Per the latest dispatch from the MPAA ratings board, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is officially “Rated R For sexual content, graphic nudity and language. Release Date: October 12, 2012.” And thus were dashed the hopes of families everywhere. Maybe the new Kevin James movie is an option that weekend? OK, never mind. [via @ropeofsilicon]
Today in horrifying reboot news comes the stuff of past and future nightmares: “Michael Eisner’s The Tornante Company will finance and produce the development of a feature film based on Garbage Pail Kids, the trading card line published by Topps.” Viral video/shorts helmer PES will direct based on the terrifying 1985 trading cards, which were previously adapted into one of the worst feature films of all time featuring the most disgusting child characters ever created who scared an entire generation of youngsters into not judging their freaky looking but well-meaning peers by their looks alone. Or something. So… yay? [Deadline]
Another August weekend, another genre explosion. As summer slowly ends with a whimper, four new releases are set to crowd multiplexes — three of which will screen in 3-D (with one of those even in 4-D. (Aromascope, FTW!) Will Conan the Barbarian slay Spy Kids and One Day co-stars Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess with a broadsword slice, or will Colin Farrell and Fright Night jam a stake through the hearts of moviegoers nationwide? Or maybe The Help will clean up all four of them? Wordplay! Click through for the Weekend Forecast.
NATIONAL OUTLOOK
· Conan the Barbarian: He lives, he loves, he slays, but will he be content with moderate box office earnings? That’s the question for Conan the Barbarian, which arrives in theaters this weekend following a summer of Internet hype. During this frame in 2010, the second weekend of The Expendables flexed its brawny muscles to win the box office with just under $17 million. A similar start for Conan seems like a reasonable prediction; after all, what other film are Muscle Milk-drinking American males between the ages of 18-35 going to spend their money on? FORECAST: $16.1 million
· Fright Night: To call Colin Farrell’s box office history spotty would be an understatement. From Alexander to Miami Vice to Pride & Glory, having Farrell on the marquee as a leading man seems like a surefire way to underwhelm at the box office. Into that landscape comes Fright Night, a…
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In late July, we previewed a slew of images from films that will be screening at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Among the titles that looked most promising was Friends With Kids, Jennifer Westfeldt’s indie drama which stars her real-life boyfriend Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott and Westfeldt herself as a group of best friends in their 30’s whose dynamic changes after two of them decide to have a baby…and then date other people. Like Megan Fox’s character, who is featured in her first Friends artwork after the jump.
Fox plays a woman who Adam Scott’s character starts seeing after he has a baby with a longtime friend (Westfeldt) — and judging by this artwork, she becomes quickly frustrated with her new beau’s hectic lifestyle. (Nothing says “hectic” like a man mid-disastrous diaper change. See: The Change-Up.) The Mike Nichols and Jake Kasdan executive-produced Friends With Kids will premiere during the Toronto Film Festival, which begins September 8. Westfeldt previously wrote and starred in Kissing Jessica Stein and Ira & Abby. Friends With Kids will mark her directorial debut.
· Friends With Kids [Toronto International Film Festival]
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