Today's Film News: Mendes Fired Up for Cage Again

By Katey Rich

Those unlucky moviegoers who actually saw last February's Ghost Rider have spoken of the awful, non-existent chemistry between stars Eva Mendes and Nicolas Cage. And now we all get to relive it! Variety reports that Mendes is considering signing on to Werner Herzog's "re-imagining" of Bad Lieutenant, already set to star Cage as the no-good cop of the title. Also, according to Hollywood Elsewhere, the official title is now Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Guess those hefty tax breaks really do get you the proper credit!

Little boys who play with lassos, light sabers and their Iron Man action figures have died and gone to heaven today: Robert Downey, Jr. has signed on to star in the DreamWorks-Universal tentpole Cowboys & Aliens. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the movie will be based on a graphic novel about a battle between settlers and Indians in the Old West that is interrupted by an arriving spaceship. Downey would play a former Union Army soldier who is taking part in the battle. I think I speak for all 10-year-olds (and 10-year-olds at heart) when I say, "Awesome!"

Take a look at the image to the right and tell me you don't immediately think of Speed Racer and the financial fallout that occurred after it was released last month. Despite the fact that its hero looks an awful lot like Speed, the anime series "Robotech" will become a live-action project at Warner Bros., with Lawrence Kasdan writing the screenplay. The Hollywood Reporter describes it as "a sprawling sci-fi epic," and the producers will now commence describing it in terms that remind no one of Speed Racer.

Disney continues making inroads in the Chinese film industry, with another China-made movie planned for next year. Touch of the Panda, according to Variety, was shot in the Sichuan Province, which was hit hard by an earthquake last month. The story follows a panda who is rescued by a boy who is an orphan himself.

Weekend Roundup: Hulking its Way to First Place

By Katey Rich

The Incredible Hulk may have been the box-office champion this weekend, but the real story for me is The Happening, the dismally reviewed, poorly buzzed drama from M. Night Shyamalan that was roundly expected to flop spectacularly. Instead, it notched the second-best June opening for an R-rated movie with $30.5 million (Knocked Up, the R-rated champ from last summer, made $30.7 million). The take was good enough for second place, right behind last weekend's champ Kung Fu Panda, which made $34 million.

And even though Hulk was tops here at home with its $54 million bow, The Happening beat it overseas, helped by the fact that it was playing on nearly 2,000 more screens. This all means that, despite making a film that is mostly kindly described as "uneven," Shyamalan has bounced back from last summer's Lady in the Water, and may have another hit or two in him yet.

In the rest of the top ten, the holdovers continue playing pretty much according to expectations. The Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess with the Zohan tumbled 57% from last week and came in at #4 with $16 million. Right behind it was Indiana Jones, which has moved ahead of Sex and the City ever since the female-driven comedy beat it out for the #1 spot two weeks ago. Indy made $13.5 million at #5, while Sex and the City lagged behind with $10 million. Indy, it should be noted, is flirting with the $300 million mark, while Sex zoomed past $100 million last week.

Heading toward $300 million as well is Iron Man, continuing to show strong legs and coming in at #7 this time around, with $5 million. It beat out the newer horror effort The Strangers, which is still hanging on impressively at #8 with $4 million. And finally, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is straggling with $3 million at #9, with What Happens in Vegas bringing up the rear with $1.7 million.

Once again, there's no real top 20 to speak of at Box Office Mojo, with so many tentpoles taking all the spoils for themselves. But outside the top 10 The Visitor keeps hanging on strongly, with $6.6 million to date, and Horton Hears a Who! perseveres despite competition from Kung Fu Panda. Plus Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Baby Mama are still kicking, all in the full chart after the jump.

'Happening' Shines Through MetaCritic Score

By Katey Rich

Though Film Journal only posts its review to the site Rotten Tomatoes, the other major review-aggregator out there, MetaCritic.com, is often a better source for the real picture of what's going on out there. Instead of simply assigning a "fresh" or "rotten" label to an individual review, the geniuses (or robots, or monkeys, or whatever) at MetaCritic assign a number rating to the review, based on how positive or negative it is. An all-out rave earns a 100, while something more guarded with a few complaints might get an 80. It's a weird science, but the result is an aggregate score that gives a more accurate read of the critical zeitgeist than RottenTomatoes' more crude "fresh rating."

The differences between the two become really clear with a film that gets mixed reviews, and this weekend's The Happening is a great example. The RottenTomatoes score is a dismal 21%--that's worse than Speed Racer got-- while the MetaCritic score is a much fairer 38%. Having read many of the reviews, it makes perfect sense. Most critics are crediting Shyamalan for his use of style and some genuinely original moments, while slapping him on the wrist for putting together a movie that, in the end, is incoherent. Unfortunately, that kind of equivocating doesn't show up in a Rotten Tomatoes rating that only accepts "good" or "bad" in its score. With a movie like The Happening, which could be well-described as "a good kind of bad," the nuance gets lost in the shuffle.

It makes me sad that so many people will see The Happening's 21% rating and brush it off entirely, because there's a lot of good stuff in there. Granted, much of it is overshadowed by Mark Wahlberg's horrendous acting and some plot twists seemingly pulled out of a hat. With competition like The Incredible Hulk this weekend, Shyamalan's movie doesn't stand much of a chance. I'm grateful, as always, for Rotten Tomatoes' publicity for Film Journal, but I hope they make sure their readers peek through the glaring bad rating to see some of the compliments critics had for this strange movie.

Today's Film News: The Sleepless Parent Trap

By Katey Rich

The Parent Trap was real! Lonely only children, rejoice! Mike Rich, a frequent screenwriter for Disney (The Rookie) has sold another spec script to the studio, said by Variety to be a comedy based on a true story that contains elements of The Parent Trap and Sleepless in Seattle. So two kids will be separated at birth and then reunite their parents when one of them calls into a radio advice show? I'm not really clear on the particulars, but the source material is foolproof for sure.

It looks like a new series of crime novels might be threatening John Grisham's work for movie adaptations, and Gary Fleder seems to be just the right director to kick things off. The Kiss the Girls and Runaway Jury director will take charge of The Deep Blue Good-by, the first of John McDonald's series of novels starring Travis McGee. The Hollywood Reporter describes the lead character as "a free-living bachelor and reluctant hero who lives on a houseboat in Florida." Given that the novels were all written in the 60s and 70s, it's hard not to imagine the character resembling Elliott Gould's take on Philip Marlowe in the similarly titled The Long Goodbye. Guess we'll have to wait and see if "it's OK with me" for McGee.

I plan to spend a lot of time in Central Park this summer, to avoid baking myself in my tiny apartment, but I never had high hopes for finding anything mystical there. Apparently Warner Bros. has other ideas. The studio has acquired a spec script about a fantasy realm in the city park, according to Variety, which will be written by Bryan Schulz and Neil Uliano. No word on just how you find the realm, but wardrobes and magical trains are soooo overdone. Magic Metrocard?

And finally, the publicity efforts surrounding San Diego's Comic Con are ramping up-- the three-day convention for sci-fi and comic book geeks has quickly become one of the highest-profile occasions for studios to reach out directly to fans. Warner Bros. is planning a no-holds-barred effort to promote their upcoming City of Ember, according to Variety. They'll outfit a train car like a set from the movie, and screen a 15-minute segment of the film in another car. Unlike most studio's efforts, though, Warner Bros. isn't tangling with the fans-- they're only making the car available to elite members of the press. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't conventions all about bringing people together and sharing ideas? Since when was Comic Con a glorified press junket?

Box Office Outlook: Can the Hulk Make it Happen?

By Katey Rich

After a summer that's already boasted a handful of hits, the market seems to be bracing for some potential flops. That's one explanation for the one-two punch of this weekend's The Incredible Hulk and The Happening, two films with troubled back stories that may turn out to be more interesting than the movies themselves. Hulk will do its best this weekend to erase the memory of Ang Lee's 2003 take on the same character, while The Happening will hopefully allow moviegoers to forgive M. Night Shyamalan after 2006's disaster Lady in the Water. Based on the reviews so far, only one of these movies seems likely to pull off its goal.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Opening in 3,400 theatres. Using the 2003 Hulk film as a kind of origin story, The Incredible Hulk starts over with a whole new cast but gets right into the action. Edward Norton stars as Bruce Banner, who is on the run from the U.S. government, which wants to take advantage of his green alter ego. Liv Tyler plays his devoted love Betty, with William Hurt as her father, General Ross, who is part of the government's shady plan. Tim Roth eventually joins the fun as a British mercenary on the Hulk's tail who eventually develops some superpowers of his own. French director Louis Leterrier, previously responsible for the Transporter series, directs.

Most critics are pretty happy with the new direction Leterrier is taking with the story, but our Ethan Alter isn't exactly one of them. "For all its emphasis on action, the movie is actually a more tedious sit than Lee's film," he writes. "That's because the first Hulk actually attempted to tell a story in between set-pieces." Newsday also gripes, "It's not nearly fresh enough." But many other critics were pleased with the action-packed reboot, with The Arizona Republic getting into the spirit and writing, "Hulk good. Me like Hulk, whole lot. Grrr." And Variety sees lots of promise in this straightforward action effort: "Happy to give the intended audience what it wants, this loud and quick-moving production will shake loose ample coin in all markets."

THE HAPPENING. Opening in 3,000 theatres. For his latest film, thriller auteur M. Night Shyamalan has taken a spooky image-- people suddenly committing mass suicide-- and turned it into a kind of thoughtful disaster movie. Mark Wahlberg stars as a science teacher who is escaping Philadelphia with his wife (Zooey Deschanel), his friend (John Leguizamo) and his friend's daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez). The group must figure out what is causing the suicides and how to escape it, while coping with the way humans will behave when put in life-or-death circumstances. The cause of the suicides has been considered the film's great mystery, but most reviews spoil it, so read no further if you want to stay pure.

OK, now that those people are gone... Most critics have zero patience for Shyamalan's latest, though some acknowledge that there's artistry at work here. I was one of them: "The Happening isn't the triumphant comeback Shyamalan sorely needs, but it's a reminder that he has the style and instincts of a talented filmmaker. Now if only he could find a story worth telling." The Hollywood Reporter isn't thrilled with the concept that the people-killing toxins are being released by plants: "The ecological idea of Planet Earth striking back at humankind might bring a smile to Al Gore, but in terms of cinematic intrigue and nail-biting tension, it's just not happening." "It's beyond good and evil. It's dumbfounding," writes Carrie Rickey at the Philadelphia Inquirer of her hometown filmmaker. The Washington Post complains, "Shyamalan [...] isn't entirely sure what kind of movie he's making, and he shuffles through personalities looking for one that interests him." And Entertainment Weekly shares my complaint about Shyamalan's direction of his main characters: "The filmmaker has fun with the cinematic conventions of social paranoia (all his most interesting minor characters with unusual faces are surely doomed) but is a sucker for overacting among his major players."

Today's Film News: Bana Stands Up

By Katey Rich

There was a charming moment in last summer's Knocked Up, when the quintet of slacker roommates decided that, as Jews, they had to thank Eric Bana for his badass performance in Munich. Now it seems that director Judd Apatow is thanking Bana in the best way he can, by casting him in his upcoming project, Funny People. Adam Sandler, Leslie Mann and Seth Rogen had already been announced as the main cast, and now Bana (who got his start doing stand-up and sketch comedy in Australia), Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman will be on board as well. Variety also said the movie will be about a stand-up comedian who has a near-death experience.

Jack Black is one of the most common names in our Blue Sheets section, where he seems to be part of every other "out-there" comedy that goes into development. Now he's taken his name off one of them-- Black dropped out of Todd Phillips' Man-Witch, about a man who discovers his true identity and goes to teach at an all-female witchcraft school. The Hollywood Reporter says the project is still in "active development"; Phillips was the force behind Old School and a writer on Borat, so he's not exactly an up-and-comer who needs Black's support to survive.

Uh-oh. I've been avoiding coverage of the potential SAG strike and their negotiations with the Association of Motion Picture & Television Producers, out of a blind hope that we wouldn't be facing another strike. But now Variety is reporting that negotiations aren't going so well, and most insiders aren't expecting a resolution by the June 30 deadline. The union hasn't decided to ask their members to authorize a strike, but SAG president Alan Rosenberg told Variety that "if we do, we'll have to fairly soon." In better news, he also said the union will work past the expiration date if they're still negotiating. Are we headed for a labor union war of attrition?

Despite the serious failure of the Bewitched movie a few summers ago, producer Sid Ganis is taking a shot at adapting another 60s magical realism TV icon, I Dream of Jeannie. Now Rita Hsiao, who polished up the scripts for Enchanted and 13 Going on 30, will take a stab at the new script, the Reporter tells us. Apparently the screenplay Hsiao submitted puts Jeannie "smack in the middle of contemporary times and circumstances," which has to mean she'll stop calling the main character "Master." Right? Can we really have come such a short distance?

Today's Film News: Seth Rogen Can Save the World?

By Katey Rich

Turns out Seth Rogen is more powerful than any of us ever imagined. Not only has the Pineapple Express star and co-writer managed to get a feature film made of a short Internet video he made with his friends, but he and co-writer/producer Evan Goldberg will get final cut on the project at Mandate Pictures. The Hollywood Reporter says Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse will star Rogen and Knocked Up co-star Jay Baruchel as two guys who, cooped up in hiding after monsters take over the world, still can't stop fighting.

Speaking of Knocked Up alums, Katherine Heigl will take on her first big dramatic role, starring as Carolyn Jessop in an adaptation of her memoir Escape, about her life with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. The polygamist FLDS church came under scrutiny in 2006 when its leader, Warren Jeffs, was arrested for arranging marriages between older men and teenage girls (Jessop was in one of these marriages at the compound in Utah). Variety writes that Heigl will produce with her mother, Nancy, along with Michael Menchel and Cat Williams.

What Just Happened?, one of Sundance's most high-profile entries that did not get picked up for distribution, will finally see release thanks to Magnolia Pictures, a distribution sibling of the movie's own production company, 2929 Pictures. Variety writes that the movie, which stars Robert De Niro, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and others, will open in limited release on October 3. 

And finally, I love the headline of this Reporter piece: "License to print money for Disney." Apparently the company's earnings for film-related merchandise will rise 12% this year to a record $30 billion globally. After all, this is the company that can sell you not just your own stuffed Nemo or Cars pajamas, but posters of the "High School Musical" cast and virtually anything you want with Hannah Montana's face on it. I'd complain about consumerism and the like, but I'll have to wait until I get my stuffed WALL-E.