Looks like Scarlett Johansson and Blake Lively got some disappointing phone calls from their agents this morning. If you remember a few weeks ago, we reported that Johansson had the lead female role locked up for Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. That is, until, it surfaced that Lively had apparently attempted to swipe the role from Johansson, conjuring up some under-the-radar casting cat-fight. But it all appears to be moot, as Natalie Portman has reportedly (via Risky Business) been officially offered the starring role in the sci-fi project, joining Robert Downey Jr who has a supporting role.

It should be clear that Portman has not yet accepted the offer, nor officially signed on in anyway. The studio and Cuaron have just made it loud and clear that they want her by announcing the offer publicly. Portman’s heavily buzzed about performance in Black Swan is apparently what made Cuaron jump at the chance to make her an offer, without even having her come in to Warner Bros. to test screen; which is standard procedure, even for A-listers.

Gravity is co-written by Cuaron and will be shot in 3D with a reported budget of around $80 million. The story centers on “a woman stranded on a space station after satellite debris slams into it and wipes out the rest of the crew.” The report claims that, if she were to accept the role, Portman would be the only featured character in most of the film, similiar to other “solitary” character circumstances, such as Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

I’m really happy about this. Natalie Portman is  gorgeous, talented and smart. She deserves to have a complex character study on a major studio budget like Gravity. Stay tuned to The Movie Mash for for updates.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson could be starring in an adaptation of a zombie romantic comedy novel.  S. G. Browne published Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament in 2009.  The book tells the story of Andy (presumably JGL), a newly reanimated corpse.  Sentient and with personality and memories intact, Andy must navigate a world that hates him in a body that is literally wasting away. At an Undead Anonymous meeting he falls in love with Rita (probably Scarlett), a suicide to die for. Together they break zombie taboos and eventually become crusaders for the zombie rights movement across the US.

Minnesota’s own Diablo Cody is attached to produce the adaptation by writer Goeff Lutulippe whose Going the Distance hits theaters this weekend. I actually read the novel last year and honestly, the story is not like anything I have read before.  That’s not to say it’s a work of genius or genre defining, but it gives the zombie a heart, and just as importantly, a brain.  For these reasons Diablo Cody seems like a good fit for the producer role.  She has shown in Juno that she can approach sensitive subjects, like abortion and teen sex (or in the case of Breathers, social discrimination and violence) with compassion, humor and optimism.  I would just like to know who is in mind to play Ray, the zombie that shows Andy and Rita what being a zombie is really about. Breathers slated for a 2011 release.

[Source: Collider]

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Gabriela Cedillo, a 24-year-old Chicago bank teller, was thrilled to appear as an extra in Transformers 3 until she suffered a serious injury on set. She sustained critical head injuries from a metal object that flew through her windshield on Wednesday night. Medical staff rushed Cedillo to Loyola University Hospital where she was listed in critical condition. According to Chicago’s Red Eye, the object hit Cedillo’s vehicle around 7pm. More after the break.

The 2006 Toyota kept moving for nearly a mile, scraping against the concrete median on Cline Avenue. Finally her car came to a stop and Cedillo was airlifted to the hospital. Cedillo displays signs of severe head trauma and memory loss. CBS interviewed Cedillo’s neighbor, Kimberley Burrows. “It was shocking. I cried,” said Burrows. “It’s hard knowing that it’s someone this close to our home, in this movie, and now in the hospital fighting.”

Yesterday was the last scheduled date filming of Transformers 3 in Chicago. The film is set to be released next year on July 1st in 3D.

[Photo via Telegraph]

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Many of you may have seen the trailer and movie poster (profiled by Barrett) for the upcoming flick Black Swan. The movie is from the twisted mind of Darren Aronofsky, the man who brought us The Wrestler, The Fountain, Pi, and the well-known Requiem for a Dream. His movies always seem to have a demented angle to them, and Black Swan looks no different if you have seen the preview. Even though Aronofsky pushes the envelope with each of his projects, audiences usually respond well to the message he is trying to convey.

The film just premiered at the Venice Film Festival and the first press screening recently let out. The buzz circulating online could not be much better for Aronofsky and his new pet project. Some of the biggest movie sources on the planet can be see raving about the film below. Even if you don’t read the excerpts from the reviews, at least skim them to grasp some of the words used to describe the film. Thoughts on the film like: “devastated, tense, excited, sexy, horror-thriller, wicked, visually complex, and enthralling” are just some of the praise given by these critics.

I think the most intriguing thing I pulled from the excerpts is “horror-thriller.” While I know Aronofsky was going to make this film interesting, I find it hard to wrap my head around a movie about ballet circling the horror-thriller genre. I have no doubt that Aronofsky pulled it off as you can see the positive critical reaction pouring over the latest perverse project from the director. Consider me a paying customer when the movie hits theaters. Read some of the early buzz below, courtesy of Slashfilm.

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Way back in May of last year we reported Ben Stiller’s comments on Zoolander 2, to which the actor said he’d been working on the script for on and off over the past decade, and that he was trying his darnedest to get it made. Flash forward a year later and it seemed as though Paramount had passed on Zoolander 2, as well as a sequel to Anchorman because of budget constraints. Now, there appears to light at the end of the tunnel due to a recent tweet from Stiller in response to the question “Is Zoolander 2 still happening?” He replied:

Yes. Working on it now with my buddy Justin.

The Justin he’s referring to is his long-time friend and Tropic Thunder screenwriter, Justin Theroux. It seems to reason Theroux has been  hard at work on the script for Z2 ever since production wrapped on Iron Man 2, for which he also wrote the script. But other than that vague tweet and blogosphere speculation, there’s nothing  else to officially report. Zoolander is one of my favorite movies of all time and I would be ecstatic if they made this sequel; especially if  Stiller brings back Will Ferrell to reprise his role as Mugatu,  one of the funniest, weirdest characters ever. I pray to the movie gods that Derek and Jacobim get a chance to go at it one more time. If that happens, I’ll be doing this:

[Source: Cinema Blend]

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Yesterday, Toy Story 3 crossed the $1 billion mark for worldwide ticket sales. The latest Pixar creation is only the seventh movie of all time to cross that threshold. Strangely enough, Toy Story 3 marks the second time this year that a Disney owned film has earned a billion dollars at the box office. Earlier this year, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland also scored worldwide earnings over $1 billion. With those films both grossing more than a billion dollars, Disney becomes the first studio ever to have two films reaching those astronomical earnings in one year.

Just two weeks ago, Toy Story 3 became the highest grossing animated film of all time, and now it continues its march up the earnings list with this milestone. So obviously Woody and Buzz are the only animated characters on the billion dollar worldwide earnings list.

Even though Toy Story 3 came out more than two months ago in the United States (June 18), the movie continues to dominate the box office in other countries. The film is the most successful Disney release in Latin America ($138 million) and the United Kingdom ($102.4 million), and its also the fourth highest grossing movie ever in the UK. The film has dominated the Japanese cinema pulling in $111.2 million in its run and finishing #1 at the box office five weeks in a row.

I am not surprised this amazing movie has captivated worldwide audiences like it did the American crowds. The movie is not only a triumph of animation, but of storytelling. Getting viewers to care about toys is never a simple task, but Pixar creators did not get that memo. (Didn’t you get the memo?….Batman Begins anyone?)

The surprising thing to me is that Alice in Wonderland made so much money in theaters; apparently I missed that memo. I just now learned that the 2010 Burton directed project is the fifth highest grossing film of all time, just in front of The Dark Knight. I was taken aback because I didn’t think the newest 3D Alice in Wonderland was really that great of a movie. It was an interesting watch; but the 3D was crappy, the story was average, and the movie didn’t seem to posses the charm of the animated classic.

Any who, I thought posting the top ten grossing films of all time would be interesting for readers to check out. The top seven have all broke the billion dollar mark with Avatar at number one destroying the two billion dollar mark and set to earn even more with its re-release to theaters this weekend.

I think its interesting to note that one of the worst Disney movies I have ever seen, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, found a place on the top ten list.  I know not everyone hated this movie as much as I did, but it was one of the few movies that I seriously considered walking out of; and I absolutely loved the first installment and enjoyed the second one. You can also see two of the Potter movies in the top ten. Did you know that all six Potter movies are amongst the top 27 grossing movies of all time while all three Lord of the Rings films are in the top 20? The top ten goes something like this:

1. Avatar
2. Titanic
3. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
5. Alice in Wonderland
6. The Dark Knight
7. Toy Story 3
8. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
9. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[Source: BoxOfficeMojo]

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Well, its safe to say that Jeremy Renner, star of Oscar Gem The Hurt Locker, has ascended to the cusp of the Hollywood elite. Whether or not he will stay there is up to him. If I ventured a guess it would be that he will be around for awhile. Although I did not personally think The Hurt Locker was all that it was cracked up to be by the adoring critics (see my review here), Renner did a superb job with his unbalanced character William James. Apparently, I was not the only one to take notice of the talent this 39 year-old possesses.

Renner has been cast as Hawkeye in The Avengers, will star in Ben Affleck’s upcoming bank robbery film The Town, and now has just been cast to co-star alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible IV. Deadline broke the news that Renner was chosen by Paramount because they thought he held a “Daniel Craig quality.” Paramount obviously sees this franchise moving on even after Tom Cruise is no longer a part of the cast. Deadline explains, “Paramount has struggled to find the right co-star to play an operative opposite Cruise, and one factor was selecting an actor who could potentially carry the series down the line, should Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character not continue.”

I highly doubt Cruise will return for the fifth movie when it is made, and Paramount is looking for a new leading man, preferably not balls deep in Scientology, to carry on the very successful franchise. Star Trek headliner Chris Pine and Inception’s “The Forger,” Tom Hardy, were also considered for the role. Both Hardy and Pine are younger than Renner, and Paramount was looking for an actor who can convey a strong sense of maturity. I personally would have taken any of these three to play the part (my personal pick would have been Hardy), but I think Renner is a good fit.

Filming for Brad Bird’s Mission: Impossible is set to start this fall in Vancouver, Prague, Dubai, and of course the US. The script going to shoot was penned by Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, writers of the television shows and AliasLife on Mars.

Mission: Impossible IV is scheduled to theaters December 2011.

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Not a bad standard to strive for. Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof is busy at work writing the script for the still untitled sequel to 2009’s smash success Star Trek reboot. Lindelof joined the dynamic writing duo of Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to help his Lost buddy/Star Trek director J.J. Abrams create the best, most imaginative sequel possible. And they already have a goal set in terms of the scope and story progression for their sequel, as they hope to emulate the success of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

By no means are they “going dark,” which seems to be the automatic assumption when anything is ever compared to Nolan’s Batman. Rather, Lindelof has a better explanation:

“We’re looking at a movie like The Dark Knight, which went one step beyond Batman Begins. It was really about something, and at the same time it was a superhero movie. We don’t want to abandon all the things that made the first movie work and have it be fun and emotional, but we also really want the movie to thematically resonate.”

Can’t wait to see what they come up with. The Untitled Star Trek Sequel is set for a summer 2012 release.

[Sources: Cinema Blend, E!]

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Well I certainly didn’t see this one coming. Angelina Jolie’s next film will be a love story set during the Bosnian War that raged for three years from 1992-1995, and became a stain on the early years of the Clinton administration. Here’s the kicker though, she will NOT be acting in the film at all, she will instead be writing the script herself,  as well as produce and direct the film, making it her “directorial debut.” The announcement was made on the GK Films blog (via FirstShowing), which is the production company producing the film. This is surprising because it is kind of out of left field. She hadn’t made any sort of hints in interviews for her most recent films that she had any interest in directing this soon. And there was no reason to speculate because of the endless amount of projects she is attached or rumored to star in. But alas, here we are. I think it’s great, actually, and I’m excited to see what she does with this project.

The film is a completely original concept, from Jolie’s mind, and will focus on a Serbian man and a Bosnian woman who meet on the eve of the war and the effect the war has on their relationship. It is being reported that the actors cast in the film will be mainly compromised of various ethnicities from the region of the former Yugoslavia (below Hungary and Austria), seemingly to convey the most authentic story possible.

The current speculated start time for production is as early as this fall. We’ll keep you posted when an official title and casting are announced.

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In the effort to stay on top of the X-Men: First Class news I would of course have to report the film’s Producer Bryan Singer commenting on the newest X-Men installment. Most current news about the film has revolved around the casting collage taking take place the past few weeks climaxing most recently with the addition of January Jones to the cast. The most insight into the upcoming movie however, comes with Singer’s comments in an interview with AICN that you can see summarized below. As you could derive from my first X-Men: First Class article, I speculate Aaron Johnson playing the role of Scott Summers, aka Cyclops. From Singer’s breakdown of the movie he clearly states that Cyclops will not be in the film. I think this is the prominent statement from the interview.

Check out a summary of the AICN interview compiled by Slashfilm writer Russ Fischer.

• Cyclops and Jean Grey are not in the film.
• X-Men: First Class takes place in the 1960s. Real world details are in place: JFK is the president. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are alive.
• We see how Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met, and hear of the future they dreamed of for humans and mutantkind, specifically with respect to their ideas for the X-Men.
• Professor X and Magneto are in their 20s when they meet. Xavier will not be in a wheelchair at first, but we will see how he is crippled. And Xavier has hair!
• Director Matthew Vaughn has been inspired by 60s-era James Bond tech, and the costumes will be far more ‘comic bookish’ than we’ve seen in the past.
• The vision of the Hellfire Club will be the classic one, seemingly with the Victorian costumes and men’s club attitude first seen as John Byrne drew them in the ’80s.
• The story begins with Xavier at Oxford in the ’60s, and Singer said the film will have an ‘international’ feel. Shoots in England and the US will double in places for other global locations, including the Soviet Union. Again, that’s working towards the Bond vibe mentioned earlier.

A Bond like presence in an X-Men movie? Now that is something I love to hear. Stay tuned for more X-Men: First Class updates.

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