Wanted was recently released on DVD.  I watched it.  Here is my 30-second review:

Wesley Gibson was schlubby douche loser.  In fact, he was such a nobody that a Google search on his name turned up zero results, even though his name is WESLEY GIBSON.  Then, one day, HE FOUND OUT HE WAS A SUPER RICH ASSASSIN! So he joined a fraternity of assassins. Assassins who were also weavers.  Weavers who pledged their loyalty to a giant, mechanized loom their ancestors built 1000 years ago.  Wait, what?  They had mechanized looms 1000 years ago?  SHUT UP! I WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE HEAD! YOU’RE NOT EVEN MY REAL FATHER!

Morgan Freeman: “Motherf-cker!”

The End.

^{Curve the harpoon!}

According to Variety, Universal has made a “splashy buy” of classic Melville novel Moby Dick (get it, splashy?  Because it’s a whale?).  And they’ve tapped the dickhead behind Wanted to direct.  The rest of the article basically confirms all of your worst fears about people in Hollywood.

Studio paid high six figures to Adam Cooper and Bill Collage to pen the screenplay.
The writers revere Melville’s original text, but their graphic novel-style version will change the structure.

Please, go on.  This doesn’t sound enough like unintentional self-parody yet.

“Our vision isn’t your grandfather’s ‘Moby Dick,’ ” Cooper said. [ahh, much better -Ed.] “This is an opportunity to take a timeless classic and capitalize on the advances in visual effects to tell what at its core is an action-adventure revenge story.”
Scott Stuber is producing with Jim Lemley and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley.
“We wanted to take a graphic novel sensibility to a classic narrative,” said Collage. They brought it to the Wibberlys, the “National Treasure” scribes who are branching into producing and will team with Stuber. The project then caught the fancy of [Timur] Bekmambetov and Lemley, who teamed with the helmer on “Wanted.”

A graphic novel is a novel that has pictures, right?  So when they say they’re adding a “graphic novel sensibility” to a novel, they’re basically saying they’re gonna add pictures, right?  Or does it mean they’re shifting the target audience to people too dumb to read books?  Either way, I can’t wait to see their update of the bible, Jesus: F-ck Yeah.  It’s not your grandpa’s bible, you faggot.

Posters for Wanted have been banned in the U.K. because some hippies complained that they glamorize gun violence.

One poster featured a gun-toting Jolie lying across the bonnet of a car and a bullet curving towards the audience. It carried the strapline [Wha?]: “This is your destiny. Join us.”

Another showed McAvoy with a gun in each hand, pointing towards the viewer. The accompanying slogan implied that his life had changed for the better since he became a killer.

Bonnet = something that gay babies wear.  Hood = something that protects the clitoris.  Winner: USA.

In its adjudication, the industry watchdog ruled: “We acknowledged most viewers would understand the posters reflected the content of an action film. However, we considered that because the ads featured a glamorous actress, action poses, several images of or related to guns and aspirational text, they could be seen to glamorise the use of guns and violence. We concluded [they] could be seen to condone violence by glorifying or glamorising the use of guns. [Telegraph]

Guess what: a gun is an explosion that you can hold in your hand.  You aim it at stuff, and then that stuff explodes.  What could be more awesome than that?  It’s self-glamorizing.  Look, I’m a bleeding-heart liberal by many measures, but if you’re gonna be one of those moms who won’t let her son play with toy guns or G.I. Joes, you might as well give him a dildo instead.

Question marks in the headline can mean only one thing: it’s time to speculate wildly! You heard it here, folks, knowledge is guessing’s bitch.

The Daily Record recently did a “local boy makes good” article on Mark Millar, the Scottish comic book writer who created Wanted and Kick-Ass (another soon-to-be-adapted comic).  The big rumor the article reveals is that Millar may be working on a reboot of Superman.

He said: "Since I was a kid I’ve always wanted to reinvent Superman for the 21st century. …"I’ve been planning this my entire life. I’ve got my director and producer set up, and it’ll be 2011. This is how far ahead you have to think. …"The Superman brand is toxic after that last movie lost 200 million, but in 2011 we’re hoping to restart it. …"Sadly I can’t say who the director is, but we may make it official by Christmas. …"But fingers crossed it could work out, that would be my lifetime’s dream."

I’ve always liked Bryan Singer, who directed the last Superman, but I threw in the towel when Superman overcame Kryptonite in the third act using the power of positive thinking.  Come on, man, the guy can shoot lasers from his eyes.

Millar’s (who also wrote a comic called Superman: Red Son in which Superman grew up in Communist Russia) statements seem to fit nicely with earlier comments from the CEO of Legendary Pictures, who said he was hoping to reimagine Superman as an “angry God.”  …An angry God who flies around in red underwear with matching boots – I like where this is going.  Though it sounds more like a bitter homosexual God.  Maybe instead of saving kittens from trees he could just freak out and start turning chicks he’s jealous of into pillars of salt until they greenlight a Hairspray sequel.  CHANGE THE TV BACK TO BRAVO! *lightning bolt*

Not surprisingly, G-Rated Wall E edged out R-Rated Wanted for the top spot at the box office this weekend.  Having seen it, I can report that it’s both a great movie and a good place to pick up elementary school chicks.

  WALL-E," the Pixar Animation tale of a robot toiling away on a long-abandoned Earth, debuted as the No. 1 movie with $62.5 million in ticket sales, with Jolie’s assassin thriller "Wanted" opening in second place with $51.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.
  The two movies combined to keep Hollywood on a roll. The top 12 movies took in $179.2 million, up 22 percent from the same weekend last year, when Pixar’s "Ratouille" opened with $47 million. It was the fifth straight weekend that revenues climbed. [CNN]

Meanwhile, The Love Guru grossed $5.4 million in its second weekend (coming in at number 6).  Its $19 million dollar cumulative take is just a few dollars shy of earning back Mike Myer’s budget for silly wigs.  (full top ten after the jump)

1. "WALL-E," $62.5 million.
2. "Wanted," $51.1 million.
3. "Get Smart," $20 million.
4. "Kung Fu Panda," $11.7 million.
5. "The Incredible Hulk," $9.2 million.
6. "The Love Guru," $5.4 million.
7. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," $5 million.
8. "The Happening," $3.9 million.
9. "Sex and the City," $3.8 million.
10. "You Don’t Mess With the Zohan," $3.2 million.