio's second golden era, when later classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and The Lion King breathed new life into the art form.
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Movieline is now taking wagers on which troubled, star-studded, highly anticipated indie film will be the first to reach audiences: Kenneth Lonergan's triaged mess Margaret, or David O. Russell's Nailed, which, according to star Jessica Biel (among others), isn't even close to done.
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