Post-yuletide holiday crowds flocked to the same trio of sequels that dominated the Christmas box office -- Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked -- while Summit newcomer The Darkest Hour limped into theaters waaaay under the radar. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise will be ringing in the new year with a number 1 box office finish, made all the sweeter by projections that Ghost Protocol will overtake the $134 million domestic take of the series' last installment by Monday. Dive into your Friday Box Office!
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Sherlock Holmes may have won the weekend with a modest debut, but was it the real box office winner? Not with Tom Cruise and the Mission: Impossible gang around to flaunt their fab limited release per-screen average in everyone's faces, a precursor to next week's Christmastime blitz. And, yeah. The new Chipmunks is out. A moment of silence for all the poor souls who helped it debut in the number two slot. I'd wager even David Cross feels for you.
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After earning back-to-back Academy Award nominations -- in 2010, for his breakout role in Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker and in 2011, for his supporting part in Ben Affleck's Boston crime drama The Town -- Jeremy Renner decided to dive headfirst into the action genre with four consecutive big-budget action projects. The first, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which co-stars Renner as a mysteriously overqualified IMF agent assisting Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt on his latest globe-sweeping assignment, premieres this weekend in IMAX. The next three films, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, The Avengers and The Bourne Legacy, will all hit theaters next year, making the California-raised actor the busiest action star of 2012.
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What does it take to revive a passion for one's work, years on, whether said vocation is saving the world or churning out sequels in a blockbuster franchise? How does one reclaim human contact in today's isolating, gadget-dependent world? These are questions IMF agent Ethan Hunt and his portrayer Tom Cruise face in Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol, Cruise's fourth outing in the spy series, directed entertainingly enough by Pixar veteran Brad Bird. If the hoodied Cruise evokes a touch of Eminem-level moodiness in the posters, it's with good reason: Stopping a maniacal supervillain may be on the docket yet again, but this time around Ethan Hunt has gone emo.
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When Tom Cruise adapted the Mission: Impossible television series for the screen in the mid-'90s, he made an interesting decision: Instead of branding the spy franchise himself, he would let different directors customize each installment according to their unique strengths and visions. Following three distinct Mission: Impossible takes from Brian De Palma, John Woo and J.J. Abrams, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Brad Bird -- who, before Ghost Protocol, had never helmed a live action feature -- stepped up to the plate for the fourth M:I installment.
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Real talk: the new trailer for Adam Shankman's Rock of Ages musical embodies all that people who hate karaoke hate karaoke for. Namely, middle-aged folks blaring through cheesy renditions of their favorite '80s make-out/rock songs while the rest of us patiently wait for the plaintive strains of Journey to end, already. I say this as a person who likes -- nay, loves -- karaoke. Sigh. The Twisted Sister/Starship mash-up you really never asked for coming in 3, 2, 1.
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This past week, Tom Cruise has circled the globe in celebration of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol's international premieres. Along the way, he has sparked one insane rumor (about how the people of Indian will only scream for him if a free buffet lunch is provided) and has been forced to pose with a smattering of random overseas notables like the Duchess of Alba Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart in Madrid last night. What resulted on the red carpet is one of the most awkwardly staged premiere photos of Cruise's career, and in honor of this, Movieline is asking you for a fitting caption.
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Grab your grain of salt! A new report states that an unidentified PR firm was so worried that fans would not turn out for Tom Cruise's arrival in India this past Saturday for the Mumbai Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol premiere, that they paid approximately 200 people $3 each to show up and scream for the actor when he walked out of the local airport gate. The paid extras were also given a buffet lunch. "Tom kaun? I don't know who he is or what he does," one hired fan told First Post's Bollywood division. "We were told to come here by 1pm today and wait for a foreign VIP to come out of the airport gate and scream and shout when he came." [Movies.com via FirstPost.com]
This Dec. 16, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol premieres in IMAX five days in advance of its general release. Why exactly? Probably to encourage fans of the Tom Cruise franchise to see the picture in the large format director Brad Bird intended when he shot thirty minutes-worth of the fourth Ethan Hunt film in IMAX. To convince journalists that the large format is indeed worth higher ticket prices, an advance release date and a little early buzz, Paramount screened about 20 minutes worth of wild action sequences at the Rave 18 theater in Los Angeles last week. Ahead, the stomach-flipping details (and very mild spoilers).
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How hardcore is Tom Cruise? So hardcore that he actually scaled the tallest structure in the world -- Dubai's Burj Khalifa, which stands at just over a half-mile high -- for a perilous, stomach-churning action sequence in the upcoming Brad Bird-directed Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. Video proof of the superstar's stunt hardcore-ness ahead.
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Recent reports of Tom Cruise unleashing some sweet moves in a dance-off at the posh wedding of his Mission: Impossible -- Ghost Protocol producer David Ellison, prompted speculative mental images of Risky Business-era Tom Cruise cutting loose on the dance floor. (Or, nightmare visions of Cruise busting out some Les Grossman-style swag. Make it stop!) Well, today brings video evidence beyond our mildest/wildest expectations. Did Cruise just do the worm??
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Today's mind-blowing, near-unexplainable but still awesome casting news: Werner Herzog, German filmmaker, roadside angel, and the man François Truffaut once called "the most important film director alive," has been cast opposite Tom Cruise in One Shot, writer-director Christopher McQuarrie's adaptation of Lee Childs' Jack Reacher novel. Details after the jump.
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This past May, Ben Stiller gave us hope that a sequel to Zoolander could still happen...if only Paramount would approve the script. And now Owen Wilson is teasing fans of the 2001 modeling comedy by offering some clues about his character's role in the much-anticipated Twolander. "Hansel, he's fallen on hard times," Wilson told MTV. "There's been a disfiguring injury." When pressed for further explanation, the actor offered one hint that could help unlock the sequel's plot. Put on your most fashionable detective hat and join us after the jump to help us solve this modeling sequel mystery.
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Look, people (that means you too, Twilight Moms): Taylor Lautner is all grown up now, legal and everything at 19 years of age. He's got his first non-Twilight starring role coming up in John Singleton's Abduction, which is also his first young adult bid for action supremacy. So even though he's arguably the most legitimately nice young actor of his generation -- seriously, this kid's poised like a pro -- he's growing up on-screen faster than teen mom Bella Swan. And you know what that means? Steamy love scenes!
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