movies (2167 posts)

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Natalie Portman knows from fanboys. First, there were the Star Wars prequels. Now, there's Thor.

So what exactly attracts an Oscar-nominated actress to comic-book fare? A love of Norse mythology? Beefy blond guys twirling hammers? A potential franchise? Not quite.

"I just thought it sounded like a really weird idea cause Kenneth Branagh's directing it," Portman said during the weekend junket for her much more highbrow flick, Brothers.

"And Ken Branagh doing Thor is super weird. I've got to do it."

She's in good company. Portman will star alongside Chris Hemsworth (as the hammer-wielding god of thunder), Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard and Stuart Townsend. Filming starts in January for a 2011 release.

The decidedly less weird Brothers, with Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal, hits theaters Dec. 3.

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Thor isn't the only flick stocking up on A-listers. Check out our Casting Couch gallery now!

John Shearer/Getty ImagesColumbia Pictures; John Shearer/Getty Images

Tobey Maguire is still Spider-Man. And that ticks off Jake Gyllenhaal.

See, Gyllenhaal almost took over the superhero role in 2003 when Maguire's bum back had him sidelined. Maguire healed. Gyllenhaal still stews.

"People have very often said to me that I look like Tobey," Gyllehaal laughingly told us at the weekend press junket for their new film,  Brothers, in which they play—yes—brothers. "To all those cab drivers in New York, I'm not Spider-Man!"

As for the guy who is Spidey, Maguire insisted there's no ill-will between him and Gyllenhaal over the near-replacement in the big-bucks franchise.

"I got really excited about the idea of working with these guys [Gyllenhaal, costar Natalie Portman and director Jim Sheridan]," he said of the new Oscar-baiting sibling-rivalry drama, due out Dec. 3.

But enquiring minds really wanted scoop on Spider-Man 4. And this is what Maguire told us.

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Summit Entertainment

Twi-hards, you were right: New Moon's Sunday box office was bigger than estimated. 

Twi-hards, you were wrong: New Moon wasn't big enough to dethrone The Dark Knight as Hollywood's all-time opening-weekend champ. (Or, for that matter, to displace No. 2, Spider-Man 3.)

Final numbers, released today, show the Twilight sequel finished the weekend with a spectacular $142.8 million, up from the, well, spectacular $140.7 million of first reports.

In the end, New Moon made $72.7 million on Friday, $42.3 million Saturday and $27.8 million on Sunday.

Twi-hards, take note: Next time, the Dark Knight-beating number you're looking for on Sunday (assuming the other returns stay the same) is $43.5 million. Lotsa luck, Eclipse.

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Summit Entertainment

As a PG-rated Robin might cry, "Holy crap, Batman!"

New Moon smashed The Dark Knight's single-day and opening-day box-office records with an estimated $72.7 million Friday, its studio reported today.

If the movie's unprecedented midnight business was "absolutely freakish," then its unprecedented full-day take was simply phenomenal.

"It doubled the opening day of the first movie—and Twilight was no slouch itself," Box Office Mojo's Brandon Gray said. "It's just sensational."

With New Moon having already eclipsed its $50 million budget, two of Dark Knight's showiest records, and Twilight's entire opening-weekend gross, about the only question left is: How high can this thing go?

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Summit Entertainment

What else is there to say about New Moon that hasn't already been gushed? That the sequel to you-know-what starring you-know-who and -who and -who, grossed a record-setting, undead-enlivening, "absolutely freakish" $26.3 million in Friday midnight screenings?

Well, there's that.

Yes, New Moon usurped the midnight crown from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($22.2 million), which ousted The Dark Knight ($18.5 million) this past July. Nudge the person in the theater next to you, and pass it on.

How do we know you're reading this on a hand-held at a multiplex? Because chances are you are.

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Summit Entertainment

Is the pope (a) Team Edward, (b) Team Jacob or (c) none of the above?

Take a wild guess.

To the surprise of no one, it turns out the folks who hated J.K. Rowling and Dan Brown aren't into the Stephenie Meyer cinematic canon, either.

"This film is nothing more than a moral vacuum with a deviant message and as such should be of concern," warns the Vatican's culture council leader, Monsignor Franco Perazzolo, in a statement timed to the release of New Moon.

"This theme of vampires in Twilight combines a mixture of excesses that, as ever, is aimed at young people and gives a heavy esoteric element," he continues.

We're guessing that's one blurb we won't be seeing in the newspaper ads.

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New Moon rises today. How pumped are you?!

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Robert Downey Jr. is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly to promote his upcoming movie, Sherlock Holmes ("Holmes for the Holiday!"), and he admits he's torn between having a life and acting.

On one hand, he wants to hang out with his wife and go see movies:

"I have no set plans for my future," Downey says. "I've never had it this good—this is my day in the sun—and I certainly don’t want to look a gift horse in the molars. But Susan [Downey, his wife] and I want to begin to be in our lives as much as we are in our jobs." 

But on the other hand, he's, like, really good at acting and doesn't want to deprive the world of his greatness:

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AP Photo/Stephen Chernin

On the eve of New Moon's opening, it's only natural O.G. cinema vamp Brad Pitt would want a share of the spotlight.

And what Pitt wants, Pitt gets, this time courtesy of the news that he's set to develop—and most likely take the lead role in—a big screen adaptation of Dark Void, a forthcoming shoot-'em-up video game.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Pitt would ostensibly star as Will, a cargo pilot who finds himself in a parallel universe after crashing in the Bermuda Triangle. He and his outnumbered crew, along with their mysterious, unnamed "powers," end up fighting aliens that the previously presumed to be extinct.

The film-inspiring game is released in January.

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Check out who else is making the big screen rounds in our Casting Couch gallery.