Fry pondering the age-old question, "Should I headbutt Nick Lachey*?"

I won’t sit here and pretend I’m one of those super-hip anglophiles that knows who Stephen Fry is (I assumed he was Glenn’s brother and rocked a double-neck guitar in an Eagles tribute band), but for those of you who are, hold onto your scarves, because that dude is playing Sherlock Holmes’ brother Mycroft in the sequel to the Robert Downey vehicle, Sherlock Holmes.  Fry broke the news recently as a guest on Danny Baker’s BBC 5 Live show, where he had this to say:

“I’m playing Mycroft in the sequel to the Sherlock Holmes film Guy Ritchie directed with Robert Downey Jr., and that sort of part is fun, but just once in a while to play a genuine all round sort of lead figure with complexity and tragedy and wit and all the sort of things that Oscar [Wilde] had was a once-in-a-lifeftime thrill.”

Weh-he-hell, nice to see you’re on a first-name-only basis with dead literary figures, your majesty.  “Just da ovva day Oy wiz ‘avin’ a nosh wiff me mate, Biw Shakespeah, an’ ‘e reckons oy should play da Professah in Da Fast and Da Furious paht six, ‘e does.”   Anyway, I still haven’t seen Sherlock Holmes yet so I’m sort of indifferent to this news, but I think as long as we’re making exxxtreme adaptations of English literature, we should consider changing the name to Sherlock, Holmes! (*double suck it thrust*).

*As noted, it’s David Boreanaz (bore-my-anus?), not Nick Lachey.  But tell me that dude doesn’t look like Nick Lachey from the side.

Just in case this video gets pulled like my wiener before you have a chance to see it, this is the alternate opening scene to Iron Man 2.  It starts with Tony Stark puking in the toilet of what turns out to be his cargo plane, followed by playful banter with Pepper Potts, who’s trying to coach him through his hangover (try this Egyptian-lavender scented alka-seltzer, just $69.99 on goop.com).  It ends with the bit you saw in the trailer, where Gwyneth Paltrow kisses his helmet (hee hee!) and he jumps out of the plane after it. This part ended up getting cut, and the actual film begins a few seconds later, with Tony Stark landing on stage at the Stark Expo.

Director Jon Favreau has said that the sequence was removed because he wanted to give Robert Downey Jr a big entrance, and the reveal of Stark on stage after landing worked better without the opening bit of comedy. [/Film via GammaSquad]

I like the alternate version better.  With the excess of characters that didn’t do that much, the rushed feel, and the lack of significant conflict, Iron Man 2 at times felt more than just a little Entourage-y, and opening with him onstage as the world’s biggest celebrity (as opposed to a hungover smartass) only plays more into that.  Oh my God, bro, don’t you want to be just like Tony Stark, or one of the talentless jackasses that hangs out by his pool?  He’s like the coolest guy ever, please turn this into a GQ article about grooming tips.

"Good, now mind the stepchildren..."

Hot off the tubes, it’s the new international trailer for Due Date.  It’s almost sad how easily Due Date boils down to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles meets The Hangover, but I just can’t resist Zach Galifianakis holding something cute (*quietly exposes penis*).  And if you would’ve asked me a couple years ago whether I’d rather see another Planes, Trains and Automobiles or a sequel to Tron, Tron would’ve been the clear loser.  But no matter how you feel about Tron, at the very least, we should all be thanking God the directing job went to Todd Phillips and not the Dinner for Schmucks guy, and that the John Candy role went to Zach Galifianakis and not Kevin James.  They would’ve had to rewrite so that all the jokes rely on him being fat. Haha, oh, Kevin James, you can’t eat pie on a segway!

Opens November 5th.

[hat tip: ScreenJunkies]

Courtesy of Yahoo Movies, here’s the new poster for Todd Phillips’ Due Date.  Yes, it’s basically a transparent attempt to recreate the success of The Hangover – disheveled dudes in the desert, physical injuries, sunglasses, bloody shirts, Zach Galifianakis holding something cute — but it also has Zach Galifianakis, Robert Downey Jr, and a puppy, so complaining about it is kind of like being upset that you have to have butter cakes and sugar for breakfast again.  Besides, Todd Phillips is usually a good director. I have faith that he can give these guys the freedom to be funny and not rape them with a horrible farce script like Dinner for Schmucks.  Farce rape took my uncle.

Opens November 5th.

After the jump, you can watch Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman read the weather in El Paso.  Which is unrelated but similarly cute.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a question mark in the headline, and you know what that means: It’s time to prognosticate!  We don’t have the answers to these questions, but we’ve got the next best thing: wild speculation!  Yee haw! (*fires pistols in the air*)

CinemaBlend recently ran a story based on the word of an inside source close to the Marvel-Jon Favreau situation, and while their source is never named, I’m inclined to believe him or her because the story is very much in line with what I’d already assumed — it’s the American way.  Long story short, all that time Iron Man 2 spent pimping future movies (to its own detriment), Jon Favreau wasn’t thrilled about it either.

Part of the problem was the movie seemed wrapped around an odd, Avengers-focused, subplot which never really fit into the story. Jon Favreau may not have liked it any more than you or I do.

Our source says Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie Jon Favreau wanted to make. Marvel interfered heavily with his work on the movie and turned the project into an infomercial for The Avengers. Favreau felt the movie was rushed into production (and if you followed the development process you know it was) and they pushed him into making it without a fully realized script. Iron Man 2 wasn’t the movie he wanted to make and because of that, if there’s an Iron Man 3, there’s every reason to think he won’t be back. Marvel doesn’t want to pay him and Favreau may not want to deal with more Marvel interference.

Favreau wasn’t the only one unhappy with Iron Man 2. Robert Downey Jr. saw those same problems and according to our source, “While he’s locked for Iron Man 3, chances are, that will be his last movie.” In the meantime, Downey will get (and probably deserves) top billing in The Avengers.

I hope this is true, because I’d have a hard time respecting someone who thought that scene where Tony Stark randomly pulls Captain America’s shield out of his ass and uses it to prop up his particle accelerator in Iron Man 2 was a good idea. If you cheered for that like a couple people did in the theater where I saw it, guess what, you are an idiot.  That’d be like if when Indiana Jones went sliding under the stone door in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a light saber randomly fell out of his pocket and he used it to hold open the door. “Yay! I’m excited for Episode I!”