January 26, 2012

It looks like there’s definitely going to be another Hangover - and it won’t come cheap.

According to The Hollywood Reporter stars Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms are negotiating in unison – and demanding a steep $15 million apiece for their return to the beloved comedy franchise.

That’s a fair bit more than all three actors were paid for the first Hangover, which nabbed all three for less than a million each. When Warner Bros. decided the unlikely blockbuster needed a sequel they reportedly shelled out $5 million for each of the three stars.

Now the studio is reportedly desperate to put together a third installment and ready to make the deal after Hangover Part II raked in an incredible $581 million, topping even the first film’s surprising $467 million gross.

There’s been no indication yet as to whether director Todd Phillips is also being invited back to the party.

Word is the third Hangover will be set in Los Angeles and not follow the same ‘lost night’ structure of the first two films.

The studio hopes to get cameras rolling on the picture by the summer so that it’s ready for theatres by the time Memorial Day 2013 rolls around.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 26, 2012

Hotel for Dogs star Emma Roberts will be running an entirely different type of establishment in the upcoming black comedy Adult World.

USA Today reports that the 20-year-old Hollywood starlet – and niece of Julia Roberts – will play a sex shop worker in the flick about a young woman adjusting to life after college.

Roberts – according to Starpulse – recently deferred her own studies at New York’s Sarah Lawrence College so that she can focus on her burgeoning film career.

“It’s a quirky coming-of-age story,” Roberts tells USA Today. “My character is very smart, but the economy is very bad. So she works at a porn store. It’s an interesting backdrop because when you’re a young person you’re always looking for inspiration.”

The star says the film’s message will resonate with people of her generation.

“You find yourself asking, ‘How did I end up here?’ It’s very relevant for young people who are asking themselves, ‘What do we do?’”

Shooting on Adult World is slated to begin in New York later this year.

Meanwhile, Roberts is already receiving rave reviews for her performance in the new comedy Celeste and Jesse Forever, in which she plays a pop star with some familiar locks

“I got to bring together every pop star and mold it into one person,” she told MTV.  “[But] my hair is definitely Ke$ha. I have these fabulous long, blond, slightly ratty extensions. I miss those dearly.”

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 26, 2012

Steven Spielberg is giving serious thought to helming an action-packed biblical epic about the life of Moses.

Deadline reports that the acclaimed director is in talks to take over Gods and Kings, “A movie like a Braveheart-ish version of the Moses story,” according to a studio insider who spoke to the site.

“Him coming down the river, being adopted, leaving his home, forming an army, and getting the Ten Commandments.”

Word is the studio, Warner Bros., wants Spielberg to shoot the story of the Jewish leader with the same gritty realism he used on Saving Private Ryan. “There have been glossy versions of the Moses story but this would be a real warrior story.”

Spielberg would be working from a script he read months ago by Stuart Hazeldine and Michael Green.

The story of Moses has of course been told on the silver screen many times before, most famously in Cecile B. DeMille’s 1956 epic The Ten Commandments.

Though he has two films in theatres now (Adventures of Tintin and Warhorse) Spielberg hasn’t been slowing down. The Oscar-winner recently wrapped his presidential biopic Lincoln, starring Daniel Day Lewis as the Great Emancipator.

Next he’s moving on the sci-fi war flick Robopocalypse.

Warner hopes to start shooting on Gods and Kings in March or April of 2013.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 26, 2012

A provocative new comedy premiering at the Sundance Film Festival was greeted by an unprecedented number of walkouts, according to Entertainment Weekly.

EW reports that dozens of film fans stormed out of Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, a big screen spin off of the cult favourite Cartoon Network TV series Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job!

The mag reports that by the time stars Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim took the stage following the screening for a Q&A, only two-thirds of the audience remained.

The movie tells an absurdist tale in which Tim and Eric lose $1 billion trying to shoot a movie with a Johnny Depp lookalike and are forced to take on “an apocalyptic shopping mall full of hobos, wolves, and losers to earn back the money.”

Wareheim said during the talk that the money for the film wouldn’t have existed were it not for the film’s illustrious guest stars, which include Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Will Forte and Zack Galifianakis.

“[Financiers] were like, ‘Is Will Ferrell really going to be in this? Okay, here’s a billion dollars,’” Wareheim told the crowd.

Wareheim also revealed that, while in the lobby during the screening, he was confronted by an angry audience member storming out of the film.

“A woman and, I think, her two daughters were leaving right away,” he said. “She sees me, and under her breath, she goes, ‘Ugh … You call that creativity?’… The movie is not for everyone. But there is a part of us that is like, ‘Yes!’ if it moves people to yell at it or get out. That’s great.”

Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie will get a limited theatrical release, starting March 2.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 26, 2012

Russell Brand will be looking to put his recent marital troubles behind him by starring in The Hauntrepreneur.

Industry trade magazine Variety reports that Brand will star in the supernatural comedy that will be produced by Transformers auteur Michael Bay.

The British funnyman will star as the Hauntrepreneur, a “peculiar man” who comes to the rescue of a family struggling to adjust to a new town by filling a haunted house with “an odd cast of characters.”

No director has been selected yet to helm the picture based on the script by Con Air scribe Scott Rosenberg.

The gig is the first Brand has lined up since his recent split from pop star Katy Perry following their short-lived marriage.

Before Brand shoots Hauntrepreneur, however, he’ll be busy filming Diablo Cody’s upcoming directorial debut. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Brand will star alongside Julianne Hough and The Help’s Octavia Spencer in the untitled story of a religious young woman who moves to Vegas to pursue a life of sin.

In the meantime, Brand fans can look forward to seeing the star in the upcoming big screen adaptation of the Broadway smash Rock of Ages when it opens everywhere June 15.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 25, 2012

A midnight horror movie screening at the Sundance Film Festival proved to be too much  for two audience members Tuesday night.

Deadline reports that the screening of V/H/S was disrupted twice, first by a fan who fainted, then by an audience member who needed to be treated for nausea.

The movie, a horror anthology about a gang of thieves hired to break into an abandoned house to find a hidden VHS tape, upset the first guy with its very first gory scene. Word is he passed out and though he didn’t want to leave, was eventually talked into it by his girlfriend. The second upset audience member was treated for nausea 20 minutes later.

Deadline notes that this is the second festival in a row where audience members at midnight horror screenings haven taken ill. At TIFF in September, two audience members passed out during a screening of The Incident.

That extreme reaction didn’t hurt The Incident, however. The film was snapped up by IFC Midnight immediately following its screening.

Directed by David Bruckner (The Signal), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell The Dead), Joe Swanberg (Hannah Takes The Stairs), Ti West (House Of The Devil), Adam Wingard (You’re Next), and the filmmaking collective Radio Silence, V/H/S is already being hailed by some as the most frightening movie at the festival.

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 25, 2012

Is The Crow ready to fly once more?

Plans to remake and reboot the film franchise based on the cult favourite comic book The Crow are once again in the works now that a lawsuit over the property has been settled.

Industry trade magazine Variety reports that the legal battle between Relativity Media and The Weinstein Company over distribution rights to the movie has been settled out of court. The two companies have now agreed to once again work together on the picture.

Very shortly after that announcement was made, Relativity revealed that both a new writer and director have been hired to work on the flick.

Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutierrez, director of Before the Fall will now helm the picture, working from a script by Eragon scribe Jesse Wigutow. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Gutierrez had been in talks for some time to take the gig until it was put on hold to sort out the legal tangles.

Based on James O’Barr’s 1989 comic, The Crow tells the story of a Detroit musician who comes back from the dead to seek revenge on the murderous thugs who killed him and his fiancée.

A previous film adaptation of the story was a hit back in 1994 starring the late Brandon Lee, who was accidentally killed on the film’s set.

(Image: Alliance Films)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 25, 2012

Lily Collins never even got so far as the cabin in the woods before deciding that starring in the upcoming remake of Evil Dead wasn’t for her.

Jeff Sneider of industry trade magazine Variety has reported via Twitter that Collins has dropped out of plans to take the lead role in the upcoming remake of the Sam Raimi classic.

BloodyDisgusting had reported earlier this month that the starlet was the surprising choice to headline the horror flick.

Collins, who will soon be seen starring in the upcoming Snow White redux Mirror Mirror, has reportedly dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with her busy itinerary. In the coming months Collins will have to promote Mirror Mirror and get started shooting the big screen adaptation of The Mortal Instruments, in which she’s also set to star.

No word just yet on who might replace Collins in Dead, which Raimi is producing and which will be shot by newcomer director Fede Alvarez.

Alvarez is set to start shooting in March, working from a script he co-wrote with Rodo Sayagues that was later punched up Cody Diablo.

Evil Dead will then rise from the, well, dead, when it hits the big screen once again in April 2013.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 25, 2012

Officials working for the conservation of wolves are slamming the upcoming Liam Neeson thriller The Grey for giving the animals a bad name.

The New York Post reports that the upcoming thriller, about plane crash survivors forced to fend off a wolf pack intent on munching them up, misrepresents the animals, according to an official from the Wolf Conservation Center.

Maggie Howell, managing director of the lupine friendly organization tells the paper that the movie is spreading false information about wolves’ eating habits.

“Wolves don’t hunt humans — they actually shy away from them,” Howell says. “It’s not anything new for wolves to be portrayed as the bad guy in fairy tales, and we don’t take it seriously because it’s fantasy, but this movie is supposed to be real.”

A publicist for the film has defended the picture, claiming filmmakers have worked closely with conservationists to protect the animals.

“The Grey is a work of entertainment. We have been pleased to work with The Sierra Club and others to spread the word about how the public can support the protection of the gray wolf.”

This isn’t the first controversy faced by the film. According to a report by Contact Music, director Joe Carnahan had cast members sample real wolf meat to get a taste for the desperation their characters were facing. This alleged tactic has faced criticism from Ecorazzi, an environmentally focused pop culture website, which has since sparked a heated debate among their readers.

Film fans can decide for themselves if wolves get a raw deal in the film when The Grey opens everywhere this Friday.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.

January 25, 2012

Demi Moore has dropped out of her starring role in the upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic following her admission to rehab for “exhaustion.”

Entertainment Weekly reports that Moore has dropped out of Lovelace, in which she was set to cameo as feminist icon Gloria Steinem.

Moore’s exit from the film reportedly follows her late night admission to a Los Angeles hospital on Monday after a 911 call from her home. Celebrity gossip site TMZ reports “substance abuse” was the reason for the call.

Since then, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that Moore has now entered a treatment facility. “Because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health,” says a statement from Moore’s spokesperson.

“She looks forward to getting well and is grateful for the support of her family and friends.”

The 49-year-old star, of course, has become a tabloid fixture following the announcement last November that she and husband Ashton Kutcher were divorcing.

“It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have decided to end my six-year marriage to Ashton,” Moore said at the time. “As a woman, a mother and a wife there are certain values and vows that I hold sacred, and it is in this spirit that I have chosen to move forward with my life.”

Lovelace began shooting in December, with a cast that includes Amanda Seyfried and James Franco.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Report a Typo or Correction. Thank you.