2008 July 12 « Entertainment Today and Beyond

Hellboy has stranglehold on box office early on!

According to Nike Finke’s Deadline Hollywood Daily, Hell Boy 2: The Golden Army took in a solid 13 mil in ticket sales on Friday, putting it on pace for a 32 mill weekend. Universal is reportly very happy with that number. Warner Bros can’t be happy with the projected 6.7 mill Friday for its JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH 3-D film starring Brendan Fraser. That puts it on a pace for a very weak 15 mill first weekend.

It appears Eddie Murphy has gone into Pluto Nash territory again as his new sci-fi comedy MEET DAVE, which was panned by critics, grossed an anemic 1.7mill Friday. That puts the film on pace for a disastrous 5-6 mill weekend. His 2002 comedy, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, was Murphy’s biggest bomb as that film took in only 7 mill in its entire run. It had a 2.2 mill opening weekend. It also really hurt the career of its director, Ron Underwood (City Slickers).

July 12, 2008 Posted by Entertainment Today & Beyond | And Beyond - Trailers & News | Meet Dave | Leave a Comment

Batman Spoof Trailer

A reader pointed out this fan made spoof Trailer to The Dark Knight. Take a look – it’s inventive and pretty funny. VIEW TRAILER

July 12, 2008 Posted by Entertainment Today & Beyond | Reviews | Leave a Comment

It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane, No it’s Superman 6 / Religulousness continues

Rumblings continue to swirl around the net as to what direction Warner Bros will take its Superman franchise. Will they have Bryan Singer come back for a 2nd time or will they go in a new creative direction and hire a new director to guide the project forward. No matter who is ultimately in control of the man of steel franchise, I strongly believe they need to take the story line into the present climate of real everyday fear. Instead of focusing on Superman’s main nemesis Lex Luthor (by the way he has now been used in 4 of the 5 superman movies), the creative people should deal with the threat of global terrorism in the realest of ways. Take the Chris Nolan approach and have a new Superman movie tap into our discomfort with what’s going on in the world today. We all know there’s some pretty scary stuff to explore. Now I don’t know if the man of steel can get gas prices down, but he sure can kick some terrorist ass! Personally, I like Singer’s Superman Returns, despite its flaws. I think the two big mistakes he made were building the story around Luthor again and not updating the story to a more realistic scenario. The playing it safe formula must change in order to get people really excited to see Superman up on the big screen again! Let’s hope they can maximize its potential for a 2008 world and beyond.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, director Larry Charles (Borat) and comic Bill Maher will premiere their new documentary, RELIGULOUS (which explores the subject of God and religion around the world), at the Toronto International film festival in September. As I’ve previously written, I have no doubt this film will be a red hot topic on most talk radio and TV as we get closer to its actual release on Oct 3rd. I must admit I’m really looking forward to both seeing it and the controversy.