Tribeca Filmmaker Cries Foul Over Slashed Horror Flicks

Expect to find me bumping around this year's Tribeca Film Festival, which opens Wednesday night in New York with the Gala! World! Premiere! (unless you were at ShoWest, but whatever) of Woody Allen's latest, Whatever Works. I'll be covering screenings, events, moderating a Q&A and making all the hard decisions that come from attending any festival, like, "Can I make this Gary Coleman appearance at Union Square work with the Natalie Portman chat down in SoHo 30 minutes later?" Help! (Though I do know what to recommend -- stay tuned.)

But at least one filmmaker today made such Sophie's choices a lot easier: Ti West (above), the microbudget horror auteur who isn't wasting any time discouraging viewers from seeing seeing his film The House of the Devil this weekend -- precisely because to hear him tell it, it's not his in the first place.

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Stalker Nabbed After Pitching Tyler Perry's So Pretty When He's Asleep

After conceiving a string of box-office successes, opening his own studio, and organizing a bloody WGA purge on his hit TV show, Tyler Perry might have thought he had it all. But now, with death threats and an accused stalker in custody, he may have finally reached the superstar promised land.
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Buzz Break: Reese and Jake Stranded In Desert. Send Help.

· Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal were among the celebrities spotted taking in Paul McCartney up at Coachella this past weekend. Meanwhile, back at the Hollywood 24 Hour Fitness, Ryan Phillippe couldn't stop listening to Adam Lambert's "Mad World" on his iPod Shuffle.

· Exciting news: Keanu Reeves has beaten Raven Symone and Carlos Mencia. Oh, in a car race. Wait, what?

· Still curious about that "small movie" Michael bay is promising to make? Slashfilm thinks they've got the details. We're still pulling for that buddy comedy about an explosion and a tracking shot who just don't get along.

· Grey's Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo is pregnant, which will teach her OB-GYN a valuable lesson about his own life.

· Peter Jackson presents his idea of heaven. We're waiting for the inevitable director's cut.

Zac Efron Makes Ambitious Bid For Tech-World Supremacy

You had to know it was only a matter of time before Zac Efron would tire of hit films, mega-stardom and other tricky, transient Hollywood fruits. But no one likely saw that coming so quickly after Efron's latest No. 1 opening, which evidently didn't yield quite the windfall the heartthrob was looking for. But a new search engine unveiled this morning reveals an even more potentially lucrative Plan B.
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Maybe Don't Try To Sell Your Famous Kid?

Hollywood may be rough on its child stars, but it's got nothing on the slums of India, as the father of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali (who played young Latika in the film) has been accused of trying to sell her to an undercover journalist. The black market for Oscar-related child stars hasn't been this hot since Ryan O'Neal tried to sell Tatum for a trunk full of weed and and a development deal at Warners! But what did Ali's father do wrong (besides, y'know, the whole daughter-selling thing)? Lots!
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First Look: Russell Crowe in Gladiator 2: The Medieval Years

For all the rumors and supposition about the slimmed-down, no-tights, fighting-trim Russell Crowe who would reunite with Ridley Scott for Robin Hood, the first look at his title character suggests it would have saved everybody a lot of time to just say, "He's supposed to look like Maximus." Find the full view after the jump.
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Batman Slays Jason, Claims First TOC Title

Maybe it was a mismatch, or maybe readers just weren't ready to let their croaking, sulking caped crusader go. Whatever it was, Batman made unusually easy work out of the Friday the 13th franchise to claim victory in Movieline's first Tournament of Champions.

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Monday Bloody Monday

In today's Hollywood Ink... SAG prepares for civil war... Fox cuts off a limb... Twilight's shadow gets longer...
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The $24 Million Boy

Movieline is pleased to once again present Weekend Receipts, soon to be retitled Zac Efron EmpireWatch. While we work to clear that with the young megastar's agent, please read on for a closer look at his latest triumph as well as the also-rans -- including a surprisingly out-of-shape Jason Statham -- left wheezing in the distance.
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Friday Box Office: Zac Attack

That mints it: Zac Efron is a star. Sans songs, he still managed to open 17 Again to a higher Friday figure than Julia Roberts could manage for Duplicity -- or, for that matter, Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck could for the brand-new State of Play. Meanwhile, Crank: High Voltage didn't outdo its predecessor, despite generally better reviews and a franchise cult following.

1. 17 AGAIN: $9,465,000 (new)

2. STATE OF PLAY: $4,570,000 (new)

3. HANNAH MONTANA: THE MOVIE: $4,020,000 ($47,488,000)

4. FAST AND FURIOUS: $3,840,000 ($128,271,000)

5. MONSTERS VS. ALIENS: $3,575,000 ($153,398,000)

6. CRANK: HIGH VOLTAGE: $2,650,000 (new)

7. OBSERVE AND REPORT: $1,425,000 ($16,062,000)

8. THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT: $1,115,000 ($49,883,000)

9. KNOWING: $1,105,000 ($71,326,000)

10: I LOVE YOU, MAN: $1,070,000 ($1,070,000)

Figures courtesy of Box Office Mojo

Avid Golfer Bill Murray Gets a Hole-in-Woman

· Drunken, Stockholm-terrorizing golf cart joyrider Bill Murray has gotten himself into more trouble of the fairway: Apparently he hooked a tee shot so badly today at a Pro-Am that the ball flew across a street and knocked a woman down in her front yard. Murray explained: "I wasn't sure I was in bounds or not. And I saw this NBC golf cart coming at me and he said, 'I hate to be the one to tell you this but you hit a lady. She's down on the ground.' That is, you know, sobering...She was overjoyed when she saw me [at the hospital] because she said she had come out to see me and her husband had just said, 'I hope he hits it over here."
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Batman vs. Jason: Who Must Perish?

Movieline's inaugural Tournament of Champions enters its final stage today, pitting a billionaire in a cape against a machete-wielding man-child in a hockey mask. Beneath all the studio hype, they're equally stupid, but only one can retain his bloated franchise supremacy. The voting booths are open after the jump.

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Field Trip: Michael Jackson's $3 Million Yard Sale

For those of you still in mourning since hearing that the Michael Jackson auction was called off, there's no reason to keep crying into your Captain EO pillowcase. All of the items are on display (though not available for bidding) in Beverly Hills, and a visit to the exhibit is more enlightening (and frightening) that you can imagine. Even if you couldn't get that ticket to Coachella, we have your all access pass to Neverland.

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BREAKING: SAG and AMPTP Reach Deal

Peace at last! After a long, hard negotiations battle (that facilitated the booting of SAG national director Doug Allen), the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have announced that they've come to a tentative agreement over a new contract for TV and features.
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Francis Ford Coppola Pulls Tetro Out of Cannes

Tetro, the first movie Francis Ford Coppola has written and directed since 2007's Youth Without Youth, had been buzzed to be making its debut at Cannes since a Variety report from earlier in the week suggested it might. Shot in Argentina, it stars noted thespian and internet sperm merchant Vincent Gallo as a "brilliant but melancholy and self-destructive" writer living in Buenos Aires.
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