sicko
Box Office: Moviegoers Find Rats In A Restaurant Surprisingly Delicious
2:33AM Defamer Hollywood | This Monday morning is no less painful than any other on the calendar, but at least you only have to survive 48 hours before you’re rewarded with a day off. Cling to the weekend box office numbers as you try to make it through the excruciating two days that stand between you and illegal firework displays, backyard barbecues, and egregious midweek drunkenness: 1. Ratatouille – $US47.227 million Another summer, another critically beloved animated feature that tops the box office on its opening weekend, extending Pixar’s years-long consecutive hits streak. But now that the studio has proven it can push to number one a movie with a premise as theoretically unsavory as filthy, health-code flouting rodents running amok in the kitchen of a French restaurant, they’ll seek a challenge that will properly tax their unparalleled hitmaking talents: development has begun on Crabs, the story of some misunderstood, but ultimately lovable, genital lice making their home in the overgrown pubic hair of a Hungarian prostitute. Summer 2009 opening weekend gross: $US53 million. More »
When Michael Met Sacha
12:17PM Defamer Hollywood | What, you may or may not find yourselves wondering, could agitprop documentary director Michael Moore possibly have in common with guerrilla-comedy king Sacha Baron Cohen? Quite a bit, it just so happens, as a chance encounter at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival led to a mutual gush-a-thon between the two mischief-making filmmakers: Cohen told Moore he had drawn inspiration from the filmmaker’s documentaries, in which Moore doggedly pursues corporate and political bosses and puts himself into uncomfortable situations. More »
Trade Roundup: On Broadway, Aaron Sorkin Rekindles Tumultuous Love Affair With Television
11:32AM Defamer Hollywood | · Aaron Sorkin returns to Broadway with The Farnsworth Invention, a play about the birth of television, the deliciously flawed storytelling medium he recently sought to redeem with a little-seen primetime serial about the life-or-death stakes involved in producing a weekly sketch comedy show. [Variety] · Thomas Haden Church is in negotiations to join Sandra Bullock in All About Steve, a romantic comedy that should reinvigorate the moribund genre by focusing on the previously unseen pairing (we think?) of a lady who writes crosswords and a CNN cameraman. [THR] · Michael Moore’s Sicko sells out the single NY screen on which it debuted, bringing in $US70,000 over the weekend. [Variety] · The Agent Dance, Abbreviated Mid-Level Actresses We Can’t Get Excited About Edition: Heroes‘ Hayden Panettiere signs with WMA, while Julia Stiles hooks up with ICM. [Variety, THR] · Cartoon Network and Hasbro are co-producing a new Transformers animated series, which will reimagine the property as a “superheroes story” with robots featuring “a lot more human qualities, allowing kids to identify with the characters” they will soon mindlessly consume in an all-new toy line. [THR] More »
