This week:
Harry Potter waves his magic wand – but he can’t get un-Tangled; Magnolia Films has Good Neighbours; Ben Stiller and James Franco talk about being Young; Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi have Contraband and Michael Douglas returns!
Box Office
Disney’s Tangled duked it out with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 for the top spot over the weekend. The boy wizard lost with Tangled taking $21.5 million to Potter‘s $16.7 million. The Potter film has now banked a mighty $244 million, while the animated fairy tale has scored $96.5 million.
Burlesque danced up another $6.1 million – upping its domestic total to $27 million. The film stars Cher and Christina Aguilera.
The latest Denzel Washington and Tony Scott team-up Unstoppable banked another $6 million for a grand total of $68.9 million.
Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal were third with Love and Other Drugs. The romantic comedy brought in another $5.7 million for a $23 million total.
The Robert Downey Jr. starrer, Due Date, inches closer to the $100 million mark after bringing its box office total to over $90 million after laughing up another $4 million this weekend.
Megamind dropped to seventh place after bringing in another $4.3 million. The Will Ferrell voiced ‘toon has now banked $135 million.
Dwayne Johnson’s Faster was in eighth place after scoring just under $3.5 million. Its total now stands at $18 million.
New entry The Warriors Way failed to impress audiences. The cowboy and ninja movie grossed only $2.6 million on its debut while Russell Crowe’s The Next Three Days also scored in the region of $2.6 million. The Paul Haggis directed film has now banked $18 million.
Movie News
1. Magnolia Films has acquired the U.S. distribution rights to director Jacob Tierney’s thriller, Good Neighbours.
According to THR:
“The movie stars Jay Baruchel, Scott Speedman and Emily Hampshire in the tale of three residents of a small apartment building who are threatened by a serial killer.”
It sounds like it might be a nice little genre entry.
2. Writer/director Noah Baumbach is getting ready to direct Ben Stiller and James Franco in While We’re Young. Greta Gerwig and Cate Blanchett are circling the project.
According to Vulture:
“It’s about a free-spirited Brooklynite twentysomething couple who inspire an uptight documentarian and his wife to loosen up — with comedic consequences.”
Baumbach’s last effort with Stiller (and Gerwig) was the excellent Greenberg – so this has potential.
3.Get ready for a slew of new release dates.
Director John Gulager’s Piranha 3DD, Johnny English Reborn and Rod Lurie’s remake of Straw Dogs will all open on September 16th.
Meanwhile Andrew Niccol’s Now, with Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, will open against Daniel Craig’s delayed Dream House on September 30th.
Place your box office bets now!
4. Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi are in talks to join Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale in the Universal Pictures thriller, Contraband. Writer/director Baltasar Kormakur directs the film, a remake his own Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam.
Production begins in January, with a release set for March 16, 2012.
5. Michael Douglas ia set to return to the screen in his first post-cancer film. The Hollywood legend will star in director Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace, which is set to start shooting in May or June.
Douglas tells THR:
“I’ve got a bunch of tapes of performances. I’m thinking; I’m a blank slate. Everything shows me he was a lovely man; I just want to reconfirm that.”
The actor also tells the trade paper that he’ll need “special prosthetic work” as well as musical training.
Just for laughs:
Voldemort Takes Manhattan!
Come on, even evil wizards need a vacation.
That’s it for now. See you at the movies!
