Cross and a Chipette share horror stories about working with Richard Gere

David Cross rightly gets a lot of nerd street cred for his comedy, his work on Arrested Development, and his show (The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret) on IFC, which is kind of like a lesser-appreciated version of Louis CK’s show. But he’s never been shy about saying he does those Chipmunk movies to pay the billzz$ (speaking specifically of his now-famous blog post about trying to trade his artistic integrity for a small cottage upstate, but realizing the “rural rube” who owned it wouldn’t accept his indie cred as currency). Which makes it a little more interesting that he now seems fully soured on the experience, telling ThePlaylist that making “Chipwrecked” (the Squ3quel) was the most unpleasant experience of his career.

“I’m contractually done,” he said during press rounds for his television show “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” “I was contractually obligated to do three, which is kinda standard.”

“This last film was literally, without question, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had in my professional life,” he says of ‘Chip-Wrecked,’ where he reprises his role of record executive Ian. Without naming names, he says, “It’s safe to say I won’t be working with some of those people ever again. Not the actors. And the director [Mike Mitchell] was great. We got along. There were a couple of people, though…it was just a really awful, unpleasant experience.” Which isn’t to say the entire ‘Chipmunks’ experience has been rotten for him. “I got recognized in China,” he says, listing off the places ‘Chipmunks’ has taken him. “I got recognized in a teeny tiny town in Mozambique. In Zimbabwe. Botswana. It’s crazy.”

Excluding the creatives, you have to assume he’s talking about a team at the production company (Bagdasarian Prod, Regency Enterprises, and TCF Vancouver, according to IMDB) or at Fox. Or maybe he means Andy Serkis. I hear that guy can be a real f*ckin’ prima donna. But man, you’ve never seen CGI chipmunks so life-like!

[full interview at ThePlaylist, Todd Margaret starts January 6th.]

As a whole, Christmas weekend be breakin’ box office records, son:

• Biggest Friday through Sunday gross ever
• Biggest Christmas box office ever
• Most tickets ever sold in a three-day period (37.3 million)
• First weekend that three separate movies grossed more than $50 million each.

Sadly, one of those three movies was Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.   Nonetheless, Hollywood studio execs are calling this windfall the best Christmas present ever, despite them all of them being Jews.  Other facty things:

• Avatar fell only 2.6% from its opening weekend, which is impressive considering a 40-60% drop is standard for Blockbusters these days (though it should be noted that three other movies did more business than last week)
• Sherlock Holmes set a record for a Christmas-Day opening with $24.9 million
• Alvin & the Chipmunks audiences were mostly families and “heavily Latino.”  I thought that was kind of funny because I didn’t know they even kept track of that stuff.  They don’t ask when you buy a ticket, do they?  Maybe they just take the number of stabbings and extrapolate.  *whacks piñata*
• Nine bombed.  It earned about $5.5 million in almost 1500 theaters.  Weinstein is pulling it from the Midwest to focus advertising on the coasts.  The Weinstein Company was already in financial trouble and Nine cost them $64 million.  Which is a lot to pay for what appears to be the world’s longest perfume commercial.  Toldja, dudes, next time go with the hooker yacht.  If there’s better investment than a hooker yacht, I don’t know what it is.

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I first reported the development of a Smurfs movie a couple months ago, a planned live-action/CGI mix a lá Alvin and the Chipmunks (or Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakwel).  Today, bat-like EW correspondent Michael Ausiello uncovered some more news about the plot from a casting call, and it doesn’t sound at all like the Smurfs I remember.  Here are the roles being cast:

SOPHIE: A pre-teen girl who possesses enormous smarts and great imagination, but who is socially and physically clumsy. She discovers that the doll her dad brought home from Belgium is actually a living, breathing Smurf. And not just any Smurf — Clumsy Smurf! Sophie tries to get her mom and dad to embrace Clumsy as a member of the family, but ultimately realizes what he really wants is to reunite with his fellow Smurfs.

SAM: Sophie’s 15-year-old brother. He’s a good kid, but has a tendency to be difficult and withdrawn. He gets involved in helping Clumsy return home and, as a result, bonds with his sister.

What the hell?  So instead of Smurf village we get two special-needs retards and E.T.?  Unless they cast Charley the Retarded Cat as Sophie and include a dance party scene set in McDonald’s, I’m not interested.  (But seriously though, a cat with poor motor skills plus a Smurf plus a dance party at McDonald’s?  This needs to happen).

Russell Brand (CUT YOUR GD HAIR!) is set to supply the voice of the Easter bunny in I Hop – a project that got greenlit when it should’ve gotten the guy who thought of it socked in the arm. (*sigh*) No one has good friends anymore.

Tim Hill, who previously mixed live action and CGI characters on “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” will direct.
Tale revolves around an out-of-work slacker who runs over the Easter Bunny while driving home late. Since the bunny can’t hop with a broken leg, the slacker is pressed into duty to save Easter. The film becomes a two-hander between the iconic holiday critter and the slacker, each of whom is running from adulthood. [Variety]

I hope Tim Allen plays the guy who has to become the Easter Bunny. Each day his ears get a little longer and he gets a little fuzzier. And one day he’ll be sitting on the marriage counselor’s couch with his wife and the doctor will ask, “So how’s your love life?”  And his wife will giggle, “Actually, doc, it’s the strangest thing, I don’t know what’s come over him, but ever since a week ago, we’ve been making love like rabbits!”  (*canned laughter*)

Also: Wouldn’t this be a funnier concept if the Easter Bunny ran over some loser and then had to take over his job at IHOP?  “Hey, Bunny, where the f*ck is my lingonberry butter?”  So ironic.

Sony obtained the rights to The Smurfs and are planning a live action/animated movie.  That’s one of those movies where actors who need money stand around pretending to interact with creepy CGI characters.  On the set, I imagine a naked PA painted green running around holding a stick with a picture of a smurf or a chipmunk or whatever on it, but I can neither confirm nor deny that that’s how they do it.

"Smurfs" marks SPA’s first hybrid film — a subgenre that proved popular given the success of 20th Century Fox’s "Alvin and the Chipmunks"…
"The Smurfs are one of the best-known franchises, and among the most beloved collection of characters in the world," Columbia co-president Doug Belgrad said. "We’re very excited to introduce a new generation to Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the other smurftastic Smurfs in all of their ‘three-apple-tall’ glory."

Well smurf me in the smurf, this sounds like a smurfing great idea.  I just hope these mothersmurfers don’t make another piece of smurf like Alvin and the Chipmunks. That smurf was creepy.  One of them ate smurf in the trailer!