Thursday, December 25, 2008

Gilligan’s Island Creator Wants Michael Cera To Play Gilligan in Movie Adaptation

Sherwood Schwartz and his son Lloyd Schwartz have signed a deal to bring Gilligan’s Island to the big screen. I loved Gilligan’s Island as a kid, and am not against the idea of a re-imagining of the series… But it seems to me that LOST is our generation’s version of the 1960’s television series, and anything closer to the source material would just be too silly (I’m imagining something like The Flintstones movie… ewww).

Schwartz broke the news at the Beverly Hills induction ceremony of Television Academy’s Hall of Fame on December 9th, where he told TV Guide that he wants Michael Cera to play Gilligan and Beyonce Knowles to play Ginger. It just seems like a bad idea. But if they could sucessfully update the series for the big screen, Cera might be perfect for the role of Gilligan. But I’m pretty sure if a movie makes it to theaters, it won’t be good.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Clive Owen Attached to Star in Cartagena

Clive Owen is attached to Cartagena, a story about an undercover agent amid Colombian drug cartels, says The Hollywood Reporter. The project is at Mark Cuban's 2929 Productions.

Michael Ross, who penned the Fox Atomic horror pic Turistas and recently was signed to Overture's remake of Icelandic thriller Jar City, has been attached to write the screenplay.

Cartagena centers on an undercover agent who gets caught in a complex plot and must elude drug dealers and international agents if he hopes to survive. The project is named for a city on Colombia's northern coast that has a colorful history featuring wars, robust economic activity and tourist development.

New Kelly Clarkson Single Due Next Month

Kelly Clarkson's new single, "My Life Would Suck Without You," will hit U.S. radio outlets Jan. 19. The track will introduce her fourth, as-yet-untitled studio album, due March 17 from RCA.

Although a track list has yet to be announced, Clarkson has worked with producer/songwriter Dr. Luke and OneRepublic leader Ryan Tedder on new material.

The album will be the follow-up to 2007's "My December," which has sold 780,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Clarkson feuded with RCA exec Clive Davis over her desire to write her own material for the album, on the heels of her smash 2004 album "Breakaway," which featured a number of co-writes with experienced songwriters.

A planned arena tour was scrapped just before "My December" came out due to lower-than-expected ticket sales, and was reconfigured for smaller venues a few months later.

Last fall, Clarkson signed with manager Narvel Blackstock, who paired her with his wife, Reba McEntire, for a successful co-headlining tour in early 2008.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Weekly Ratings: 12/8 – 12/10

Monday Ratings: Sweet Mother, Best Worst and (Another!) Biggest Bang

Just another manic Monday for the CBS sitcoms. Let's break it down:

8 pm/ET
Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother easily command the top spot, with the former notching yet another series' best — 11.42 million total viewers. Mother, meanwhile, gained nine percent to deliver its largest audience since Jan. 9, 2006. Chuck claimed runner-up status with 7.56 mil, up 630K week-to-week. Trailing ABC's Charlie Brown special, Sarah Connor's midseason finale scored 5.29 mil, up a hair from last week.

9 pm
Two and a Half Men surged 15 percent to flirt with 18 million viewers, its largest audience since May 16, 2005 (the night of the Everybody Loves Raymond series finale). In turn, Worst Week (12.12 mil) soared 14 percent to set an all-time high. Heroes held steady at 7.78 mil, as it bid the "Villains" adieu. Prison Break (5.73 mil) added 340 thou.

10 pm
CSI: Miami dominated with 14.46 million viewers (up 860K), its best numbers since Feb. 26, 2007. Worst Enemy inched up a hair, to 4.08 mil.

Sunday ratings addendum: Dexter's season finale gave Showtime 1.51 million viewers with its 9 pm airing, and two mil including the later rebroadcast. Californication nearly scored a million over two plays of its own season ender.

Tuesday Ratings: NCIS, Mentalist and Trace Cop Impressive Highs

This Tuesday, as Fox and the CW broke for the holidays early....

8 pm/ET
NCIS capitalized on House's "missed appointment" by surging 1.3 mil and securing its biggest audience ever — 19.86 million total viewers. It was Biggest Loser, however, that placed No. 1 in the demos. The reality series' cycle-ender averaged 11.65 mil over its two-hour run, up 26 percent week-to-week.

9 pm
Oh, how you love that Mentalist! The freshman drama gained 560K from its previous fresh outing/series high, hitting 19.33 million viewers. Placing fourth (behind Loser and a Fringe repeat), ABC's According to Jim two-pack (4.8 mil) dropped 400 thou week-to-week.

10 pm
Buoyed by its commanding lead-ins, Without a Trace scored a season-high 14.47 million viewers, up 19 percent from its previous new eppy. NBC's Momma's Boys debuted to 6.07 mil, while Eli Stone inched up the tiniest hair, to 4.98 mil.

All told, it was CBS' best Tuesday night since ... 1995.

Wednesday Ratings: Criminal Minds Still Killin' the Competition

This Wednesday, every regular broadcast series took a dive... except one. Can you guess who the lucky bird is?

8 pm/ET
NBC's Muppets Christmas special won the front half of the hour, earning 7.8 million total viewers to Old Christine's 7.47 mil (a 10 percent decrease from last week's season high). At 8:30, Gary Unmarried (7.55 mil, down 480K), rose to the top. By the way, Max Gail? He's killing me. Go, Wojo! Placing third, Fox's Secret Millionaire (6.65 mil) toppled 540K week-to-week. Pushing Daisies' perhaps-penultimate broadcast episode drew 4.82 mil, dipping 140K.

9 pm
Criminal Minds (15 mil, including J.J.'s cute wittle bitty baby-waby) enjoyed the night's only increase, adding 300K to last week's audience. In a distant second, Private Practice (6.65 mil) dropped 200K. Life (5.19 mil) slipped 280K.

10 pm
CSI: NY matched last week's audience of 13.26 mil, while Law & Order dipped 500K to fall shy of five mil. Dirty Sexy Money held steady at 5.18 mil.

DNA Films Greenlights New Judge Dredd Movie

According to an announcement on 2000 AD’s message boards (via AICN), DNA films, along with Rebellion and and 2000 AD, have greenlit a new Judge Dredd film. According to the Rebellion’s CEO and Creative Director, “We can’t give away too many details at this point, but we’re looking forward to working with DNA Films to bring Judge Dredd back to the big screen.” Production is scheduled to begin in 2009.

This news is a bit shocking to me, as I remember that the first Dredd film, which starred Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider, was widely regarded as one of the biggest financial failures of all time, requiring a production budget of almost $100 million, but only earning a small fraction of that back domestically. Furthermore, critics weren’t too kind to it either. Nonetheless, with an interesting, developed and wildly popular sci-fi universe, and with the company behind Sunshine and 28 Weeks Later backing this up, I’m actually more hopeful about this project than apprehensive. What do you think?

James Cameron to Remake Forbidden Planet?

In October, we told you that Babylon 5 creator an Changeling scribe J. Michael Straczynski was hired by Warner Bros to pen a remake of Forbidden Planet. Now IESB claims that James Cameron is once again eyeing the project. He was at one time attached to it post-Titanic, but nothing came of it. If true, this is an odd move from Cameron who has said that he wanted to do a much smaller movie called The Dive after finishing his current three year production of Avatar. For now mark this as a “rumor”. Joel Silver is producing the latest try.

The original saw a group of Earth scientists who are sent some 17 light years away to investigate what happened to a colony of settlers on Altair-4. They find a man with a secret and his daughter who somehow survived a hideous monster attack on their planet. Gene Roddenberry has noted that Fred Wilcox’s original 1956 sci-fi film was one of the inspirations for Star Trek.

Loosely based on William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the movie was nominated for best special effects Oscar, and was noted for its groundbreaking use of an all-electronic score, and the first appearances of Robby the Robot and the C-57D starship (which was subsequently used in a number of productions, including the Twilight Zone’s “To Serve Man”). The movie’s poster was listed as the fifth best Movie Poster ever created by Premiere Magazine.

Jim Carrey & Will Smith Get Snowed Under

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend.

Three new movies opened in wide release this weekend taking over the top three spots at the box office. Despite a lot of star power and high concept premises, none of them were able to gross more than $20 million, attributed in some part to the huge snowstorms that hit the Eastern seaboard and the MidWest on Friday, leading to one of the slowest pre-Christmas box office showings in a long time.

Comedy superstar Jim Carrey headlined the comedy Yes Man (Warner Bros.), which bore a similar premise to his earlier hit Liar, Liar, and though it only grossed $18.2 million in 3,434 theaters over the weekend, it was enough to take the #1 spot this weekend. It opened just ahead of Will Smith's enigmatic drama Seven Pounds (Sony), which made $16 million in 700 fewer theaters, averaging $5,800 per venue. It's the weakest opening for a movie starring Will Smith since Michael Mann's Ali in 2001.

The animated fantasy The Tale of Despereaux (Universal) opened in third place with a disappointing $10.5 million in 3,104 theaters, although it's likely to take advantage of the Christmas holidays to pick up business much like past family Christmas films like Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web.

20th Century Fox's remake of the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still starring Keanu Reeves plummeted in its second weekend, dropping 67% to 4th place with $10.1 million to bring its total take to $48.6 million, a far cry from its $80 million production budget.

The holiday comedy Four Christmases (New Line/WB), starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon, crossed the $100 million mark this weekend as it dropped to fifth place with $7.7 million.

Sixth and seventh place were taken up by the hit romantic thriller Twilight (Summit Entertainment) with $5.3 million and a total gross of $158 million and Disney's animated Bolt with $4.2 million, which has grossed $95 million after five weeks.

After winning a number of critics' awards and being nominated for a number of SAGs, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) finally broke into the Top 10 with $3.1 million, enough for 8th place. It's grossed $12.1 million without ever playing in more than 600 theaters.

Baz Luhrmann's Australia (20th Century Fox) settled into ninth place with $2.3 million and a total of $42 million, while Sony's Quantum of Solace rounded out the Top 10 with $2.1 million and a total gross of $161.3 million.

Opening in limited release on Wednesday, Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight) starring Mickey Rourke grossed $210 thousand in four theaters over the weekend (averaging a strong $52k per site) and $295 thousand in its first five days.