The 2011 domestic summer box office earned a record $4.4 billion in the period between May 6 and Labor Day, improving by one percent on the $4.33 billion earned last year. Theoretically, this should be seen as a major victory for Hollywood — of course, they’re celebrating it as such — but savvy box office junkies know better than to simply believe the hype. The box office is not quite as healthy as that figure might suggest. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Marvel Studios
Disney fans have been Avenged.
It was a shock to many comics fans that The Avengers didn’t have a presence at Comic-Con last month, but Disney (which now owns Marvel) was saving its debut of footage from that movie for its own geek-gathering: D23.
Named for the year Uncle Walt founded his upstart animation company, the convention – held in Anaheim, Calif., of course – brought thousands of the mouse-faithful to its showcase of upcoming movies. The grand finale: that little movie uniting Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, The Hulk, and Nick Fury.
Image Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/WireImage.com
A partial line-up of stars came to wave to the crowd, but didn’t say much: (from left) Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, who plays the villainous Loki, Cobie Smulders (playing a new S.H.I.E.L.D. agent), Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth. “We’re happy to be down here visiting our parents in Anaheim,” Downey joked.
The news was the footage they showed … READ FULL STORY »
Though audiences still have to wait until next July 3 for The Amazing Spider-Man to hit theaters, Sony is clearly very bullish on its reboot of the web-slinging franchise — so much so that they’ve already greenlit a sequel and staked out a release date of May 2, 2014 for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. “It speaks volumes about our confidence in what we are seeing on the new film and our desire to move quickly on the next installment,” says a studio source. No further information is available on the sequel at this point, though it seems safe to assume that the new Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield, will be back wearing the suit again. But hey, it’s never too early for fanboys to start lobbying for their favorite villains, so have at it: Who would you like to see Spider-Man square off against in the franchise’s next chapter?
Read more:
Andrew Garfield surprises fans at Comic-Con
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ cast on the gritty reboot
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ trailer
Image Credit: Everett Collection
Think it’s impossible to make a comedy for just $1.8 million, get it into theatres, and still wind up with a financial disaster? Think again!!! It is almost exactly 10 years since writer-director David Wain did just that with Wet Hot American Summer, his camp movie spoof which starred co-writer Michael Showalter, Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Ian Black, Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Christopher Meloni, and Joe Lo Truglio, amongst many others.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the movie’s release — and to celebrate the film’s elevation to cult classic status — Wain, Showalter, and Black are hosting a special Wet Hot event tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn, N.Y. The bad news? The event is sold out. The good? You can read the Camp Firewood reminiscences of Wain, Showalter, and Lo Truglio below.
Image Credit: Zade Rosenthal
With the debt ceiling crisis still looming, this could be the final weekend before the entire American economy collapses in an explosion so magnificent that Michael Bay wouldn’t cut away from it for two whole seconds. Realizing that you may never have discretionary income again, Hollywood is offering three — three! — new major releases this weekend. One’s a genre mash-up whose title tells you exactly what to expect (Cowboys & Aliens), one is a TV-series adaptation whose title can be used as both a noun and a verb (The Smurfs), and one is a romantic comedy whose title, for reasons we may never know, contains two commas and a period (Crazy, Stupid, Love.). Here’s how I think the box office will stack up this weekend: READ FULL STORY »
As a kid growing up in South London during the late ’70s and early ’80s Joe Cornish adored both creature features like Gremlins and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and gang movies such as The Outsiders and The Warriors. His one complaint about these films? None of them were set in South London. “I used to wonder why those stories never happened where I lived,” says Cornish. “Twenty-five years later I’m trying to put that right.”
As someone who has seen plenty of movies in July, I was starting to grow tired of the first trailer for Aug. 5′s The Change-Up, however chuckle-worthy it might have been. (I think I heard the “guns hot” line more in theaters than I heard people complaining about movie ticket prices.) So I’m glad to see that there’s a second, red-band trailer for the film — and that it features an entirely different slate of jokes. And funny ones, at that. Check out the new NSFW trailer below. It’s not for folks offended by the f-bomb or sex toys. But is is for nine-months pregnant women who want to sleep with Ryan Reynolds! (Or all people who want to sleep with Ryan Reynolds!) READ FULL STORY »
Elizabeth Banks was a complete unknown when she was cast as “Lindsay” in the 2001 film Wet Hot American Summer. And she stayed that way for a while after, thanks to the dismal box office performance of David Wain’s camp comedy. But, over time, the movie’s growing cult would help Banks become one of the most in-demand actresses around.
To mark the tenth anniversary of Wet Hot American Summer, we spoke with the star of 40-Year-Old Virgin, Role Models, 30 Rock, and the forthcoming Hunger Games about her time at Camp Firewood.
It seems like only yesterday that the arrival of the poster for The Thing prequel prompted me to write about my love for John Carpenter’s classic 1982 movie. (In fact, according to my records, it was actually the day before.) Anyhoo, the prequel’s trailer has hit the Interwebs and I have to say that, apart from some CGI jiggery-pokery, it seems as pleasingly reminiscent of the 1982 movie as said poster.
But you can judge for yourself below. Me? I’ve got a game of computer chess to finish.
Image Credit: Jay Maidment/Marvel Studios
Thanks to a recent New York Times story, the Web is buzzing about the fact that the upcoming Marvel Studios movie Captain America: The First Avenger will be called simply The First Avenger in three countries: Russia, Ukraine, and South Korea. The news isn’t really new — EW, among others, reported the title change back in January — but it does present an opportunity to consider how the film may perform overseas. After all, Captain America first appeared 70 years ago as an intentionally political anti-Nazi warrior who wore his patriotism on his sleeve… well, he wears it all over. Will foreign moviegoers jump at the chance to watch such an old-fashioned slice of Americana? READ FULL STORY »
