With The Avengers’ massive $200.3 million opening, it’s as clear as ever that the summer movie season is upon us and is as strong as ever. Also a summer staple is the MTV Movie Awards and, naturally, The Hunger Games snagged the most nominations.
In upcoming blockbuster news, we’ve got a new dinosaur project in the works over at Warner Bros as well as plans to remake Little Shop of Horrors with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead. Meanwhile Pariah director Dee Rees has locked her follow-up feature, the relationship drama This Man.
In the more immediate realm we’ve got new trailers for Beasts of a Southern Wild, End of Watch and The Watch on top of your weekly breakdown of the box office report. It’s all coming your way in the Movie News Cheat Sheet.
1. MTV Movie Award Nominations: Here’s a surprise; The Hunger Games dominates the MTV Movie Award’s nomination list. Year after year I’ve groaned when writing that same sentence for a Twilight movie, but finally the MTV Movie Awards will likely honor a movie that deserves a statue time and time again throughout the night. The Hunger Games snagged eight nominations including Movie of the Year and Best Cast. Also taking up a number of nods and very much deserving them is Bridesmaids, which pits Kristin Wiig against Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone for Crazy, Stupid, Love, Emma Watson for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for Best Female Performance. A category that might wind up being a close race is Best On Screen Transformation. Johnny Depp is up for the honor for 21 Jump Street as is Colin Farrell for Horrible Bosses and Michelle Williams for My Week With Marilyn, but hopefully it will come down to Elizabeth Banks for Hunger Games and Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, both of whom not only embrace the work of their incredible hair, makeup and wardrobe teams, but their characters as well. The 2012 MTV Movie Awards is due to air on Sunday, June 3rd at 9pm ET. Click here to check out the full list of nominees and vote for your favorites.
2. Dinosaurs Are Coming via Warner Bros: While we wait for the re-release of Jurassic Park in 3D and the franchise’s fourth film, which feels like it’s never actually going to happen, Warner Bros is getting in on the dinosaur game. According to Deadline, the studio went for a sci-fi action pitch that has fast-evolving dinosaurs attacking Los Angeles. That’s about it as far as plot goes for now, but apparently the idea was originally being developed by Break Media as a web series. Clearly those plans changed and now John Clisham of James Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment is set to direct and co-write the feature script with Mike Bayman. Bayman will also produce the film alongside Scott Nocas and Greg Siegel of Break.
3. Dee Rees Locks Her Pariah Follow-Up: If you feel out of the loop on this story, shame on you. Go see Pariah now! For the folks who have seen Dee Rees’ feature debut, you know there’s high expectations for a follow-up and, according to Variety, that follow-up is officially This Man. Producer Mike Lobell has been developing the project for 17 years. It focuses on what happens when a divorced couple is struck by tragedy and forced to spend time together when they wind up sitting next to each other on an airplane. The next step for Lobell, and now Rees too, is to track down some talent so they can secure financing.
4. Catching Fire to Undergo Rewrites: Lionsgate kicked things off with Slumdog Millionaire scribe Simon Beaufoy, but now, according to THR, the studio is in negotiations with Michael Arndt to work on the script for The Hunger Games sequel, Catching Fire. Sometimes it can be a little alarming when additional writers are brought in, but then you’ve also got to consider that having a fresh pair of eyes work on a script could make all the difference, especially when they belong to the writer of Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3. Should the deal go through, Arndt will have to kick the polishing phase into overdrive so the film can stay on track for its late-summer production start.
5. Sharlto Copley x 3: District 9’s Sharlto Copley continues to build his resume with some of the biggest productions the industry has to offer. Not only did Copley solidify arrangements to take on the role of the villain in Spike Lee’s Oldboy, but now he’s likely joining Maleficent, too. As reported by Deadline, Copley is currently in talks to portray King Stefan opposite Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent. On top of that, Copley’s on board to lead Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego’s Open Grave in which he’ll play a guy who wakes up in a pit filled with bodies. After coming to, he suffers from flashbacks of himself killing people, leading him to believe that he’s responsible for the carnage.
6. Little Shop of Horrors is Coming Back: As reported by THR, Warner Bros and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have joined forces to bring Little Shop of Horrors back to life. Wicked’s Marc Platt will produce the script due to be written by Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’s Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Of course, Gordon-Levitt will reprise the role of Seymour made famous by Rick Moranis back in 1986. Should the project continue to come together, it’ll be rather exciting to see who the studio locks to star alongside Gordon-Levitt as Seymour’s crush, Audrey, and the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello.
7. Many to Join Machete Kills: Machete had Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin and Lindsay Lohan amongst others; it should come as no surprise that Robert Rodriguez is loading up Machete Kills with famous faces as well. As reported by Variety, Amber Heard is in talks to join the Machete vets for round two as well as newcomers Mel Gibson and Demian Bichir. This time around, Machete (Trejo) is joining the US government to help stop Gibson’s arms dealer before he sends a deadly missile into flight. Heard’s character will be a scheming assassin known as Miss San Antonio while Sofia Vergara might join in to play Madame Desdemona, someone with information that Machete needs.
8. Jonah Hill to Join Wolf of Wall Street: It looks like Leonard DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese are finally bringing new people into the equation. Wolf of Wall Street is finally getting off the ground and, according to THR, Jonah Hill is in negations to help DiCaprio and Scorsese bring Jordan Belfort’s story to life – again. Belfort’s book covers his rise as a stockbroker to financial supremacy and then down into the depths of an alcohol and drug addiction. DiCaprio is on board to star as Belfort while Hill looks to take the role of Danny Porush, Belfort’s best friend. Belfort convinces Porush to ditch his job in furniture sales and join him in his brokering exploits, which eventually turn into a mess of fraud and disgrace.
9. Trailers: Beasts of the Southern Wild, End of Watch, The Watch: After securing a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, Beasts of the Southern Wild is on its way to Cannes and, come June 27th, to a theater near you. Sure you’ve got a ways to go if you’re not heading to France, but the film’s trailer just arrived and should be rousing enough to hold you over for a bit more. We’ve also got the very first trailer for David Ayer’s End of Watch and considering the guy’s got Training Day on his resume, it should come as no surprise that this one looks like a pretty wicked cop drama. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña seem to make an excellent pair and Ayer’s unique shooting techniques should make this one a novel experience. How about we lighten the mood a bit with the new red band trailer for The Watch? Not only are we getting a taste of how dirty the humor in this one will get, but it’s also our first look at the film’s alien invasion twist.
10. Box Office: Wow. I’d say The Avengers has left me speechless, but then I’d be in big trouble for this portion of the Cheat Sheet. A $200.3 million start. That’s just incredible! In fact, it’s the biggest opening weekend ever, by far! The next highest entry on that chart is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’s $169.2 million. This one should be an interesting one to track over the next few weeks and see where it ends up falling on the list of biggest moneymakers of all time. Way, way down below with just $8 million is Think Like a Man, which took a rather hefty 54.6% hit. However, The Hunger Games saw its biggest drop yet, 47.3%, so its $5.7 million weekend seven haul didn’t threaten to steal that #2 slot from Think Like a Man in the least. Coming in 4th is The Lucky One, which lost nearly half of its weekend two profits for just $5.5 million for weekend four. Rounding out the top five is The Pirates! Band of Misfits, which also suffered a slashing, leaving it with just $5.4 million for its second weekend out. (via Box Office Mojo)
