(”Stop. Hammer time.”)
Good news, everyone: I wrote a humorous headline. Also, Steven Spielberg and Will Smith’s planned remake of Park Chan-Wook’s Old Boy (actually, if you want to get technical, it was supposed to be a separate adaptation of the original Old Boy manga) is dead. Latino Review reports that it was killed when Dreamworks couldn’t come to a deal with Mandate pictures.
So now if you want to see Old Boy, you’ll just have to watch Old Boy. And to get your fill of Will, you’ll have to satisfy yourself with his remake of Karate Kid, Flowers for Algernon, I Am Legend 2, Hancock 2, Men in Black 3, Bad Boys 3, that street magician movie, the Hurricane Katrina movie, and God knows what else. Will Smith is basically the Michael Jordan of acting, in that no one knows his actual personality, which as it turns out is really good for business. That’s why publicists coach actors and athletes to answer all questions with variations on the same clichés. That, and Tom Cruise is a succubus. It’s true, I read it in Science Magazine.
Anyone involved with the creative decision making on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull should be embarrassed at the unintentional joke of a movie they put out, but at least they have a sense of humor about the whole thing. As long as they can make money off it, anyway. This is the Indiana Jones Nuke the Fridge action figure from Sideshow Collectibles in conjunction with LucasFilm, and it can be yours for just $174.99. I hear for an extra $100, you can watch George Lucas stuff the money in the bullfrog pouch underneath his chin and angrily demand more cat burgers.
The Nuke the Fridge moment famously spawned a catch phrase, but as I’ve said many times, that was far from the most laughably stupid moment of the film. Things that were worse:
Nothing opened wide this weekend besides Couples Retreat and your mom’s legs, so it wasn’t a huge surprise that Couples Retreat was number one at the box office, earning $35 million. It played on a measly 3,800 screens, so kudos to that plucky underdog. It still has a way to go to earn back its $70 million budget. People have been wondering how a basic rom-com could’ve cost that much, but the answer is simple when you imagine Vince Vaughn, Faizon Love, and Jon Favreau at the same buffet.
Distributor Universal Pictures’ exit polling indicated that the “humor” and “Vince Vaughn” were the top reasons people saw Couples Retreat. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Reasons three and four were “(unintelligible Chewbacca groans)” and “I thought this was the Dairy Queen”, respectively. The other big story was Paranormal Activity grossing $44,000+ per location, meaning it nearly tripled its budget on each screen it played. It also broke Platoon’s record for highest-grossing film playing on less than 200 screens, all while getting pretty good reviews. Analysts have been quick to hail its marketing campaign as a runaway success. But don’t think for a second that this means I’m giving Steven Spielberg a pass for his “my DVD was haunted” story. Only when it’s Steven Spielberg in Hollywood could a grown man get away with saying he owned a haunted DVD without rightly getting fired, shunned, pantsed, and wedgied.
As previously discussed, Real Steel is a futuristic film about robots that box, “but at its core a human story.” Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, from the director of Night at the Museum and Cheaper by the Dozen, it sounds like it could be either the greatest or lamest movie ever. The latest news is that Hugh Jackman is in talks to star.
Pic is a Rocky-esque tale of a fighter who has to reinvent himself when human boxing becomes obsolete, replaced by 2000 pound human-like robots. Jackman is negotiating to play the ex-fighter, who becomes a Robot Boxing promoter, but whose chances of success are hampered by his access to sub-standard robot parts. That is until he discovers a discarded robot that always seems to win. The ex-fighter has also discovered he’s the father of a 13-year old son, and they bond as the robot brawls its way toward the top. [Variety]
So basically, it’s like Rocky meets Wall-E meets Three Men and a Baby. Why didn’t I think of that? “You don’t undastand, Chahley! I coulda been a contenda! It coulda been somebody! Until dem no good robots come and gimme a one-way ticket ta palookaville.” (*jazz hands*)
(”Haha, Steben tole me if I shave my wattle I ged da pet da kitty.”)
Remember that Paranormal Activity trailer from a while back? The one that showed people getting really scared over a movie that didn’t look that scary? Well it turns out one of the scared people was… Steven Spielberg! (*Macauley Culkin face slap*) It’s true! And he wants you to know that he’s either really stupid or thinks you are!
Steven Spielberg was certain his copy of “Paranormal Activity” was haunted.
It was early 2008, and the director’s DreamWorks studio was trying to decide whether it wanted to be a part of the micro-budgeted supernatural thriller. As the story goes, Spielberg had taken a “Paranormal Activity” DVD to his Pacific Palisades estate, and not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith. [oh my gosh, the ghost was watching your porn!]
While Spielberg didn’t want the “Paranormal Activity” disc anywhere near his home — he brought the movie back to DreamWorks in a garbage bag, colleagues say — he very much shared his studio’s enthusiasm for director Oren Peli’s haunting story about the demonic invasion of a couple’s suburban tract house. [LA Times blog]
Wow, you mean he’s a producer on the same movie that this preposterous story is about? And the people who work for him corroborate it? Jeez, what are the odds. You know, I think maybe my hand is haunted. It keeps wanking dismissively, and I was just sitting here reading a story about Steven Spielberg. Spooky.
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