I mean, naturally: "Broken Road Production’s Todd Garner has teamed up with Adam Herz and Joshua Shader of Terra Firma Films to produce an adaptation of Sullivan’s Sluggers, a horror baseball graphic novel by Mark Andrew Smith and James Stokoe. [...] Described by Smith as a 'Major League meets Zombieland and then some,' Sluggers follows a has-been baseball manager Casey Sullivan and his dysfunctional minor league Sluggers who get an invitation to play a small venue game. Soon enough, they find themselves fighting for their lives against a town of shape-shifting monsters on a feeding frenzy and the has-beens and wannabes must use long-forgotten skills of teamwork to get out alive." [THR]
Start your day with perhaps the closest read in the history of close reads: Joss Whedon's history as a writer for Roseanne: "Whedon really plants his pop culture flag, however, in House of Grown-ups with the arrival of a new, high-tech VCR. (Like the discussion about pornography, it’s a tangential detail that Whedon seems to enjoy more than the actual plot.) We get a fun run of Darlene wanting to rent 'Lethal Weapon 2, Jaws 3, and Nightmare on Elm Street 4,' John Goodman busts out an impressions of Dirty Harry, and Roseanne proclaims her love for Doctor Zhivago. And, for the ultimate Whedon touch, when nobody can agree on what to rent, what film finally unites everyone? Star Wars." [Splitsider]
I'm a little late to this, but what's that famous saying? A day without the horror-punk icon Glenn Danzig clearing up years of speculation about his flirtation with X-Men is like a day without sunshine? Something like that. And it just gets better from there: "It wouldn't have been as gay. Actually, [Hugh Jackman] wasn't the first choice. They hired Dougray Scott. He had a falling out with the director, and then they hired Hugh Jackman. I'm glad I didn't do it. It was terrible." Anyway, what Danzig really wants to do is... you know: "I would love to do some filming and directing before I'm gone out the door. I mean dead." [LA Weekly]
It's not just the superheroes who are toppling box-office records this summer: Check out the opening for Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, which pulled in $523,000 over the weekend — on four screens. Its $130,750 per-theater average represents a new standard for limited live-action releases, besting Dreamgirls's $126,316 from 2006. (Moonrise's four-day holiday total reached $669,000.) Hats off as well to The Weinstein Company's The Intouchables, no slouch itself with around $26,000 per screen for the three-day frame. Champagne for all! [Deadline]
Look what came out of all that right-wing saber-rattling in January: "According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the White House, Defense Department and CIA all offered rare, if not unprecedented, access to Boal and [Kathryn] Bigelow. The access included a guided tour of a secret CIA planning facility called The Vault and linking Boal up with what a Defense Department official described as 'a planner, SEAL Team 6 operator and commander.' The only restriction was that Boal not disclose the SEAL’s name." Meanwhile, America's "top commando officer" denies everything: "We don’t have a partnership [...] I have no interaction and no one on my staff has any interaction with — what’s her name? Bigelow?" [Danger Room]
This could be fun: "Gary Oldman has inked a deal to star opposite Joel Kinnaman in MGM’s remake of Robocop. [...] Kinnaman (The Killing) plays the title character, a cop named Alex Murphy who is brought back from the brink of death and turned into a cyborg police officer. Oldman will play Norton, the scientist who creates Robocop and finds himself torn between the ideals of the machine trying to rediscover its humanity and the callous needs of a corporation." [THR]
Per LaDonna Harris, president and founder of Americans for Indian Opportunity (ahem): "'Johnny is reprising the historic role of Tonto, and it seemed like a natural fit to officially welcome him into our Comanche family. [...] I reached out, and Johnny was very receptive to the idea. He seemed proud to receive the invitation, and we were honored that he so enthusiastically agreed. [...] Welcoming Johnny into the family in the traditional way was so fitting,' Harris said. 'He’s a very thoughtful human being, and throughout his life and career, he has exhibited traits that are aligned with the values and worldview that Indigenous peoples share.'"
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"Midnight showings were conceived as a way to reward the most ravenous consumers and offer a two hour block in which their anticipated movie could be enjoyed alongside the small contingent of people who actually gave a shit as much as they did. They were niche activities, like nudist weekends or snake-handling conventions. Every fat dude with a Jabba The Hutt mask in a thirty mile radius was honored for one night with an evening to argue about who shot first, and within that small window of time, those fat dudes with stains on their signed R2D2 medium t-shirt didn’t have to feel like the weirdos. They were among friends. Sadly, over the past few years, the policy that allowed that escape has changed to welcome every Han, Luke and Lando with even a passing interest into the screenings. The result is an atmosphere filled with people who, on average, care far less." [Cinema Blend]
It seems Roger Ebert was unable to make the trek to Cannes, but his wife (and Ebert Co. VP) Chaz sends a report from the South of France with a fantastic breakdown of the fest's offerings — and sweet words for Rog back home: "Today there may not be starlets jumping nude in the ocean, but we are still being given stories of young love and old love and passion and feelings and ideas that make life worth living. Thank you for introducing me to this world. Now I just want you to hurry back to it." [Chicago Sun-Times]
"It is terrible that such a tragic event as Chernobyl is being sensationalized in a Hollywood horror film. [...] Thousands of people have died and over 400,000 people were evacuated from their homes. Today over 5 million people still live on contaminated land. The horror is not mutants running around, the real horror is the effect that Chernobyl continues to have on the lives of millions who have been devastated physically, emotionally and economically. [...] If you feel compelled to go see this movie, take the adrenalin you get from the horror to go do something good and make a difference in the lives of those still living with Chernobyl every day." [TMZ]
"I can talk to absolutely anybody. But in the world of people that I would just love to sit there and be like, 'Let me ask you this! Let me ask you this! Let me love you about this and let this audience do the same.' I think an ultimate get for me — and we’ll never get him — Bill Murray. This is going to sound weird, but I would love to suck Bill Murray’s dick in that way that I do — not the actual dick-in-mouth version, but the verbal, 'Oh my god, without you I wouldn’t be who I am!' way. That’s the people I gravitate toward, who without their art I don’t think I would have gravitated toward mine." [Wired]
The surprise winner of this year's Forbes Celebrity 100 list was singer-actress-American Idol famous person Jennifer Lopez, who beat out the likes of Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga in the magazine's uber-scientific calculation of the celebrity with the most fiscal earnings and fame. J. Lo even bested Oprah, but then Oprah's having an off year despite raking in $165 million. Not bad for a former fly girl — and a wily Hollywood strategist, at that — whose second pregnancy-themed movie in a row is coincidentally due in theaters this week. [Forbes]
That's right, Mantivities. Star Trek's Chris Pine, along with five of his buddies, wrote the comedy script; he'll produce and star under director Michael Patrick Jann (The State, Reno 911!). Writes Deadline: "The comedy focuses on a group of friends in their early 30s, all in various stages of permanent adolescence. They get together with the aim of helping one of them grow up... 'I couldn’t be happier to begin the adventure of making Mantivities knowing how much fun we all had writing it,' Pine said. ‘Somehow I get to laugh with my friends and call it work.'” [Deadline]
Opening early overseas helped this week's Battleship quietly amass $215 million before its domestic debut, and a few international markets (including Japan, Hong Kong, and New Zealand) may similarly see emphatic pre-U.S. openings for Sony's July 3 tent pole The Amazing Spider-Man when it opens in countries like India days before hitting theaters stateside. Shall we call it, as one Sony Pictures India rep suggests, the "neener-neener" bump? "Each of the Spider-Man franchise films has broken records on its release in this territory. We are very confident that Indian audiences will enjoy the new reboot of the franchise even more because they are watching it before the U.S." [THR]
Shocker, I know: "Females were 'dramatically under-represented' in the United States’ top 100 grossing films last year, accounting for 33% of all characters at a time when they made up nearly 51% of the U.S. population, according to a study being released Tuesday. [...] The report mirrored a study of women's behind-the-scenes participation that the center released in January, which found that women made up 18% of all directors, producers, writers, cinematographers and editors working on the 250 highest-grossing movies last year. That was only one percentage point higher than when the center began studying employment figures in 1998." [LAT]
