Cinematical

Here's a round-up of some stuff (and things) currently causing waves online:

-- Moviefone has launched the latest installment of Unscripted, featuring stars Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks discussing their new film W. using reader questions and some of their own. Additionally, above you'll find some newly-released art for the film. Heh.

-- After breaking up with Paramount, Dreamworks has officially found a new f*ck buddy in Universal, so says Variety. The two signed a seven-year worldwide distribution deal.

-- Darren Aronofsky's The Fighter looks to be in trouble. Now that the writer-director is working hard on that Robocop remake, seems this other flick is being neglected. Brad Pitt has apparently dropped out, and Mark Wahlberg -- who's been training for the role for over a year -- doesn't seem to know the film's current status. All that being said, Slashfilm claims their scouting locations in Mass.

-- A few photos of Mel Gibson on the set of Edge of Darkness have appeared online, most of which show the man going full-Diddy, forcing some woman to hold an umbrella so the sun doesn't, ya know, shine on the poor man. In case you forgot, this film marks Gibson's return to acting as a homicide detective investigating the death of his daughter. See image to the right, click to see enlarge. [via Crabbies Hollywood]

-- A theme park in the UK is actually moving forward with a ride based on the Saw films, called Saw - The Ride. I bet folks will just kill to get on it. HAR! Apparently, we're looking at a ride with "beyond vertical drop of 100-degree from a height of 100ft, as well as a rather sinister sounding "three inversions" to add to the fun." Who's down? [via IGN]

Guillaume Depardieu, the 37-year-old son of Gerard Depardieu, died today in Paris from a bout of acute pneumonia. Depardieu, who's starred in upwards of 20 films, struggled with drugs and drinking over the years.

A few new images of Samuel L. Jackson and the late Bernie Mac in the new film Soul Men have arrived in the Cinematical inbox. Check them out in the gallery below.

From one sexy role to another: Carla Gugino will soon (hopefully) be on the big screen as Sally Jupiter, hero and pin-up girl of Watchmen, and now she's taking on another seductive role. Variety reports the gal will be the last point in the romantic love triangle called Every Day, which got cooking earlier this month. Liev Schreiber plays a guy who writes for a "semi-pornographic TV show" (that wasn't in the earlier news release!) that gets propositioned by his colleague (Gugino). But the man already has wife Helen Hunt at home, and this "strains his marriage to the breaking point." Could you resist if Gugino was tempting you?

Meanwhile, we've got Rachael Harris, who stood her own against mockumentary heavyweights in For Your Consideration (she played Mary Pat Hooligan, the actress who played the lesbian coming out to her family in Home for Purim). Variety reports that she's going to nurse Todd Phillips' The Hangover with the likes of Bradley Cooper, Heather Graham, and more. Graham is already playing a Vegas local, so maybe Harris will play the bride who might get left at the altar. But the actress isn't all laughs -- one of her upcoming films is The Soloist.

Lastly, we've got a cute, Korean hip-hop dancer on the way -- Som Dam-bi has signed onto Hype Nation. But this isn't just a tale of dancing: "An American dance crew goes head to head with a crew from South Korea," one that mixes hip-hop moves with at least one gun-toter. Oooh, it's like You've Been Served International!

Our brothers and sisters over at TV Squad have busted through the boob tube and brought with them the following juicy bits of must-see eye candy:

• The cast of The Family Guy has booked two nights at Carnegie Hall, where they'll perform two uncensored episodes and a few different musical numbers. We've seen them on stage before (the month before they returned to Fox), and we certainly recommend for anyone who's a fan.
• Win a copy of Back to You -- Season One on DVD or, alternatively, a copy of That '70s Show - The Complete Series Stash box set.
  
• From the Nah, Really? department: Paramount is pretty upset over the fact they weren't warned about that South Park episode featuring Indiana Jones being raped (literally) by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Viacom, Paramount, Comedy Central -- it's just another dysfunctional family.
• Here are five shows Sarah Palin should appear on, other than Saturday Night Live.
• After previously canceling and causing quite the uproar, John McCain has decided to appear on Late Night with David Letterman this Thursday.

But was he ever considering it in the first place? Not long ago it seemed a Lethal Weapon 5 was all but a lock, what with Shane Black writing the script and Columbus Short supposedly in talks to play Danny Glover's son -- but now, according to a recent interview with Richard Donner in the LA Times, it looks like the whole thing might just go away. Thank God. That's because, in Donner's world, Mel Gibson has already passed on the project. (And here we thought Glover passed over a year ago.) The director notes, "Mel turned it down. I would like to think that Mel turned it down because I wasn't involved. Knowing Mel, I would like to think that. Would that be the kind of thing he does? It sure would be."

Though "Gibson's people" refused to comment, the LA Times is pretty confident in their findings. Donner, who directed all four previous Lethal Weapon films, seems a bit "I toldja so" in the interview, regarding Warners decision to follow Joel Silver's lead: "It's too bad, actually, because Channing Gibson, who wrote the fourth one, and Mike Riva, a designer on three of them, and myself and Derek [Hoffman, an associate at The Donner Company] had an incredibly strong story for the fifth movie. But we weren't given the opportunity and I think maybe I could have convinced Mel to do it. But Warners chose to go with Joel Silver." He later adds, "Yes, the project is pretty much dead in the water unless someone had the sense to come to me."

Of course, Donner could be talking out his rear end ... though, on the surface, it seems like a reach for both Gibson and Glover to agree to a fifth film, especially one without Donner behind the camera. But what do you think? Would you actually be down for a Lethal Weapin 5? Or are these guys just too old for this sh*t?

Back when The Incredible Hulk hit movie theaters -- and because of Nick Fury's appearance in Iron Man -- folks were itching for more Avengers references with their summer movie watching. Thus, fans went bat-sh*t (excuse the DC reference) over a rumor that Captain America popped up in a scene during Incredible Hulk, which was fueled by a sorta confirmation from director Louis Leterrier ... but then the flick hit theaters and nada. Now, with the DVD due out on October 21st, it seems there's a little easter egg awaiting fans. A number of different sites have reported that a shot of Captain America frozen in ice exists within the alternate opening scene -- one that follows Bruce Banner to the arctic circle in search of a very random way to kill himself (see photo above, courtesy of Slashfilm). So there ya go. And seeing as the upcoming Captain America film will be set during WWII, we now know how they'll make that work for the Avengers movie. He was frozen in ice! Hopefully we won't get any corny lines like "What's an iPod" when the good old Captain shows up in theaters in 2011.

Oh, and speaking of Hulk, the Iron Man writers would love to see him play villain in the aforementioned Avengers movie. Mark Fergus tells MTV: "You don't want like 10 super-badass good guys fighting together. Where's the fun in that? Let's break it off a little. Friends or colleagues who become enemies is always an interesting thing because you know it's based on love and friendship and that's always the worst thing to have turn bad - is someone you actually care about and someone you actually believe in."

What do you think? Should Hulk become the villain in Avengers? If not him, then who?

With J.C.V.D. charming audiences everywhere and making the unlucky of us foam at the mouth to see it, the big question has become: Would this be the start of a great career twist, or a charming, but fleeting, aberration for Jean Claude Van Damme? Rather than taking it step by step, the dude has jumped head first into the deep end -- next up will be Van Damme's labor of love, Full Love, which he wrote, produced, directed, and stars in. It's supposed to be a personal story, but is currently all hush-hush. But now we've at least got a peek inside, courtesy of Twitch. They've posted five images from the film, including the thumbnail to the right. It doesn't show much, but one thing that's definitely not there -- JCVD splits.

Turning from possible success to definite success -- CNN reports that Tim Robbins has nabbed himself a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. In the ceremony last week, the actor said: "I used to take the bus from here to Burbank to go to work. When the bus was late, I would walk up and down and throw my cigarettes down. Now I have the honor of having this done to my star."

Meanwhile, if you've dug the tunes coming out of Repo! The Genetic Opera, Horror-Movies.ca reports that the film's soundtrack will be up for free for one day only, today the 13th, on the flick's official website. Go now!

And one last nibblet: Variety reports that Mark Waters, director of films like The House of Yes, Mean Girls, and The Spiderwick Chronicles, is heading to TV to helm the pilot Eva Adams. Adapted from the Argentinian telenova Lalola, the series will follow a womanizer who gets turned into a woman and must endure what he used to dole out.

Success Stories:
Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax)
Religulous (Lionsgate)
Ballast (Alluvial/Required Viewing)

One Brit edged out another, as RockNRolla, Guy Ritchie's zippy yet utterfully forgettable "return to form" Brit crime flick, narrowly claimed the #1 spot among limited releases, according to estimates compiled by Box Office Mojo. To my mind, though, Mike Leigh's much riskier Happy-Go-Lucky ($20,000 per screen at four theaters) is the surprise winner in the independent world, with a strking lead performance by Sally Hawkins as a preternaturally cheerful schoolteacher who sounds as though she could set teeth on edge as easily as she warms hearts. I'm curious but wary. The film will expand wider on Friday; if you've seen it, is it a tonic for difficult times or a passive aggressive form of torture?

Speaking of possibly unpleasant experiences, I'm also surprised by the excellent returns for Larry Charles' Religulous. The doc has earned more than $6.7 million in just two weeks; A. J. Schnack of All these wonderful things points out that it's the first doc since Michael Moore's Sicko "to score back-to-back multi-million dollar weekends." I grew tired of Bill Maher's smirking, self-righteous ridicule years ago, but perhaps I'm in the minority. If you've seen the doc, are you a big fan of Maher? Or is it the subject matter that made it a must-see?

Lance Hammer's Ballast deserves a big hand. Not only did Hammer write and direct a highly-praised drama, he decided to take on distribution duties as well, opening it at a single Manhattan theater the weekend before last. The earnings were not stunning, but very respectable for picture without stars. It expands to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia and St. Louis before the end of October, according to indieWIRE. Will you check out Ballast if it opens near you?

Say what you like about the collected works of Mr. Ridley Scott, but when this man sets out to make a science fiction film ... good things happen. The always-busy director has only done two sci-fi films, but those ones are called Blade Runner and A L I E N. Since Blade Runner in 1982, Scott has kept busy with big hits (like Gladiator) and big misses (like this past weekend's Body of Lies) -- but it looks like the man is heading back into the speculative realm once he's done with that crazy Nottingham project.

According to Variety, Scott will direct an adaptation of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, which the filmmaker wanted to make a long time ago, but there were all sorts of rights issues involving FX genius Richard Edlund, who "bought" the book right when it was published. For his part, Ridley Scott seems enthused: "I first pursued 'Forever War' 25 years ago, and the book has only grown more timely and relevant since ... It's a science-fiction epic, a bit of 'The Odyssey' by way of 'Blade Runner,' built upon a brilliant, disorienting premise."

That premise isn't laid out all that well in Variety, so for that we'll look to Amazon: OK, so I was going to paste the whole breakdown, but here's my interpretation: It's the future and mankind is at war with the Taurans, only we use ships that allow its crew members to age really slowly, so when this one guy comes back home and cannot adjust to the 1-to-27-year ratio, he keeps signing back up for battle after battle. Or something close to that. Clearly I need to get this book. (More info here, but watch out for spoilers.)

Would you have ever imagined that Dennis Hopper, the writer and director of Easy Rider, would one day write and direct a seven-minute commercial for an ultra-chic and pricey ladies handbag? No? Me neither.

Above you can check out his short film commercial called Pashmy Dream. Gwyneth Paltrow stars as herself, meeting a sexy journalist for an interview amidst a troupe of clowns and performers. But then the dreaded paparazzi descend upon her and she scurries off without her Tod's Pashmy bag (the horror!), leaving the journalist to rush to get it back to her. Hopper says of the commercial: "Cinderella has her shoe. Gwyneth has her Tod's Pashmy bag." But unlike Cinderella, Gwyneth still gets red carpets versus dirty floors and rags.

If you exchanged the bag for some retro-wear, and added drugs into the mix, it would be slightly reminiscent of Rider, but it's still a fashion commercial. What do you think? Sound off below.

[via Just Jared]

Late last week, a new well-edited, well-scored Twilight trailer arrived online and folks went nutty for it. Having been away in the middle of the woods for the past few days, I just checked it out a few minutes ago for the first time, and I'll say they definitely did a bang-up job teasing in the adolescent boys looking for a little fight in their vampire flicks. Yeah, there's a love story somewhere inside this 90210-with-fangs, but it sure as heck doesn't drown our latest piece of sizzle. (Note: We were just told Twilight will have a final run time of 120 minutes and will be rated PG-13.)

Look, whether you want to admit it or not, young females and their moms are the predominant audience for Twilight. They're buying the books, they're running the giant Twilight fan sites and it's their opinion that really matters. (Note: I'm aware there are male fans of Twilight -- and more power to them -- but understand I'm just pointing out the fact that they're in the minority here.) So I'm wondering a few things after checking out the latest trailer -- like, did it bring in any new fans, male or female? Was Twilight's core female audience turned off by the new trailer because it didn't feature more of the love story? Did the score make it seem too creepy and horror movie-ish? Is that the tone you want?

This puppy gets two polls below (feel free to watch the trailer again after the jump), and don't be afraid to spill your feeling over into the comments section.