meet dave
Fox and Hallmark’s Greeting Card Empire: A Defamer Sneak Peek
9:25AM STV | Variety reports today that 20th Century Fox and Hallmark have reached a landmark licensing agreement granting the greeting card giant exclusive use of the studio’s library. While Hallmark has already issued cards for properties like Napoleon Dynamite and has its eye on major titles including Futurama and The Sound of Music, Defamer wrangled a hold of mockups for Hallmark’s “Turbulence at Fox ‘08″ line — a selection celebrating the beauty and joy of life through Fox’s bumpy year at the box-office. Follow the jump for a glimpse at warm greetings to come by way of Manoj Night Shyamalan, Eddie Murphy, The X-Files and others, and feel free to suggest your own heartfelt pairings as well. More »
Fox Boss Forgets Own ‘Sci-fi Isn’t Funny’ Rule in Greenlighting ‘Meet Dave’
7:30AM Defamer Hollywood | Patrick Goldstein is getting kind of good at this blogging thing! After a busy week tipping the world off to the wit and wisdom of censor nonpareil Joan Graves and catching Alan Horn sharpening his ax for Where the Wild Things Are, he spent Monday afternoon taking on the Eddie Murphy Problem. “Murphy has pulled off an almost unprecedented achievement with Meet Dave,” Goldstein notes. “He’s delivered a movie that even 20th Century Fox couldn’t market.”
Why You Don’t Care About Eddie Murphy
10:15AM Defamer Hollywood | We needed a little time today to digest our feelings after the miserable box-office showing of Meet Dave, whose free-fall over the weekend resulted in the ugliest opening of Eddie Murphy’s career. Not having seen it, we have to assume that $5.1 million gross aside, the film is at least superior to Norbit (not to mention Vampire in Brooklyn, Pluto Nash and a sprinkling of other Murphy misfires over the years). We’d even venture to say it’ll be better than Beverly Hills Cop IV, the PG-rated abomination to which Murphy and Brett Ratner are attached for Paramount. Certainly it’s better than The Love Guru, whose own beleaguered comic icon Mike Myers had flowers and a thank-you note on Murphy’s porch by sometime Sunday afternoon. More »
‘Hellboy II’: The Golden Weekend
2:45AM Seth | Four ways to jump start your Monday morning: 1. Moisten fork prongs with mouth. Place end of fork between teeth, press prongs into nearest wall socket. 2. Fill microwave-safe cup with water. Microwave for 2-3 minutes (times vary). Remove cup, pour contents directly onto eyeballs. 3. Have a co-worker hold a duct tape gun to your left ear. Spin in counter-clockwise circles until your entire head is mummified inside a sticky cellophane prison. See how long you can last without breathing before slicing open at mouth. 4. Read the box office numbers! More »
Summer Can Only Get Better as Let-Down Trifecta Storms the Multiplex
2:10AM Defamer Hollywood | Welcome back to another week of Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to the fresh hell of what’s new at the movies. After taking a Hancock holiday weekend to find ourselves, we’re back in full-on summer anguish mode as yet another massive comics adaptation hits theatres, Brendan Fraser goes a-spelunkin’ and Eddie Murphy returns with… we don’t even know. But! We also have our eyes on a few alternatives both at the theatres and in the comfort of our air-conditioned caves, so all is not lost. As always, our opinions are our own and elegantly spot-on — which, of course, you’ve come to expect and we’re happy to oblige! More »
