"Production on the movie was delayed last winter with Legendary reportedly looking to trim the $100 million-plus budget by 10 to 20 percent. The intricate special effects needed to bring a celestial battle between heaven and hell to life required a substantial investment in technology that made the cuts impossible, the individual told TheWrap. Even the addition of rising stars like Bradley Cooper, Casey Affleck and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter actor Benjamin Walker was not enough to secure a greenlight." No shit. [TheWrap]
A quick update on the flurry of Sundance deal-making of recent days, with well-received documentaries and less acclaimed but star-driven (read: marketable) narratives sitting pretty with distribution agreements. Will this be, as pundits predicted, a high-volume buying year in Park City?
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Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for gathering with the fam, eating turkey, and violently disagreeing with Aunt Sue about the validity of Justin Bieber's paternity suit and a cornucopia of other assorted pop culture-related topics while passing around the cranberry sauce. We're here to help make sure those awkward lulls in conversation don't devolve into interrogations into your actual personal life with 15 movie-related topics to keep the relatives squawking, bickering, and debating... at least 'til the pumpkin pie.
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In addition to giving the Gaddafi assassination the ol' Taiwanese 'toon treatment, the good folks at Next Media Animation have processed the recent Avengers trailer through their kooky CG filters. The result? One and a half minutes of hilarious superhero (and gyrating ScarJo) action that imagines the titular crime fighters are called to assemble to battle the evil, cell phone-hacking, nude pic-distributing Loki. There's no way the actual movie will be this entertaining. Stick around for more Buzz Break!
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Remember this summer's Hangover Part II? The Todd Phillips sequel about American pals who indulge in blacked-out Bangkok escapades involving kidnapped Buddhist monks, a chain-smoking monkey, Toyota car chases, kathoey prostitutes, Russian mobsters and Mike Tyson singing an obscure '80s song from Murray Head? Well, now someone is claiming that the critically disappointing blockbuster was based on his own life, and he's suing the filmmakers.
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Let this be a lesson to all Wedding Crashers fans: Just because Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn pull some hilarious pranks without legal consequence in their 2005 comedy does not mean that said hilarious pranks can be pulled without consequence in real life. Just ask 22-year-old University of Wisconsin student Luciana Reichel who has been jailed for 90 days and put on 30 months probation after playing a copycat Wedding Crashers practical joke on her roommate.
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Legendary Pictures -- the production company behind Batman Begins, Watchmen, Clash of the Titans, and all the movies you can't wait to see in 2012 and beyond -- will host its first Comic-Con panel later this month, and while footage will likely be scarce, expect a parade of talent to come through Hall H for upcoming films Pacific Rim, Seventh Son, Paradise Lost, and the Mass Effect video game adaptation. Hit the jump for Legendary's roster of talent!
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Not even lackluster reviews can stop Todd Phillips' highly anticipated R-rated The Hangover Part II. Wednesday's midnight shows brought in a whopping $10.4M, Warner Bros. has the Bangkok-set sequel planned for the biggest opening ever for an R-rated film, and it's going into a five-day holiday weekend. Pundits estimate a $100M or higher opening take, and you know what that means: get ready for a Hangover Part III. [Deadline]
Because of his unique brand of hilariously discomfiting stand-up comedy and, in particular, his mock-confrontational talk show satire Between Two Ferns, which lampoons the celebrity interview itself with clear-eyed vitriol, you might not peg Zach Galifianakis for a warm interviewee. But, like most comics, he's nothing like any of his own characters -- including Alan Garner, the delusional man-child who, along with his fellow "Wolf Pack"-ers (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and, this time around, a monkey) wakes up in a seedy Bangkok hotel room after yet another night of black-out debauchery in The Hangover Part II.
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"Unapologetic" was the word most frequently used by director Todd Phillips and his Wolf Pack cast and writers to describe the outrageous shenanigans that go down in The Hangover Part II, which finds the heroes of The Hangover once again dealing with a bad case of morning-after confusion. This time, they awake disoriented in Bangkok, a place that takes monkeyshines to a whole new level. "Sometimes to make a movie about mayhem," Phillips admitted at Wednesday's press conference, "you have to go to mayhem."
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Though he doesn't appear in Dax Shepard's filmmaking mockumentary Brother's Justice -- which follows Shepard (as himself) and producing partner Nate Tuck on a years-long quest to make a martial arts action movie entitled, yes, Brother's Justice -- Chuck Norris figured prominently in the genesis of the project. "Originally I envisioned fighting Chuck Norris in the third act," Shepard explained to Movieline via telephone. "That was our full goal, that I would fight him at the end of the movie."
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The hits keep coming on Remake/Adaptation Tuesday, with a report that your new Crow has been found in the perennially sun-tanned, jovial, frat boy-friendly Bradley Cooper, which makes perfect sense... right? I mean, who can't picture the star of such nightmarish genre visions as Valentine's Day and All About Steve as Eric Draven, the iconic rock star at the center of The Crow who rises from the ashes to avenge his lady's murder in the role previously portrayed by the late Brandon Lee?
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Last night on Letterman, Bradley Cooper rehashed some of his pre-fame gigs, which included serving as a hotel doorman and hosting a little-watched Discovery Channel show called Globe Trekkers. "The idea was that you were not an expert and they loved that and they wanted to watch you suffer," said Cooper, who was sent by the show to cycle the Viking trail and kayak with orca whales. However, one delicious bit of Globe Trekkers-induced suffering was conspicuously absent from Cooper's anecdote: The time the show forced the then-25-year-old to go to a nude beach in Croatia and take his clothes off. Lucky for you, Movieline's got the video. Enjoy!
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