Fox was the bread in a Chihuahua sandwich this weekend, as estimates place the studio’s two new releases at #1 and #3 on the box office chart. 20th Century Fox’s Max Payne made $18 million while Fox Searchlight’s The Secret Life of Bees earned just over $11 million, which was very, very close to Beverly Hills Chihuahua’s second-placing $11.2 million. Coming in fourth place, which in terms of the sandwich metaphor makes it a pickle, was Oliver Stone’s W. with a close $10.6 million. The discarded turkey, meanwhile, was Sex Drive, which placed ninth with only $3.6 million.
Not enough of a turkey, however, that the Sex Drive writing-directing team of John Morris and Sean Anders couldn’t make a deal for their next project, a college comedy about an accidental father.
Citing creative differences, Hugh Grant has exited the movie biz-set romantic comedy Lost for Words, which would have seen him play opposite Ziyi Zhang as an actor who falls for his director despite a language barrier. Now hopes of a life-imitates-art romance between Grant and Danish director Susanne Bier have been shattered.
Killer Films is producing a movie involving the 1944 meeting of Beat poets Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Jack Keroac. Too bad David Cross, who hilariously portrayed Ginsberg in Killer’s I’m Not There is probably too old to reprise the role.
I’m still waiting for the day a remake of Troop Beverly Hills is announced, but for now the similar-sounding Tough Cookieswill just have to suffice. The family film will be about a deadbeat dad who leads an unconventional group of girl scouts, who compete against snobbish rivals at the National Scout Rally.
I’m skeptical about James Franco portraying Allen Ginsberg in the courtroom-set biopic Howl (can anyone but David Cross be cast after I’m Not There?), but now that Paul Rudd, Jeff Daniels, Mary-Louise Parker, Alan Alda and David Straithairn are also aboard, it could at least be a decent ensemble piece.
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, U2 and now … Blue Man Group? The painted trio is the latest group to be given a 3-D concert film. I wonder if David Cross just blue himself in the hopes of getting a part in it.
New Line has acquired an upcoming novel from Richard Doetsch about a man accused of killing his wife and his trip back in time — in one-hour increments — to save her. Titled The Thirteenth Hour, Variety says it’s being described as The Bourne Identity meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, but obviously it’s more like The Fugitive meets Memento (meets — hopefully — David Cross).
New Line is also making a romantic comedy that’s an obvious cross between Slap Shot and The Devil Wears Prada. And, not obviously, it’s based on a true story.
Late last week, a clip from Todd Haynes‘ experimental Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There appeared on YouTube, and some bloggers spent the weekend debating whether or not to post it on their own sites. It’s the first upload for YouTube user adin1978, but the clip–which depicts a run-in between Dylan (played in this scene by Cate Blanchett) and Allen Ginsberg, played by comedian David Cross–bears a timecode stamp at the bottom, which means it was probably leaked by someone very close to the film. There’s a possibility that this was done with Haynes’ consent, to test early web buzz, but being that this is the first real glimpse of the film we’ve seen, there’s a also a solid chance that the clip was leaked against the filmmakers’ wishes.
Yesterday, Ray Pride posted on Movie City Indie about his decision not to embed the clip, but linked to a post by Scott Macaulay at the FILMMAKER blog which allegedly did contain the clip. “For all I know this is an early viral transmission intended to stoke interest in the movie by getting run on sites like this one. So, I’m embedding it below unless I hear otherwise,” Macaulay wrote. As of this morning, that blog post no longer exists.
There’s no indication whether Macaulay second-guessed his decision and removed the clip himself, or if he did so in response to a request from the filmmakers. But, the clip itself has not been removed from YouTube (which is usually the first step copyright holders take when their material has been distributed against their will), and as of this morning, it’s still embedded on a number of sites. I’m going to take my chances and embed the clip here, for two reasons: a) YouTube makes it incredibly easy for unhappy copyright holders to remove their work from the site, so anything that is allowed to stay up for several days, pirated or not, is fair game for bloggers to disseminate; and b) David Cross’s interpretation of Ginsberg deserves to be seen by as many eyes as possible.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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