Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Recording New Album

Florida rock outfit the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is recording its next album with producer Howard Benson in Valley Village, Calif., Billboard.com can reveal. The as-yet-untitled set is expected early next year via Capitol.

The group did not join this summer's Vans Warped Tour to concentrate on the follow-up to 2006's "Don't You Fake It," which has sold 852,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

That album's single, "Face Down," spent a year on Billboard's Modern Rock chart and has sold more than 1.5 million downloads.

Stiller's War Comedy Defeats The Clone Wars

The ComingSoon.net Box Office Report has been updated with studio estimates for the weekend. Be sure to check back on Monday for the final figures based on actual box office.

The reign of Warner Bros.' The Dark Knight may finally be over as six new movies made it difficult to sustain the top spot after four weeks in residence there. Even so, yesterday it passed the unadjusted gross of George Lucas' 1977 sci-fi classic Star Wars to become the second-highest grossing movie domestically with an astounding five-week box office gross of $471.5 million. (Star Wars' unadjusted gross was $461 million including a number of re-releases since its debut thirty years ago.)

It was replaced at the top by Ben Stiller's war comedy Tropic Thunder (DreamWorks), co-starring Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr., which grossed $11 million on Wednesday and Thursday, then picked up strong word-of-mouth business over the weekend with an additional $26 million, making more in five days than Stiller's last movie The Heartbreak Kid made in its entire theatrical run.

Although The Dark Knight dropped to second place with $16.8 million this weekend, it remained just ahead of George Lucas' latest Jedi adventure, the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Warner Bros.), which opened in over 3,400 theaters (more than Tropic Thunder) but delivered a disappointing $15.5 million, an average of $4,500 per site. The poor showing might be blamed on the mostly negative reviews and feelings among the fanbase that it's essentially a television cartoon that didn't necessarily need to be seen in theaters.

Internationally, The Dark Knight topped the box office with $42.4 million from 7,700 theaters in 60 markets. The movie has reached $328.6 million overseas for a combined worldwide total of $800.1 million, climbing to the 19th spot on the all-time worldwide blockbuster chart.

Alexandre (The Hills Have Eyes) Aja's latest horror film Mirrors (20th Century Fox), starring Keifer Sutherland, opened in 4th place with $11.1 million in 2,664 theaters, while Sony's stoner comedy Pineapple Express, starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, dropped from second to fifth place with $10 million in its second weekend to bring its total to $63 million.

Universal Pictures took the next two spots with their returning movies The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and the musical Mamma Mia! with $8.6 million and $6.5 million, respectively. The Brendan Fraser action flick has grossed roughly $87 million while the Meryl Streep musical has $116.4 million under its belt. It's just a couple million behind passing last year's Hairspray as the third-highest grossing movie musical.

"The Mummy" took second place internationally with $32.6 million from 6,853 theaters in 56 markets. It has earned a total of $196.6 million overseas for a worldwide total of $283 million.

The Warner Bros. sequel The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 dropped to 8th place with $5.9 million and a total gross of $32.1 million, followed by the Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers (Sony) with $5 million and a total gross of just under $91 million.

Opening in just under 700 theaters, Woody Allen's romantic comedy Vicky Cristina Barcelona (MGM/Weinstein), starring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, rounded out the Top 10 with $3.7 million, becoming Allen's biggest opening movie since 2000's Small Time Crooks as well as the second-biggest opening of his 35-year career.

Opening in 452 digital 3D capable theaters, Summit Entertainment's G-rated animated movie Fly Me to the Moon grossed $2 million to open in 12th place, averaging $4,400 per site. Also opening moderately in 527 theaters, the Sundance pick-up Henry Poole is Here (Overture) starring Luke Wilson grossed just $800,000, averaging a pitiful $1,500 per site.

The Top 10 grossed an estimated $110 million, which is just slightly more than the Top 10 grossed in the same weekend period last year.

Voltron Moves Into Turnaround

Fox-based New Regency has put Voltron: Defender of the Universe into turnaround, reports Variety.

The trade says that Ryan Kavanaugh's financing and production venture Relativity Media is in negotiations to back the property, though on a more moderate budget, utilizing the type of cost-effective technology employed in films including 300.

The Mark Gordon Co. still is attached to produce "Voltron," which is based on the popular Japanese animated TV series of the 1980s.

Mark Gordon and Jordan Wynn are producers. Bryan Zuriff is executive producing. Producers expect to attach a director within the next week. The film was written by Justin Marks.

Marks' take is described as a post-apocalyptic tale set in New York City and Mexico, where five survivors of an alien attack band together and end up piloting the five lion-shaped robots that combine and form the massive sword-wielding Voltron that helps battle Earth's invaders.

Goosebumps Feature Gets Two Scribes

Writing duo Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander are in negotiations to write the live-action big screen adaptation of the children's horror series "Goosebumps" for Columbia Pictures, says The Hollywood Reporter.

Neal Moritz and his Sony-based Original Film is producing as is Scholastic Entertainment's Deborah Forte.

While straight-to-video versions of the R.L. Stine book series have been made, the project will mark the first feature adaptation of the series and could become a franchise for Columbia, which acquired the rights in May. The "Goosebumps" series have grossed hundreds of millions for Stine and Scholastic, second only to the "Harry Potter" series.

Moritz has said he likely will cast youngsters for the leads and then include well-known actors in supporting roles, a la the "Potter" films.

Exclusive: Spy Hunter Takes A Backseat

About a year ago the trades reported that Resident Evil and Alien vs. Predator director Paul W.S. Anderson will direct Spy Hunter, the big budget adaptation of the popular Midway video game that revolves around a transforming supercar called the Interceptor.

At the time Anderson was suppose to be working with another writer to pen the project, which has already gone through several writers, including Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Zak Penn and Stuart Beattie.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson has long been attached to play the secret agent behind the wheel of the vehicle. And back in 2004 John Woo was originally attached to helm the movie.

Now during Comic Con I had a chance to sit down with Anderson on a TV interview (which, you can see HERE) to talk about his upcoming film DEATH RACE a redo of 1975's "Death Race 2000" and managed to squeeze in a Spy Hunter question.

It looks like the bigscreen version of "Spy Hunter" has taken a backseat because when asked about Spy Hunter and they way he answered the question to me at least, seems that he is not doing it anymore. He might write it but it sure looks like he will not be directing the project.

I’ve also been told from people who are close to the project is that Anderson is NOT doing the film and that he’s been off the project.

I hope one way or another this project does happen already. We've been following this for a while now with the Script Review (CLICK HERE), and the animatics (CLICK HERE) for the film where you can see how the Interceptor changes into a boat and a cycle and more.

Will The Rock still do the movie? Who knows. Will Universal Pictures still do the film? Who knows, maybe not. Will another studio pick up the project? Who knows.

Here is what he said when asked about Spy Hunter.

Latino Review: Does this (movie) prepare you to do another [car film] like Spy Hunter?

Anderson: I had some what fun making this movie and I firmly believe this is the best, most spectacular car action I've ever seen in a film, I don’t know if I’ll ever do another car movie after this, because I really feel like we pushed it to the max and the only other car movie I’ll do is maybe a sequel to this, knock on wood, if this movie does well enough to deserve that, I really think we’ve kind of raised the bar when it comes to car action….we’ve done everything practical, we’ve done spectacular stunts, we’ve kept it R rated, really hard, we’ve had the actors do a lot of their own driving, so you know, I think we’ve really maxed our car movie, so I think we’ve laid down a challenge to any one else, I think we’re now the movie to beat.

Nintendo Hardware Sales Top July

The console war continues.

Every month, game industry research firm The NPD Group tallies up the hardware sales figures of each respective game console. At around the same time NPD releases their figures, enthusiastic members of each faction engage in a frenzied brawls across the web. Similarly, each manufacturer—Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft—all prepare their own, albeit comparably restrained, retorts. In the case of July, The NPD Group reported that Nintendo is the crowned victor of total hardware sales, moving over 608,400 units of their DS systems, and another 555,000 Wii systems.

The combined total sales of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, however, failed to even touch the total Wii sales. The Xbox 360 moved 204,800 units while the PS3 pulled 224,900 units. Not to be outdone, Microsoft released some figures of their own today to boast the success of the 360. Since November 2005, consumers have spent $10.4 billion on Xbox 360s, a 49 percent total share of the total market, the release said. On the software side, Microsoft claims that users have picked up nearly 7.9 games per console sold.

All the same, the numbers don't lie. As it stand, Nintendo takes the gold for the month of July, Sony takes the silver, and Microsoft takes bronze.

'Michael and Michael' set at Comedy Central

Pilot from stars Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter

Comedy Central is moving forward with the sketch comedy "Michael and Michael Have Issues," picking up the project to pilot and adding Josh Pais to the cast.

"Michael," from Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter ("The State"), is a half-hour project with segments addressing issues that the two men have with themselves, each other and the world at large. Pais plays Jim Biederman, the executive producer for the duo's show within a show. The character takes the name from an actual exec producer on the Comedy Central project.

Pais, who next appears in "Synecdoche, New York" and the indie "Assassination of a High School President," recently wrapped an untitled comedy from Nicole Holofcener. He is repped by Innovative and manager Brian Liebman.

Nurse Espinosa removing Scrubs

Judy Reyes says upcoming season is her last on ABC's hospital comedy; lead Braff, creator Lawrence also likely out.

The long-running medical comedy Scrubs normally leaves near-death experiences to its dramatic counterparts, but behind the scenes, it's seen the light and been revived plenty of times.

For several years the show has been considered "on the bubble" when networks make their decisions to cut or keep programming, and each year it escapes the axe late in the game. After seven successful years at NBC, Scrubs begins its eighth season on a new network--ABC--this season. However, that relationship could be one-and-done.

Many have suspected that this season could be the show's last, and comments made by actress Judy Reyes, who plays nurse Carla Espinosa, certainly add fuel to that fire.

According to news service Bloomberg, Reyes said she would be leaving the sitcom after this season, and that others from the team were likely to follow. In addition to her departure, she thinks lead Zach Braff and creator Bill Lawrence will split as well.
"Their salaries exceed the budget of ABC and, I think, so do their ambitions," Reyes told Bloomberg. "Mine do, too."

Braff all but sealed his future a month ago at this year's Television Critics Association press tour when he told the media, "My sense is this is my last year."

ABC execs fired back that they wanted to continue the show beyond this next season, possibly with new cast members, but without Lawrence and Braff, the show would definitely lose much of its pizazz.

Post Scrubs, Reyes hopes to work in feature films and on Broadway.

Office's Darryl busted for drugs

Felony drug charges filed against actor Craig Robinson for possession of ecstasy and meth.

In the stoner film Pineapple Express, actor Craig Robinson plays a hitman for drug runners who is after the two main characters, played by James Franco and Seth Rogen. Unfortunately for Robinson, he's now also on the wrong side of the law in real life.

The affable up-and-coming actor, who plays warehouse worker Darryl in the NBC hit The Office, was arrested in late June for possession of ecstasy and methamphetamines, as well as being under the influence of cocaine, amphetamines, and cannabinoids (likely marijuana), according to TMZ.com.

Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley today filed documents and pressed charges against Robinson on two counts of drug possession and one count of being under the influence of illegal drugs.

Robinson is due in court August 21, says The Associated Press.

The 36-year-old actor has parlayed his Office success into a working relationship with producer Judd Apatow, and has appeared in several of his films, including Knocked Up, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and Pineapple Express.

WB taps into ties at DC Comics

Co. has heroes like Wonder Woman, Flash

When it comes to superhero properties, Warner Bros. couldn't be sitting on a more enviable source: DC Comics, home to Batman, Superman and other well-known caped crusaders.
But to make its heroes fly at the megaplex, the studio knows it needs to make the right movies. The financial payoff is too big to squander with a creative misfire like "Catwoman."

"They can really be an evergreen source of enjoyment and income," says studio topper Alan Horn, referring to the coin a hit pic can collect at the B.O. and from sources like TV, homevid, vidgames and merchandise. The studio earned $1 billion from DC fare alone in 2005, when "Batman Begins" was released. "If you do it wrong, you're dead, you're out of there."

Getting out there, however, has taken time.

Warners and DC (both Time Warner entities) have labored in vain over another Superman, and launches for Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Arrow and Green Lantern. It's maddening for fans as rival Marvel Comics has successfully begun financing its own slate of pics, first with "Iron Man," then a reboot of "The Incredible Hulk" this summer.

That could soon change, as Warners is readying to revamp how DC's properties are developed -- changes that could be announced within the next month.

DC doesn't have a separate film division the way rival Marvel does, which is moving forward with an "Iron Man" sequel and adaptations of Thor, Captain America and the superhero team-up "The Avengers" for 2010 and 2011.

That means Warners doesn't have a sole cheerleader for its comicbook projects, or someone to work closely with filmmakers to develop them.

Until now, those duties have been shared by production prexy Jeff Robinov and Gregory Noveck, senior VP of creative affairs for DC Comics, who has served as a liaison between the comicbook publisher and the studio.

Some say Robinov's attention may be pulled in too many directions, given his other responsibilities, which include the rest of the studio's slate and marketing. Noveck formerly was Joel Silver's TV topper.

"We're having a lot of internal discussions on it," Horn says. "We haven't committed to any change at DC at this point," adding that both Warners and DC are committed to turning "the properties into viable movie product in an intelligent way so that we introduce them like planes on a runway. They have to be set up the right way and lined up the right way and all take off one at a time and fly safe and fly straight."

One high-profile property is "Justice League," which Warner Bros. had hoped would start production before the writers strike.

But given that it unites Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Arrow, Aquaman and Martian Manhunter, the studio is trying to figure out how such the pic (cast with younger actors) would affect its existing Batman and Superman franchises -- and whether the script respects how the characters play off each other in the DC universe.

To put it simply: the studio doesn't want to piss off the Comic-Con contingent.

"We're not off the notion of a Justice League," Robinov says. "There's a massive interest and knowledge in the comicbook industry and it takes time to sort of catch up and understand the characters and the history, where they've intersected with each other and what their worlds are. That's part of the education that we're going through."

When it comes to Batman, the future of the franchise is in Christopher Nolan's hands. That's what a successful reboot with "Batman Begins" and breaking records with "The Dark Knight" will do.

There's a deal for the director to helm a third pic, but he has yet to decide on whether to tackle it yet.

"We have no idea where Chris is going with this," Horn says. "We haven't had any conversations with him about it."

Either way, there's no question Warner Bros. will produce more superhero pics. The question is when.

"These are big, iconic characters," Noveck says. "So when you make them into a movie, you'd better be shooting for a pretty high standard. You're not always going to reach it, but you have to be shooting for it. We're going to make a Justice League movie, whether it's now or 10 years from now. But we're not going to do it and Warners is not going to do it until we know it's right."