Quiet at the theaters this weekend, but it’s the calm before the storm as next weekend kicks off the Summer ‘08 season. Opening today is Baby Momma staring Tina Faye and Amy Poehler; Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay staring Kal Penn and John Cho.
AFTRA decided this week to postpone negotiations while SAG drudged on through week 2 of talks. Also SAG has made an agreement with some indie producers as a back up just in case a strike does occur. Actors can continue to work through the strike. That is not a good sign. Let’s all hope this doesn’t lead down the same road WGA took. Don’t think Hollywood will be as forgiving a second strike around.
Finally! The bad news is that you have to wait until January 2009 for the new season to start. Rumors of a 24 film in September circulated a few weeks ago. Hopefully it will happen to tide over all the viewers like me.
A judge has just sentenced Wesley Snipes to three years in prison for tax evasion. Forget black — always bet on the U.S. government! Snipes was not forced to surrender immediately. Instead, the judge ruled he could surrender at a later date, closer to his New Jersey home. Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said, “Snipes’ long prison sentence should send a loud and crystal clear message to all tax defiers that if they engage in similar tax defier conduct, they face joining him and his co-defendants … as inmates in prison.” Snipes was convicted in February on three misdemeanor charges for not filing his taxes. The government claimed he owed $2.7 mil — but Snipes’ attorneys argued it was just $228,000. No fine was imposed, but the three-year sentence was the max he could have gotten. Celebrity friends Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson wrote letters in his defense to appeal for leniency. Oh well …
In a major step forward on “The Hobbit,” Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct the New Line-MGM tentpole and its sequel.
The widely expected announcement came Thursday afternoon jointly from exec producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, New Line president Toby Emmerich and Mary Parent, the newly named chief of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.
Del Toro’s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and WETA production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel which will deal with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
New Line is overseeing development and will manage production. Both pics are being co-produced and co-financed by New Line Cinema and MGM, with Warner Bros. distributing domestically and MGM handling international.
Here is the list of movies being featured at Cannes this year. Catch all the Cannes coverage on Trendy Reel here on the Cannes page.
In Competition
Three Monkeys Le Silence De Lorna A Christmas Story Changeling Adoration Waltz With Bashir
La Frontiere De L’Aube Gomorra Synecdoche, New York My Magic
La Mujer Sin Cabeza Serbis Delta Linha De Passe Il Divo Leonera The Palermo Shooting 24 City Guerrilla and The Argentine
Out of Competition Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Kung Fu Panda
The Good, The Bad, The Weird
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Special Jury President’s Screening
The Third Wave
Midnight Screenings
Maradona
Surveillance
The Chaser
Special Screenings
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired Ashes Of Time Redux C’est Dur D’etre Aime Par Des Cons Sangue Pazzo Of Time And The City
“We are Planeteers. You can be one too; ‘Cause saving our planet is the thing to do. Looting and Polluting is not the way, here what Captain Planet has to say!“
Go do something today to better this planet we call home. Recycle, ride your bike to get around, something. Seriously. Out of all the other planets in our solar system, God made this one for use to live on as it provides us with everything we need to survive. We shouldn’t take it for granted any longer.
Reusable bags have become the “in” thing right now and it’s a great! Not only are you trendy, you are helping the environment at the same time. Most grocery stores are starting to have the option of using reusable bags instead of plastic bags. Target for $1 have nice red bags to use. Since I live at Target I have 2. Kenneth Cole is now selling a great reusable bag for $20 with $5 going to his awareness fund. I love the bag because it is really durable and I love the message on the front.
Unfortunately they are out of the bags ( Thankfully I got one before the rush) but if you are serious about cutting out your use of plastic bags, you can go here and choose from a vast selection of bags; something that suits you. It may seem silly, but every little bit helps.
Monday and Tuesday saw the ax of a few hundred New Line employs in both New York and Los Angeles. What started as the small film studio being leafed under the bigger Warner Bros., ends as the total dissolvement of the studio. Not surprised. Warner Bros. will be in charge of all films that are scheduled to release this year. This concerns me as there were alot of promising films set to hit theaters from New Line and I wonder if Warner Bros. will care for these films as much as they do with their own original projects or will they just do whatever with them to get them out of the way. He’s Not That Into You is already feeling the affects. Life and Style is reporting that the August release date has been changed to October. Good sign or Bad sign?
Asked if it’s true that the release date of Jen’s film has been pushed back from Aug. 1 to Oct. 24, a New Line rep confirms to Life & Style,“That is the tentative new release date, though I don’t believe its 100 percent official yet. It’s definitely no longer August 1.”
Sister Hood of the Traveling Pants 2(Warner Bros.) is set to release August 8th and can’t have these two female audience driven films competing against each other can we. Seventeen Again staring Matthew Perry/Zac Efron went from a 2009 release date to an August 15, 2008 date a few months ago before the official announcement. Keep in mind the movie basically just wrapped. Also there were talks of changing Journey To the Center of the Earth starring Brendan Frasier from it’s July 11th release date because Bros. were thinking about it conflicting with their big budget movie The Dark Night. I am not even mentioning the numerous films New Line has in production or pre-production status. The fate of those films have yet to be seen including the much anticipated The Hobbit.
List of other New Line Releases for 2008
Four Christmases~ Vince Vaughn Reese Witherspoon 11/26
Sex and the City ~Sarah Jessica Parker Cynthia Nixon 5/30
The Time Traveler’s Wife ~Eric Bana Rachel McAdams 9/19
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay ~John Cho Kal Penn 4/25
A judge has just sentenced Wesley Snipes to three years in prison for tax evasion. Forget black — always bet on the U.S. government! Snipes was not forced to surrender immediately. Instead, the judge ruled he could surrender at a later date, closer to his New Jersey home. Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, said, “Snipes’ long prison sentence should send a loud and crystal clear message to all tax defiers that if they engage in similar tax defier conduct, they face joining him and his co-defendants … as inmates in prison.” Snipes was convicted in February on three misdemeanor charges for not filing his taxes. The government claimed he owed $2.7 mil — but Snipes’ attorneys argued it was just $228,000. No fine was imposed, but the three-year sentence was the max he could have gotten. Celebrity friends Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson wrote letters in his defense to appeal for leniency. Oh well …
