Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, RumorMonger, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, James Bond, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels

Who gets to fight in 2008? Find out below …

Finally! News regarding Justice League! And the news is … that news should be coming later this week! That’s right, according to an article over at Entertainment Weekly, Warner Brothers has until January 15 to decide whether to officially greenlight Justice League of America for a spring production — and summer 2009 release — or hold off on making any decisions until the strike is over. EW claims filmmakers are not happy with the script, that they’d like another rewrite, and are still debating whether to move forward as is. Apparently all seven superheroes have been cast, but word is Warners isn’t exactly thrilled that they’d be risking upwards of $200 million on such a young crop of names. Will the project move forward? Will it get delayed? Will we ever find out either way? Stay tuned …

James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, took some time off from filming in London to sit down for a chat with Rotten Tomatoes recently where he talked about how excited he is to be squaring off against Mathieu Amalric (who was recently cast as the Bond villain). When asked whether Amalric’s character will be the Algerian boyfriend of Casino Royale’s Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) — as previously rumored — Craig smiled and came out with ” there is a connection there, yes …” On Amalric’s casting, Craig notes: “I’m over the moon with his casting. I met him very briefly on Munich but I didn’t do any scenes with him. Now I’ve got to know him on Bond and I saw the Schnabel movie and thought it was amazing.” Bond 22 (still without an official name) continues filming, while Craig says the physical stuff starts next week.

Casting rumors regarding the much-hyped G.I. Joe flick have been flying here, there and everywhere. CHUD responds to an earlier IGN story that claimed Sam Worthington (Avatar) was up for the role of Duke in the flick, with recent indie darling Joseph Gordon-Levitt being looked at to play Duke’s best friend. CHUD has heard that the Worthington rumor was indeed true, however the deal never worked out. And as far as Gordon-Levitt goes, well, that piece of info comes with a pretty major spoiler. Hear that? Major spoiler ahead. Do not keep reading if you don’t want to read a major spoiler. Well, apparently, in the latest script, Duke’s best friend turns out to be none other than Cobra Commander. Which means, yes, that Gordon-Levitt is being looked at for the role of villain. Fanboys — whaddya think about that ridiculous plot twist?

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Filed under: Action, Comedy, Sports, Casting, Deals, RumorMonger

A new interview over at FilmSchoolRejects.com throws some light on Whip It, the upcoming film based on the Shauna Cross novel Derby Girl, about a young girl who finds herself through excelling at roller derby. Cross tells the site that Drew Barrymore wants to take on directing the film and is gearing up for a March start. “It wasn’t until after I turned in the script that Drew really fell in love with the idea of directing it,” Cross says. “And I’m so glad she did because I think she will do a really lovely job. She’s got that whole smiley-sweet persona, but she’s one smart cookie with a lot of soul and great creative instincts.” And exactly who is Barrymore after to play Bliss, the lead in the film? This is what Cross has to say about that: “Rumor is the lead could be played by an actress whose name rhymes with ‘Shmellen Shmage.’ But what do I know? I’m just the writer.”

When asked about how autobiographical the story is, Cross says that “Like my lead character, Bliss, I grew up just outside Austin and was a pretty precocious teen, full of sarcasm and wit and hijinks (as were my friends, most of whom were older.) But I was also really sensitive, hiding that vulnerability with humor. And of course, I play roller derby.” Sounds like Ellen Page material to me. As of now, Page has only a couple of projects in the pipeline — she seems to be holding off on using her newly-minted credibility from Juno to cash in on something high-profile. Would she want to risk doing something Juno-esque this soon? Should she try to immediately start playing twenty-somethings and get away from teen-roles? Luckily, she has an agent so we don’t have to answer these questions.

[via Slashfilm]

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Filed under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Foreign Language, Independent, Romance, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Mystery & Suspense, Box Office, Cinematical Indie, War

Expanding to nearly 2,500 theaters, Juno slowed down only incrementally as it maintained its hold at the top of the indie box office chart, based on estimates compiled by Leonard Klady at Movie City Indie. Raking in $13.7 million over the weekend, good enough to place it #3 overall, the returns translated into $5,600 per screen. The weekly gross is down just 13% from the previous week; so far, the film has made $71 million for distributor Fox Searchlight and is galloping toward smashing the $100 million mark.

Period romantic drama (and perennial indie box office bridesmaid) Atonement continued its very nice performance, earning $4,410 per screen at 950 theaters for a weekend total of $4.2 million. Its cumulative total of $25.1 million for Focus Features would be making more noise were it not for the runaway mainstream success of Juno.

Distributor Freestyle Releasing opened Uwe Boll’s fantasy action pic In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale wide on more than 1,600 screens and barely eked out $1,740 per screen. Frankly, Scott Weinberg’s review is far more entertaining than the movie.

Likewise, Picturehouse moved Spanish-language The Orphanage out across America and the results were mixed. At $3,090 per screen at 638 locations, it out performed the other ghost story in the marketplace (the tepid One Missed Call in its second week), but doesn’t appear to have caught fire yet. Word of mouth may help in the coming days.

Epic oil drama There Will Be Blood may be gaining traction; Paramount Vantage increased its theater count to 129 and, according to Box Office Mojo, its per-screen average ($15,038) was the highest of the weekend. I’m also seeing some TV advertising. Very quietly, the animated Persepolis is creeping out into the public consciousness; it earned an average of $10,833 per screen at 18 theaters for Sony Classics.

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Britney Spears has told family and friends that she is going to marry her paparazzo boyfriend Adnan Ghalib in a Scientology marriage ceremony.

A friend described her wedding plan as “hare-brained”, adding: “Brit blew a fuse again when she was told it would be an act of insanity to marry. Having a Scientology wedding is her way of giving her family a one-finger salute.”

“The Scientology stuff may seem ludicrous but it’s her idea of revenge over the Dr Phil fiasco.”

(For those of you who are unfamiliar, Scientologists believe humans are descended from space aliens.  Tom Cruise is one of the religion’s biggest proponents.)

However, before they can marry, Britney’s boyfriend needs to get a divorce from his current wife.

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Britney Spears is paying her British boyfriend several thousand dollars a week for his services as a driver and assistant, according to sources.

Adnan Ghalib, a celebrity photographer, has been cleaning the singer’s house and running general errands for Britney.

Over the weekend she bought him a brand new Mercedes to drive her around in.

“Britney is showering Adnan with gifts because she’s desperate to hang on to him,” according to a source.

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I wasn’t expecting much from the stripped down Golden Globes awards show, but what we got was beyond pathetic.

Due to the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild, the usually glitzy show was replaced by a press conference where “Access Hollywood” hosts Billy Bush and Nancy O’Dell recited the names of the winners and made us suffer through their painfully idiotic banter.

For those of you who care, the list of winners is after the jump.

MOVIES  

ATONEMENT (Focus Features), BEST MOTION PICTURE DRAMA

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS, There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage/Miramax), BEST DRAMATIC ACTOR

JULIE CHRISTIE, Away From Her (Lionsgate), BEST DRAMATIC ACTRESS

SWEENEY TODD (DreamWorks/Warner Bros), BEST MOTION PICTURE, MUSICAL OR COMEDY

JOHNNY DEPP, Sweeney Todd (DreamWorks/Warner Bros), BEST ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

MARION COTILLARD, La Vie En Rose (New Line/Picturehouse), BEST ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

JULIAN SCHNABEL, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Miramax), BEST DIRECTOR  

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (Miramax), (France/USA), FOREIGN LANGUAGE PICTURE

JOEL and ETHAN COEN, No Country For Old Men (Paramount Vantage/Miramax), SCREENPLAY

JAVIER BARDEM, No Country For Old Men (Paramount Vantage/Miramax), SUPPORTING ACTOR

CATE BLANCHETT, I’m Not There (The Weinstein Co), SUPPORTING ACTRESS

RATATOUILLE (Disney/Pixar), BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

DARIO MARIANELLI, Atonement (Focus Features), ORIGINAL SCORE

“GUARANTEED”, Into the Wild (Paramount Vantage), SONG

TELEVISION

MAD MEN (AMC), DRAMATIC TV SERIES

JON HAMM, Mad Men (AMC), BEST ACTOR TV DRAMA

GLENN CLOSE, Damages (FX), BEST ACTRESS TV DRAMA

EXTRAS (HBO), TV SERIES, MUSICAL OR COMEDY

DAVID DUCHOVNY, Californication (Showtime), BEST ACTOR, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

TINA FEY, 30 Rock (NBC), BEST ACTRESS, TV MUSICAL OR COMEDY

LONGFORD (HBO), BEST MINI-SERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION 

QUEEN LATIFAH, Life Support (HBO), BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

JIM BROADBENT, Longford (HBO), BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

SAMANTHA MORTON, Longford (HBO), BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION 

JEREMY PIVEN, Entourage (HBO), BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

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For any of you who were jealous of the magnificent flight of the airplane last week, here’s how to make a “revolutionary” plane that will fly pretty far, assumably without a sky-scraper to help you out.

Revolutionary Long-Distance Paper Plane ! - Click here for more free videos

School starts again today for me. I should send one of these through class.

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Filed under: New Releases

Tum ti tum. Nothing to see here. Move along. There are no PS3 games being released this week whatsoever. Sad, we know, but at least we have Burnout Paradise to look forward to next week and Turok the week after. Hold on. Looking forward to Turok? We must be getting desperate.

US Games

No new releases

EU Games

No new releases

Asian Games

No new releases

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Filed under: Blu-ray, New Releases

Whew, what a week! We’ve seen more Blu-ray announcements and rumors last week than we can remember. Even though HD-DVD is still technically alive, you can rest assured that it’s against the ropes and is gasping for air. With that outta the way, let’s see what treats are in store for us this week!

• Good Luck Chuck
• Mr. Woodcock
• Breaker Morant
• Suburban Girl
• Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God…Be Back by Five

Yeah, we don’t really see a whole lot, either. We’ll pass on Dane Cook’s failed attempts at comedy, and we certainly don’t want to witness Billy Bob desecrating his g