The first week of the new year and we’ve got a good bunch of news. Nothing entirely earth shattering (that we haven’t shown already) but still a good and interesting bunch of information regardless!
Click behind the cut for all the tasty tidbits I’ve compiled.
Have you seen Avatar yet? I haven’t. I plan to, but I just haven’t got around to it (mainly due to the bashing it’s getting by people that I respect). With that in mind though, it has absolutely beaten the crap out of The Dark Knight and Spider-Man.
James Cameron’s Avatar (20th Century Fox) continues to be one of the biggest box office phenomenons of the decade–much like Titanic in the prior decade–having grossed $350 million after just 17 days and crossing the one billion mark worldwide. It set a new Near Year’s Day weekend box office record with its estimated $68.3 million, down just 10% from Christmas weekend and making it the highest third weekend gross for a movie domestically (surpassing the $45 million made by Spider-Man in 2002).
By next weekend, Cameron’s comeback will hit the $400 million mark and by next Sunday, it should pass Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen to become the highest-grossing movie of 2009, as well as breaking into the Top 10 highest-grossing movies (domestically) of all time.
Internationally, Avatar has grossed $670.2 million which brings its worldwide total to $1.02 billion, making it the fourth-highest grossing movie worldwide EVER, and that’s after being in theaters for only 17 days, too. It has surpassed the worldwide gross for The Dark Knight and only needs $46 million more to beat Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. (Currently, Cameron’s Titanic still holds the worldwide grossing record with $1.84 billion with $600 million of that domestically.)
What’s so remarkable about the movie’s success, besides how much of that money is being made in 3D and IMAX venues (with many daily sell-outs still being reported ), is that Avatar is also the biggest non-sequel since George Lucas’ original Star Wars and Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. By the end of January, it should have surpassed both of their non-adjusted box office takes. It’s still a few days behind Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which had the benefits of opening in summer, while Avatar will be facing moviegoers’ return to school and work starting tomorrow, so we’ll have to see whether it can cross the $533 million mark to become the second-highest grossing movie after Cameron’s own Titanic.
Speaking of Avatar some more, though, everyone seems to be making a big deal about exactly where movies will go from here on out. So much so that in an article at the Daily Beast, this little one-liner got dropped:
The Avatar factor could make the difference on Cowboys and Aliens, a DreamWorks project to be directed by Jon Favreau that starts shooting in July. (Plot line: Settlers and Indians put aside their differences when a spaceship crash-lands in their town.)
Interesting note: this film stars Robert Downey Jr, marking the second comic book movie for RDJ as well as the second team-up between the actor and the director. The book isn’t half bad either. It’s co-written by our favorite Fred Van Lente with Dennis Calero on art, so that alone should be enough to convince you to give it a check out. If you’re interested, check out the first issue right here.
Speaking of Favreau and RDJ, expect to see an Iron Man 2 spot at this year’s super bowl.
So you know how I’ve been absolutely refusing to pander to any of the Spider-Man 4 rumors? And with good reason, I believe. Well, it appears that some of them could be true. In fact, so true that Spider-Man 4 has halted due to problems between Raimi and Sony, according to Deadline.com. To be quite frank, I’m not surprise. The internet buzz over 
Spidey 3 was pretty awful, and the critics weren’t easy on it either. I’d imagine that in the post-Dark Knight world, they’d want to finance something they knew would be a hit. And with rumored disputes between Maguire coming back to the role at all, it’s easy to see why they would want to wait until they could put out a movie they knew would be a hit.
Granted, Spidey 3 was a success commercially, but we like to pretend that our comments on our websites and blogs matter.
Oh, and then Tobey Maguire weighed into that!
“Like anything, it’s a process,” Maguire said. “We’re just in the midst of the process. We have a lot of great stuff in terms of story and script. We’re just trying to dial it in and get it ready as quickly as possible. Of course, these movies are a very big undertaking and take a lot more time than a drama or something more straightforward.”
Hmm.
And if you for some reason wanted to see Green Goblin return, Willem Dafoe is confident that he could. While I love Dafoe, I’d rather not.
Update: Variety has an update on this, highlighting the dispute over the Vulture and the Black Cat’s possible roles. How about this for an idea: hire someone besides Sam Raimi? No offense Raimi, but when you did Drag Me To Hell, you proved you’re better back in the horror front. Let’s leave the superhero stuff to someone who won’t spend the entire production fighting with the studio. Again.
Bad news for Preacher fans: Sam Mendes, who had been marked as doing the feature film(s) adaptation (s) of the hit book is in talks to be the director of the next film in the new Bond franchise (starring Daniel Craig). While that’s all fine and dandy, it basically says that Preacher isn’t happening. It’s been in development hell for years now, and while I’d like to on some level see an adaptation, I can’t imagine we’ll be seeing it any time soon now.
MTV Splash Page has decided to contact the co-creator of War Machine, Bob Layton, and talk to him about the upcoming movie and his thoughts. Check out two interviews centered around this here and here. Oh, and here. OH, AND HERE!
On a related War Machine note, an uber-fan has made a working War Machine suit – and it kicks ass (just like Joe Quesada is promising it’s film counter part will!):
It has even received props from Jon Favreau! Not bad.
Looks like Disney wasn’t just after a tiny bit of Marvel. They want the whole enchilada! According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney has bought Stan Lee’s a 10% stake to Stan Lee’s company POW!
Disney is acquiring a 10% stake of POW! for $2.5 million. It is also acquiring “enhanced rights” to the company’s creative side as well as exclusive consulting services. It was not clear what the rights and services entailed or the reason for expanding its relationship with POW!
Disney signed a first-look arrangement with POW! in 2007. Although no projects have come to fruition on the feature side, several are in development, including lighthearted mystery tale “Nick Ratchett,” action-adventure project “Blaze” and one called “Tigress.” POW! is also working on several projects for the home entertainment sector.
Michael Cera spoke a bit with Collider about the upcoming Scott Pilgrim adaptation during an interview for his new film Youth In Revolt:
Continued belowIs it a natural transition from hopeless romantic to action hero in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?
Michael: It doesn’t feel like a transition. It just feels like a different thing. But, we had a lot of training on that movie, and had a lot of time to get to hang out with each other and prepare for it, so it felt like a pretty smooth transition.
What did you have to do, as a performer, to adjust to what Edgar Wright needed from you?
Michael: There’s not much of an adjustment. You just jump in and do it. There were sometimes things where you’d have a shot that was just for one line, so it wasn’t like you’d run a whole scene. That was different. But, for the most part, you’d just have to let go and go with it.
He’s also seen most of the movie. And he likes it.
We posted this once, but just because it’s awesome:
Funk yeah.
Here’s a quicky – the folks that wrote Zombieland will be writing Deadpool, put out by Fox and starring Ryan Reynolds. I say this is a quicky because… didn’t we know this? Huh. I thought we did. Oh wait! It’s because they did a draft of Venom! That’s 2 Marvel films for them since the release of their hit ZomCom. Not bad. (Oh, and apparently they’re tackling GI JOE 2 too. Crazy.)
Are you going to SXSW this year? If you are, then you’re going to get to see Kick-Ass. Seriously. It’s the opening film. You can see it and e-mail me all about it.
Do you want a new trailer for that, by the way? Ok, fine. You can have it.
According to Variety, Thor may open the same weekend as Spider-Man 4, May 6, 2011. I mean, assuming 4 opens at all.
Oh, and even more Thor news, Adriana Barazza (which every other news outlet is reporting is from Babel, probably because her role was so depressing) is in the movie! As who? While we don’t know, she is a human character, not from Asgard. Hmm.
According to a blog that was since removed on the internet, Green Lantern will begin shooting in March of this year. We don’t even know the full cast yet, but that’s ok! I’m sure they’re just trying to make it a super awesome cool secret surprise.
Did you like the Incredible Hulk? We discussed it last week. I said I liked it! Well, the director (Louis Leterrier), in talking about Clash of the Titans, had this to say:
“I hope they don’t find a director before I’m available, because I’d love to take a crack at [‘Avengers’],” Leterrier told MTV News. “It’s just an amazing universe, and to have everybody involved…”
I would put Favreau at my number one choice, but I definitely won’t say know to this. Hulk was a good movie, and the Titans remake looks awesome. This has a Matt seal of approval on it.
And as a final note: something something something, Ghost Rider 2: Spirit Of Vengeance, something something something.
— Mark Steven Johnson is not directing the sequel
— Eva Mendes will not return as Roxanne Simpson
— Ghost Rider 2 (or Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance) will be a hard PG-13
— The film is going to take place in Europe
— De Luca is open to David Goyer directing the sequel but it all comes down to his very busy schedule
— Says the sequel will be like “pushing the reset button” on the franchise
— As you might expect from the success of Avatar, Ghost Rider 2 might be done in 3D
— Says Goyer has just delivered his updated outline to the studio
— And says Ghost Rider 2 could be in front of the cameras this year
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to just brush past this and be rude. I LIKE Ghost Rider! THE CHARACTER. Was not a fan of the movie, and definitely do not like Nic Cage. But if anyone is super curious, these are the main bullet points of a recent Collider interview with producer Mike De Luca.
