Macgruber mounted a big marketing push over the weekend, with ubiquitous internet ads and some viral  sites that I thought were actually pretty funny.  They took a concept I thought was really dumb to begin with (I never liked that sketch) and turned it into something I actually wanted to see.  But once again we learn that us internet cool kids aren’t the people driving the market, it’s that silent, drooling majority that make Jay Leno the number one late night host and Two and a Half Men the highest-rated sitcom (I tried to watch it on the plane the other day. Got through five minutes.).

Final tally? Macgruber: $4.1 million.  Letters to Juliet (not even in its opening weekend): $9.1 million.  Of course, I didn’t get around to seeing Macgruber yet either.  I was still planning to. Maybe it’ll bounce back?  Even if you think it looked stupid, it’s rough watching a broad, R comedy lose to Just Wright, the Queen Latifah rom-com.  WOOF. BoxOfficeMojo described Macgruber‘s opening as “a fraction of Undercover Brother and not much better than Delta Farce [the Larry the Cable Guy movie] among past comparable May titles.”

F*ck.  It hurt me just to type that, and I didn’t even work on the movie.  Elsewhere, Shrek Forever After won the weekend with $71.3 million, 61% of which came from 3D screenings.  When you factor in the even higher-priced IMAX showings, it was the lowest-attended opening for any Shrek movie, and down 59% from the last one.  You know what this means don’t you?  Time for a reboot with a younger voice cast.  Anyway, it’s a definite victory for $20 movie tickets.  (*sigh*) (*fart*)

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MacGruber opens today, and despite it being based on a sketch that wasn’t that funny to begin with, they got one of The Lonely Island guys to direct, and made it a hard-R comedy, and now it seems like it might actually be funny (emphasis on might, I haven’t seen it yet).  Anyway, now seems like the perfect time for a movie about the real MacGyver, right?  (*fart sound*)

Make me a dismissive wank out of Bisquik and a coat hanger, THR.

New Line, which is developing the “MacGyver” movie, has tapped Jason Richman to pen the script. If hiring Richman is any indication, New Line plans to make “MacGyver” straight-faced but still keep it fun. The WME-repped writer did uncredited work on “Black Hawk Down” and “Rush Hour 3,” wrote the Chris Rock-Anthony Hopkins action comedy “Bad Company” and worked on a draft of “Beverly Hills Cop 4.”

MacGyver ran from 1985-1992, and Richard Dean Anderson is actually only 60, which is still young enough to be called “Baby Face” on The Expendables set.  Even so, I’m sure they’ll try to make it hip and urban and web 2.0 and cast a new lead, who instead of being a scientist, will probably be a BASE-jumping MMA fighter.  They should just cast Channing Tatum.  “Yo girl, that p*ssy is da bomb, and McGizzy be knowin bombs or whatever. All ya boy need is some fat beats an Alizé an’ I’mma get up in there, ya heard?  Hahaha, ah’m just playin’ witchoo, ya dumb beeyotch, I’m Audi five.  Holla back onna nigga blue toof.”

Macgruber has two new trailers. I didn’t feel like posting them today because I’ve already posted like eight of these, and the new one is a PG version.  Which means they refer to Val Kilmer’s character, Dieter von Cunth, as “He goes by the name Dieter.”  Are we that puritanical that we can’t even say “Cunth”?  I know  people whose actual last names are “Kuntz” and “Slutsky”.  Crap, now I’m too busy giggling to remember what my point was. |ComingSoon|

Doug Liman may direct a Gambit movie based on a Coen Brothers’ script.  The script is a remake of a 1966 film in which Caine “played a cat burglar who tries to rob a billionaire of his priceless statue and enlists the help of a waitress who is a dead ringer for the victim’s late wife.”  Wait, what?  No exploding playing cards based on the comic-book character?  Pass.  Doug Liman was also listed as an executive producer on the Knight Rider TV remake, proving that no one in Hollywood ever fails at anything badly enough to get fired.|Deadline|

Ang Lee will direct Life of Pi IN 3D!  A good chunk of the book is kind of like Castaway, but with an Indian boy stuck on a life boat with a zebra, a hyena, and a tiger.  So, uh… good luck with that. |IndieWire|

Sharlto Copley says the District 9 sequel shoots in two years.  “There’s a million ways you can go. Neil’s actually very interested in prequels as well.  Neil wants it and I want it. Neil’s doing another film first. Then I think if everything goes according to plan we’ll do the second film in about two years time. That story can go in so many different ways. There’s a whole universe. I’m sure a lot of writers say that, but we actually have an entire universe.”  Do you?  As much as everyone throws that around, does anyone actually know what the f*ck that even means?  Whatever, dude.  Just explode some more prawns and everything’s cool.  |Empire|

Well punth me in the cunth, today sure seems to be a popular day for trailers.  A few more of these and your mom might start hanging around here.  (Get it? Trailers?  Your mom?  Zing?)  Anyway, this is the latest red-band trailer for MacGruber (opens May 21st), which once sounded like a really bad idea, but based on early buzz, sounds like it might be pretty funny.  Amazing what a good early buzz will do for my mood, huh?  (Get it?  Early buzz?  Zing?)  Sorry, I’ve been drinking.

And no dude, I’m not pronouncing your name “FILL uh pee”.  This is one of the few times the French pronunciation actually sounds less silly.  You don’t like it you can go cry to Eye-an Ziering.

Seth Meyers tells the story of the “boner ghost” from the MacGruber set at SXSW. The most entertaining part is his spot-on Will Forte impression.  Between this and Tina Fey’s Tracy Morgan from this morning, I’m starting to think SNL should just be an hour of the cast making fun of each other.  “Hurrrr, look at me, I’m Kenan Thompson!” *puts on fat suit, farts* |via Videogum|

At the Movies canceled. I guess this is sad.  I dunno, throughout all the different hosts, I always liked reading the the print reviews more than the show.  Especially Ben Lyons, because he wrote his on one of those dials that you spin around and sometimes it makes a cow sound.  Lyons called the cancellation, “Hearbreaking, homey.”  |InsideMovies|

Tom Cruise to play a rodeo champ. Cruise is set to take the lead in Paper Wings, in which he’d play a rodeo champ opposite Reese Witherspoon, an “up-and-coming country singer.”  Scientists are calling it the most believable casting since the time he played a samurai.   |LATimes|

Mandate pictures moving forward with Diablo Cody movie. Cody calls Young Adult a “serious and f*cked up” story about “a thirtysomething, divorced, young-adult fiction writer in Minneapolis who returns to her hometown to chase the ex-boyfriend, who’s now married with a kid, that got away.”  Then she asked if I liked Thai food and queefed in my face.  |THR|

And from DailyWhat, this Drunk History isn’t new, but it is awesome.

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