The Sunday News Recap! 6.12.05
By Ryan ArthurPosted 06/13/05 09:38:01
Draw up a seat and grab the beverage of your choice, because the Sunday News Recap is back for another look back at the week that was. You know how we roll: we've got the last seven days worth of reviews and features at HBS/eFC, as well as casting news, writer/director/producer attachments for a number of upcoming projects, box office numbers for the weekend, and a preview of films, DVDs and features for the week ahead. I’m Ryan, and you'll never prove a thing copper, I'm just a part time electrician. I…I…I…Bad is good, baby. Down with government. Let’s make with the Recappin’.
What I’m Watching
Angel Season 3, Discs 2-4
”Skull cracked...brains leaking out...Can't wait to see the new Chevy Chase movie...”
Reviews from our writers over the last week:
Erik Childress
Losing Ground (Screened at the 2005 CineVegas Film Festival)
Buy It Now (Screened at the 2005 CineVegas Film Festival)
the Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
Howl’s Moving Castle
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mel Valentin
The Matrix Revolutions
Hero (2004)
The Blob (1988)
High Tension
Mystic River
Bob Le Flambeur
David Cornelius
The Longest Yard (2005)
Madagascar
D.E.B.S.
The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
Hitch
A Dirty Shame
Aaron West * NEW REVIEWER *
Historias Mimimas
Hoop Dreams
The Times Of Harvey Milk
Off The Map
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
PaulBryant
Dust To Glory
Charles Tatum
London Voodoo
EricDSnider
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants
Mysterious Skin
The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The Honeymooners
Chris Wilson
Cinderella Man
Jay Seaver
Rio Bravo
The Searchers
3:10 To Yuma
The Tall T
Mark Rodger-Snelson
Kindergarten
Greg Ursic
Cinderella Man
Howl’s Moving Castle
Jason Whyte
Cinderella Man
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants
The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
the Grinch
Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith
Dennis Swennumson
The Aristocrats
Robert Flaxman
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Peter Sobczynski
High Tension
The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
The Honeymooners
Howl’s Moving Castle
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Scott Weinberg
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Abhishek Bandekar
Parineeta
Uri Lessing
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mad Hot Ballroom
Elaine Perrone
High Tension
Lybarger
The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D
Want more reviews from a particular author? Click on the author’s name. Want more reviews, regardless of author? Check out the database. Don't know what you want? Try searching the database.
On the feature front this week:
Erik Childress
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘Vegas, Baby’ Director Eric Bernt)
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘The Outsider’ Director Nicholas Jarecki)
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘In Memory Of My Father’ Director Christopher Jaymes)
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘Buy It Now’ Director Antonio Campos)
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘Charlie’s Party’ Director Catherine Cahn)
CineVegas ’05 Interview (‘Radiant’ Director Steve Mahone)
(More Celebrity Exclusive Interviews)
Peter Sobczynski
Interview With Pete Docter: When Miyazaki Met Pixar
Interview: Joan Chen And Alice Wu On ‘Saving Face’
(More Celebrity Exclusive Interviews)
DVD Reviews For 6/10: No Water Shall Be Served Here!
(More DVD Reviews)
Jason Whyte
The Storytelling Of László Kovács, Cinematographer; Profile Interview Series Vol. #9
(More Celebrity Exclusive Interviews)
Laura Kyle
Sonic Death Monkey Soundtrack Reviews – A Lot Like Love And Crash
(More Sonic Death Monkey Soundtrack Reviews)
EricDSnider
Eric D. Snider’s 2005 CineVegas Film Festival Diary
(More Live Reports From The Festival Circuit)
Ryan Arthur
The Sunday News Recap! 6.5.05
(More Sunday News Recaps)
Want more features from a particular writer? Click on his or her name. Want more features, coverage, interviews and the like? Click on the More option. Want more features, period? Check out the database. Don't know what you want? Try searching the database.
Shameless Self-Promotion: Radio Ga-Ga
Our staff of writers frequently makes appearances outside of our sites, including regular gigs on radio.
Erik Childress, Collin Souter and Scott Weinberg are regular guests on Nick Digilio's Bick At Night on WGN 720 AM in Chicago. The show airs every Sunday night, 11:00pm to 2:00am, Chicago (Central) time.
Scott Weinberg is also a regular guest on JD Balart's American Radio Journal on WMET 1160 AM in Washington, DC. Scott's segment airs every Friday afternoon from 1:30pm to 2:00pm, DC time (Eastern).
Chris Parry, Erik Childress and Scott Weinberg are guests on Gaalen Engen's Fellini Is King on CJSF 90.1 FM in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The show airs every Sunday from 11:00am to 1:00pm, Vancouver (Pacific) time.
Ryan Arthur does entertainment news on Gary O'Brien And Friends on WDWS 1400 AM in Champaign, Illinois. I'm on Monday through Friday from 2:40pm to 3:00pm, Central time.
Listen to us, if you get the chance!
”Let's never forget; We're the real story, not them.”
She will forever be known as Mrs. Robinson, but Anne Bancroft was most proud of her work in The Miracle Worker. She created the role of Annie Sullivan on Broadway, earning a Tony in the process, and won an Oscar in 1962 for reprising the role in the film. Anne Bancroft died on Monday of cancer at the age of 73. Bancroft had been married to filmmaker Mel Brooks since 1956. They met when she was rehearsing a musical number, "Married I Can Always Get," for the Perry Como television show, and a voice from offstage called: “I'm Mel Brooks.” She appeared in appeared in three of Brooks' comedies: Silent Movie, a remake of To Be Or Not to Be and Dracula: Dead And Loving It. She also was the one who suggested that he make a stage musical of his movie The Producers. She explained that when he was afraid of writing a full-blown musical, including the music, “I sent him to an analyst.” A stage veteran herself, Bancroft returned to Broadway in 2002 (for the first time since 1981) in Edward Albee’s Occupant. She was last seen on the big screen in Heartbreakers and on television in The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone (for which she was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie Emmy). Her voice will be heard in the upcoming animated film Delgo, opening later this year. Bancroft’s husband, Mel Brooks, and their son Max survive her.
(source: Associated Press)
Well, if anyone can try to upstage the phenomena that is TomKat, it’s Russell Crowe. Crowe was arrested and charged Monday for allegedly throwing a telephone at an employee of the Manhattan hotel where he was staying. He allegedly threw the phone at the concierge at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo, “hitting him in the face and causing a laceration and substantial pain,” according to the complaint. Crowe was arraigned on charges of second-degree assault and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon the telephone before Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Martin Murphy. The assault charge is punishable by seven years in prison. Assistant District Attorney Chad Sjoquist asked the judge to set $5,000 bail, but Murphy released Crowe on his own recognizance and told him to return to court Sept. 14. Crowe appeared on The Late Show With David Letterman on Wednesday and appeared humbled and contrite in apologizing to both his wife and to Nestor Estrada, the concierge who was hit just under the eye, saying “Hopefully at some stage, I'll be able to apologize directly to Nestor but at the moment, he's not answering his phone.” Crowe’s in theaters now with Cinderella Man.
(source: Associated Press)
Awards Update
Here are your winners for this year’s MTV Movie Awards:
BEST MOVIE
Napoleon Dynamite
BEST MALE PERFORMANCE
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE
Lindsay Lohan, Mean Girls
BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE
Dustin Hoffman, Meet The Fockers
BEST ON-SCREEN TEAM
Lindsay Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Lacey Chabert and Amanda Seyfriend, Mean Girls
BEST VILLAIN
Ben Stiller, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE – MALE
Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE – FEMALE
Rachel McAdams, Mean Girls
BEST KISS
Rachel McAdams & Ryan Gosling, The Notebook
BEST FIGHT
Daryl Hannah vs. Uma Thurman, Kill Bill: Vol. 2
BEST MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite
BEST FRIGHTENED PERFORMANCE
Dakota Fanning, Hide And Seek
BEST VIDEO GAME BASED ON A MOVIE
Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
BEST ACTION SEQUENCE
Destruction of Los Angeles, The Day After Tomorrow; Roland Emmerich, director
(source: MTV)
”They took the idols and smashed them, the Fairbankses, the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who've we got now? Some nobodies!”
Casting!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”I know all about you - sex for dinner, death for breakfast.”
Rosamund Pike will star in Devil You Know. Pike will play an actress named Zoe who is trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps, and “is full of anger and hurt, and cannot make a connection with her mother, who in many ways, is unreachable. As the danger escalates for her mother, Zoe is caught up in the events, though it is unclear whether she is an intended victim or is playing a different role in the intrigue.” James Oakly is directing the low-budget feature, which starts filming this August. Pike’s in Doom, opening October 21. (source: Production Weekly)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”You wanna cut my throat, go ahead. You wanna cut my fuckin' head off and use it for a fuckin' basketball? You can bowl with the motherfucker for all I care. Just don't let HIM do it. I don't wanna get killed by this limey, immigrant JERKOFF. I wanna get killed by an AMERICAN…jerkoff.”
The casting for Wolfgang Petersen’s new take on The Poseidon Adventure is starting to fill out: Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss, Andre Braugher, Emmy Rossum, Josh Lucas and Mike Vogel are all on board the project. Russell is playing a former fireman and mayor who is traveling with his daughter (Rossum) and her boyfriend (Vogel). Dreyfuss plays a gay man whose relationship breaks up just before departure. Braugher would play the ship's captain, while Lucas will play the role of the ship-hopping gambler. Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman wrote the script based on Paul Gallico's novel. Filming starts June 18. Russell can next be seen in Sky High, opening July 29. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”I'm moving to Phoenix. I got a job……Something you apply for and they pay you to…Never mind, I don't want to ruin the surprise.”
Jason Bateman has joined Zach Braff and Amanda Peet in Fast Track, a romantic comedy written by David Guion and Michael Handelman. Braff will play an underachiever who is forced to take a job he doesn't want (working for his father-in-law) after his wife becomes pregnant and quits her high-paying job. Jesse Peretz will direct, with filming starting July 11. (source: Production Weekly)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”How does this happen? How do they get the message that the ass is now on the menu?”
Sarah Jessica Parker will take the lead role in Spinning Into Butter, based on Rebecca Gilman's play. Here’s the plot: “when clearly racist, but anonymous, letters start appearing on the door of one of the college's few African American students, Sarah, the liberal dean of students, is forced to question and explore modern feelings about, and approaches to, racism and political correctness.” Filming starts in September. Parker’s in Strangers With Candy: The Movie, opening in limited release October 21. (source: Production Weekly)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”DUDE, I know. Don't you ever question me on ‘the Bunch’.”
Scrubs’ Donald Faison will star as (sigh) Homie Spumoni for writer and director Mike Cerrone. Faison will play Renato, a black man who was raised as an Italian-American and who is unaware that he is black. When his birth parents show up, he spurns his Italian family as well as his Jewish American Princess girlfriend and goes to his birth family's home. There, he realizes he must learn to be comfortable in his own skin. Oof. Good judgment, there, Turkelton. Jamie-Lynn DiScala, Joey Fatone (Enter the Fat One!) and Whoopi Goldberg also star. Faison’s in Vegas Baby, which is premiering at the 2005 Cinevegas Film Festival. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”No, no. No, see this is a really shit idea. You know why? Because it's really obviously a shit idea.”
Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh and Chris Evans will star in director Danny Boyle’s space travel sci-fi thriller Sunshine. The story is about a team of astronauts sent to discover what became of a space mission crew gone AWOL. Filming starts this summer. Murphy’s worked with Boyle before, appearing in the director’s 28 Days Later a few years ago. He’ll next be seen as Jonathan Crane, The Scarecrow, in Batman Begins, opening Wednesday. (source: Variety)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”I always wear boxers. You just caught me on a weird day.”
The Girl Next Door’s Emile Hirsch will star in Goat, adapted from Brad Land's memoir of fraternity hazing. The book dealt with Land's experience as a psychologically shattered 19-year-old struggling to bounce back from a brutal attack. David Gordon Green will direct, with filming starting this fall. Hirsch is in theaters now with Lords Of Dogtown. (source: Variety)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”She pulled back those tight orange panties and said ‘Take a bite of Peach.’”
Nicolas Cage and Will Smith will co-star in and produce Time Share, based on a comedy pitch from Mark Steilen. Cage and Smith will play two fathers who lock horns when they discover their families are booked into the same time-share residence during what should have been their dream vacation. Sounds wacky. Cage and Norm Golightly's Saturn Films are producing with Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook Entertainment. Smith can be seen in Hitch, out on video and DVD this Tuesday, while Cage has The Weather Man opening October 28. (source: Variety)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”Cram it up your cramhole, LaFleur!”
Ben Stiller and Steve Coogan will star in a feature film version of The Persuaders for DreamWorks Pictures, Hyde Park and Granada America. The series starred Roger Moore and Tony Curtis and followed the adventures of two rich playboys. Curtis played a street-smart millionaire from the Bronx, while Moore was a member of the British upper crust. In the film, Stiller will play the Curtis role originated by Tony Curtis, while Coogan will take Roger Moore's part. Stiller’s in Madagascar, in theaters now. (source: Variety)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”That had all the tact of a Nazi Storm Trooper.”
Alexis Bledel, Jay Baruchel and DJ Qualls will star in the romantic comedy. I Am Reed Fish. Baruchel plays the title character, a small town guy who runs a popular local radio station and is in love with Bledel's character. Qualls plays a convenience store owner who also has a thing for Bledel. Filming starts later this month with Zackary Adler directing. Bledel’s in theaters now with The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
”I was just thinking what an interesting concept it is to eliminate the writer from the artistic process. If we could just get rid of these actors and directors, maybe we've got something here.”
Some script, production and direction notes:
* X-Men 3 has its director, and it is Brett Ratner. Yes, the man whose last movie, After The Sunset made a grand total of $28,331, 233 (versus a $58 million budget), will replace Matthew Vaughn, who himself replaced Bryan Singer, who left to direct Superman Returns, a movie that Brett Ratner was once attached to direct. The suits at Fox consider the script for the project to be as good as the last two films, the budget is set, and filming starts in August for release on Memorial Day weekend, 2006. With Chris Tucker passing, the production on Rush Hour 3 was put on hold, allowing Ratner to slip into the director’s chair gig. Ratner tells MTV that he plans to inject a little more humor into the franchise. You know, Marvel Films honcho Avi Arad keeps describing Fantastic Four as “a family comedy” and I can’t get excited about that movie at all. How about we keep the funny to a minimum and make with the asskickery, OK, Brett? And stop referring to yourself in the third person. (source: Variety, MTV)
* If that wasn’t enough to make comic book fans queasy, Watchmen, based on the Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons graphic novel, has been put in turnaround. The film was set up at Paramount with Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) attached to direct, and now producers Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin have started taking the project out to other studios. Paramount, now under the new direction of Brad Grey, felt the $100 million-plus budget was too steep. (source: Variety)
* Steven Conrad will adapt J. Robert Lennon's Mailman: A Novel for Paramount. The plot follows a letter carrier named Albert Lippincott “who is aggressively cheerful and obsessively efficient and who has a penchant for reading other people's mail. When one of his customers ends up dead, and Lippincott is holding the letter that might have saved his life, he sets out on a cross-country odyssey to reconcile with his own family and make meaning out of his life.” It will be followed by The Gas Meter Reader and Recycling Bin Guy. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* DreamWorks has optioned the film rights to Lois Duncan's novel Hotel For Dogs, about a teen who secretly fills a vacant house with stray dogs after she moves in with her aunt and has to leave her a dachshund behind. No word on who will adapt the story for the screen. (source: Variety)
* The Pink Panther has been bumped again. Sony (taking over the release from MGM, which was been absorbed by Sony) has moved the film from its recent August 5 release date to February 10, 2006. The studio says the new release date will give distributors time to properly promote the film. It now opens opposite the romantic comedy Just Friends and the animated Curious George. (source: Variety)
* Ron Brinkerhoff will write Fort Knox, an action-heist picture that follows a team of specialists that is hired to break into Fort Knox. The project is set up at Warner Bros. Basil Iwanyk's Thunder Road Pictures is producing along with Charles Segars, , and the story is based on Segars’ pitch. Segars also developed the story for National Treasure. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* Fox Searchlight Pictures, DNA and the BBC will team up to bring The History Boys, the National Theatre's production of the award-winning play, to the big screen. Nicholas Hytner will direct from a script adapted for the screen by original playwright Alan Bennett. The cast from the stage will reprise their roles for the film, which “centers on an unruly class of bright, funny teenage boys in pursuit of sex, sport and a college degree. Bounced between their maverick English teacher (Richard Griffiths), a young and shrewd professor hired to up their test scores (Stephen Campbell Moore), a grossly out-numbered history teacher (Frances de la Tour), and a headmaster obsessed with results (Clive Merrison), the boys attempt to sift through it all to pass the daunting university admissions process. Their journey becomes as much about how education works, as it is about where education leads.” Filming begins in July. (source: Fox Searchlight Pictures, via Coming Soon)
* The rights and distribution to Pulse, a Japanese horror hit from 2001 about teens investigating a series of suicides linked to an internet webcam that promises visitors the chance to interact with the dead, has been sold to Magnolia Films from Bob and Harvey Weinstein’s Dimension Films. Dimension is currently at work on a remake that stars Christina Milian and Kristen Bell. (source: Variety)
* Better Luck Tomorrow’s Justin Lin will direct The Fast And The Furious 3 for Universal and producer Neal Moritz. The new film relocates the street racing theme to Tokyo, where the main character gets involved in “drift racing.” No Paul Walker, no Tyrese, no Vin Diesel. Filming will begin this fall. Lin’s currently finishing up work on Annapolis, due January 27, 2006. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* A movie based on the hugely popular video game Halo is a go. Messengers dressed as the Master Chief character delivered the Alex Garland (28 Days Later)-written script to studios this past Monday, with Microsoft hoping to take $10 million against 15 percent of the gross for the script and developmental control. By Friday, the number had been trimmed down to $5 million, and Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox will now team up on the project. Universal will take domestic distribution rights, and Fox will handle international distribution. Production could get under way in January for release in 2007. (source: Variety, Hollywood Reporter)
* Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy is rewriting and directing Need for Paramount. The film is based on the Lawrence David novel. The plot deals with a psychiatrist who discovers that her new patient, a maniacally depressed woman, is having an affair with her husband. Marcus Nispel was at one point set to direct with Diane Lane starring, but Lane has left the project. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* Thomas Carter (Coach Carter) will produce and direct Marcus Dixon for Paramount Pictures. Dixon was a former Vanderbilt football recruit who was controversially imprisoned in a case that stirred up racial tensions and grabbed headlines. Dixon was convicted of aggravated child molestation after having consensual sex with a fellow student who was three months shy of 16. Dixon, who was 18 at the time, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after -- his supporters argued -- a law passed to stop child molestation was wrongly used to convict him. Dixon was released after 15 months in prison. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
* Universal Pictures has acquired the comedy pitch The Richest Man In The World from screenwriters Jim Burnstein and Garrett Schiff. The project deals with the poorest man in the world getting to walk in the shoes of the richest man in the world. The film is being developed as a starring vehicle for George Lopez. (source: Variety)
* Chiller Films will remake Joe Dante’s Pirhana, with Chuck Russell handling writing duties. He’s using elements of John Sayles script of the original, as well as elements from a spec script from Josh Stolberg and Peter Goldfinger called Killer Fish. Russell could also direct, if he so chooses. Filming will likely start this fall. (source: Variety)
* Hugh Jackman and John Palermo’s newly formed Seed Productions has signed a first-look deal with 20th Century Fox, with the first project being Wolverine. Jackman and Palermo will produce with Lauren Shuler Donner and Marvel’s Avi Arad, with a script from David Benioff, who will turn in his first draft soon. Jackman will star as the title character after finishing X-Men 3. (source: Variety)
* New Line Cinema is in talks to pick up the rights to We3, a DC/Vertigo Comics miniseries written by Grant Morrison. The story follows three household pets: a dog, a cat and a bunny. The animals are stolen by the government and turned into armor-suited killers by a clandestine military program. The lethal creatures escape just prior to being "decommissioned" and decide to find their way home with the government trying to catch them. Don Murphy, Susan Montford and Rick Benattar are producing, with Morrison expected to write the script. (source: Variety)
* Bob and Harvey Weinstein have picked up The Impossible Adventures Of Phineas Roone, a family fantasy pitch from brother and sister screenwriters Adam and Melanie Wilson. The Weinsteins are hoping to develop the pitch into a possible franchise. The story deals with a 13-year-old boy from Brooklyn who sets tries to discover the identity of the anonymous author of a series of popular fantasy-adventure book when the publisher offers a million-dollar prize to whomever can find the mysterious writer. The kid then discovers that the fantastical tales in the books are, in fact, real. (source: Variety)
* Hooligans director Lexi Alexander will step behind the camera for the thriller Labor Day, which is set up at Disney. The plot follows a hotshot district attorney who gets the career-making job of prosecuting the son of an elusive crime lord. When his wife is kidnapped, the attorney then must ask for help from his wife's former lover, who happens to be a gangster. Christian Gudegast rewrote a script from Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris. Lauren Shuler-Donner and Michael Aguilar are producing. Hooligans premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April. (source: Variety)
* DreamWorks has purchased the romantic comedy pitch Extra, Extra from screenwriters Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg. Robert Kosberg will produce. Florsheim and Stolberg’s comedy pitch Man-Witch was purchased by Warner Bros. a few weeks ago. (source: Variety)
* Shrek and Shrek 2 producer John H. Williams will produce the animated feature Phreex with Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. The film deals with a group of rejected lab animals that set out to find their way in the world. They discover a sanctuary run by a Bill Gates-type figure that offers itself as a home to animals of all shapes and sizes. Matt Corman and Chris Ord wrote the script. (source: Hollywood Reporter)
”Great movie, huh? So refreshing to see something like this after all these...cop movies and, you know, things we do. Maybe we'll do a remake of this!”
Here's the preliminary top ten for the weekend. Estimates are taken from Box Office Mojo.com and are rounded up, where applicable. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. Mr. And Mrs. Smith $51.1 million
2. Madagascar $17.1 million ($128.3 million total)
3. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith $14.9 million ($332.1 million total)
4. The Longest Yard (2005) $13.5 million ($118.1 million total)
5. The Adventures Of Shark Boy And Lava Girl In 3-D $12.5 million
6. Cinderella Man $9.5 million ($34.5 million total)
7. The Honeymooners $5.8 million
8. The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants $5.7 million ($23.7 million total)
9. Monster-In-Law $2.6 million ($76.5 million total)
10. Crash (2005) $1.9 million ($44.3 million total)
Opening June 15 (wide release):
Batman Begins
Opening June 17 (wide release):
The Perfect Man
Opening June 17 (limited release):
The Deal
The Great Water
Heights
Me And You And Everyone We Know
My Summer Of Love
The Talent Given Us
”Can we agree that from now on, films have to be made by FILMMAKERS?!”
Previewing the week ahead...
On DVD This Tuesday (theatrical/DTV):
Au hazard Balthazar (Criterion Collection #297)
Brother To Brother
Casino (10th Anniversary Edition; widescreen and fullscreen)
Cathouse
Danger: Diabolik
A Dirty Shame (NC-17 and R-rated “neuter” version)
For Roseanna
Heaven Can Wait
Hitch (widescreen and fullscreen)
Jaws (30th Anniversary Edition; widescreen and fullscreen)
Jolly Roger: Massacre At Cutter’s Cove
Knots
Land Of Silence And Darkness
The Lightship
Man-Thing
Prime Cut
The Reivers
Rory O’Shea Was Here
Signs Of Life
Target
Tarzan 2
We can give you more DVD recommendations with our Upcoming DVD Release Schedule.
Michael Collins returns on Wednesday with another edition of Sonic Death Monkey Soundtrack Reviews.
Look for new DVD Reviews from Peter Sobczynski on Friday.
Erik Childress has updates and additions to Criticwatch every Friday, as well.
You can (and should) visit the Contest page for your chance to win cool stuff from HBS/eFC.
We’ll have some additional features and editorials throughout the week, and I’ll have your Recap on Sunday.
That should cover another edition of the Sunday News Recap. If you’re bored (or if you’re some kind of completist) you can checking out our previous Recaps to see what all you’ve missed, and make sure you visit our forums while you’re here, too. It’s just like being in a room with all of us, minus the liquor, the shouting and the awkward moments when we make Grandma cry. Thanks for reading, and as always, your feedback is appreciated.