Also in Tuesday morning's briefs roundup, Abbas Kiarostami's latest from Cannes is heading to the U.S., a big film-biz deal brews up in Canada, a controversial film lands its maker in hot legal water three decades, and more...
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Johnny Depp wanted his and Tim Burton's gothic vampire comedy Dark Shadows to be anything but Twilight. Mission accomplished, I suppose: The film fizzled into a very distant second place behind another jaw-dropping performance by The Avengers, which continued to rewrite the blockbuster history books in its second weekend. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Marvel's The Avengers broke virtually every box-office record known to Hollywood over the weekend, becoming the first film to surpass $200 million domestic on an opening weekend and hurtling toward $1 billion worldwide in what should be a matter of days. Consider the superhero gauntlet thrown down before The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises. Your Weekend Receipts (for what they're worth) are here.
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Roughly two weeks after Gary Ross's departure from and Francis Lawrence's rumored attachment to Catching Fire, Lionsgate has officially announced Lawrence as its man to direct its mega-anticipated Hunger Games sequel.
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The Avengers (titled Avengers Assemble in the UK) exploded at the UK box office with £15.78 million — or roughly $25.6 million — over the weekend, including its Thursday preview screenings, giving the superhero film the winning spot among British releases. And coming in the heels of John Carter (which has yet to even break the £5m mark in Britain), Disney is wasting no time celebrating, calling the result the biggest superhero-movie opening of all time, The Guardian reports.
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The annual pageant of youth, taste and class hardware bacchanal known as the MTV Movie Awards has announced its nominations for 2012, with this year's most formidable blockbuster to date, The Hunger Games, doing battle against the most formidable blockbusters of last year's calendar, including Bridesmaids, Breaking Dawn: Part I, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, The Help, and others. And Drive loyalists rejoice! Your favorite head-shattering action-drama of 2011 has been honored with three nominations as well. Read on for the full list of contenders who will go at it in a fully-product placement-optimized Gibson Amphitheater on June 3.
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The last weekend before summer blockbuster madness ensues proved to be a wrenching one for Hollywood, which watched as four new openings stumbled out of the gate behind tested literary thoroughbreds Think Like a Man and The Lucky One. Is the Apatow comedy machine broken? Has America lost its taste for the Stath? Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Said Madeline Puzo, the dean of the USC School of Theater where Ross will speak on May 11: "Gary is a wonderful example of a superb artist who combines a rigorous aesthetic standard with stories that have broad-ranging appeal." No kidding! And you'll really know he's serious when he turns his speech over to Francis Lawrence a third of the way through. [Variety]
After nearly a month in first place, The Hunger Games surrendered its banner to another big-league bestseller-adaptation — and not the one that you (or I, for that matter) were expecting. Your eye-opening Weekend Receipts are here.
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This is getting a little ridiculous: The Hunger Games claimed its fourth straight weekend box-office win on Sunday, mopping the floor with weak-sauce competition including The Three Stooges, Cabin in the Woods, and a brutally performing Lockout. Your Weekend Receipts are here.
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Well, that was fast: Just hours after Josh Hutcherson gamely threw his support behind Hunger Games director Gary Ross, Ross has officially announced he's not directing the franchise sequel, Catching Fire. "I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make," wrote Ross in a statement. More after the jump.
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Promoting his indie genre-bender Detention today in Los Angeles (in theaters Friday), Hunger Games star Josh Hutcherson found himself in the line of questioning about the much-discussed ambiguity surrounding director Gary Ross's potential return to the franchise. “I think Gary’s the man," he diplomatically told The Hollywood Reporter. "Gary is in my mind is the only one that could ever direct the second one. That’s what I’m sticking to.” (UPDATE: Looks like Hutcherson'll have to readjust his thinking - Ross is officially out of the running for Catching Fire.)
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Despite last week's report to the contrary, it's not especially surprising to hear that Gary Ross is not quite out as the director of the Hunger Games sequel Catching Fire: Various sources have followed up initial word of Ross's franchise departure with news of predictable-enough salary disputes over ridiculously large sums of money that would push any spin machine into overdrive. UPDATE 4/10: Ross is officially out of the running to direct the Hunger Games sequel.
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Happy Monday! Did you have a good holiday weekend? Here's hoping it was better than what transpired over the last few days at the box office, where returns ranged from modest to sluggish as America's families holed up with God and the Masters and whatever else struck their fancies while multiplexes hummed along quietly with a shrinking blockbuster and a few decent runners-up. Your Weekend Receipts
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Because despite all indications otherwise, Gary Ross has reportedly walked away from Lionsgate's blockbuster sequel Catching Fire. Let's come up with plan B!
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