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George Clooney buys rights to ‘The Challenge’

George Clooney is taking a taxi to the dark side.

The multi-tasking thesp has bought the rights to Jonathan Mahler‘s legal thriller “The Challenge,” about the long campaign waged by U.S. Navy lawyer Charles Swift and Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal to ensure a fair trial for Salim Hamdan, the bodyguard and driver of Osama bin Laden.

Project will be developed through Clooney and Grant Heslov‘s Smoke House shingle. Deal is believed to be in the low-seven-figure range.

As with any Smoke House project, “The Challenge” remains a potential directing, writing and starring vehicle for Clooney.

A spokesman for Clooney confirmed that no decision had been made yet on what exact role Clooney would take on the project, although some are already speculating that the role of idealistic lawyer Swift may prove a fit for the thesp.

Clooney had been tracking Mahler’s story for some time, and Smoke House execs met with the writer months before the book’s recent publication. While there had been interest from other potential buyers, Clooney’s persistence is believed to have played a key role in persuading Mahler to sign with Smoke House.

Hamdan was sentenced Aug. 7 by a panel of military officers at Guantanamo Bay to a prison term of 66 months, including time already served. The Yemeni-born convict was found guilty of material support for terrorism but cleared of the more serious charges of conspiracy to commit murder, seen by some analysts as a victory for retired naval officer Swift’s efforts.

Mahler’s book ends with the landmark 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the military tribunals ordered for Hamdan and other Guantanamo Bay detainees violated the Geneva Convention and the Uniform Code for Military Justice. While Mahler is planning to update the paperback edition of his book to include Hamdan’s trial verdict, it is unclear when Clooney’s bigscreen adaptation of “The Challenge” will end.

Project is the latest in a series of politically charged projects being developed by Smoke House.

Also in the pipeline are dramedy “Escape From Tehran,” recounting the CIA’s attempts to use a fake movie project to smuggle a handful of Americans out of Tehran during the 1979 hostage crisis; “Men Who Stare at Goats,” based on Brit author Jon Ronson’s book about the U.S. Army’s 1st Earth Battalion, which was authorized to use paranormal powers; and “Our Brand Is Crisis,” an adaptation of Rachel Boynton‘s doc about the 2002 Bolivian presidential election, when candidate Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada hired James Carville‘s political consulting firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner to help him win.

Billy Bob Thorton could be the next ‘Freddy Krueger’

So we know that Michael Bay‘s Platinum Dunes production company has plans to remake Wes Craven’s horror classic A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The entire movie would get the facelift that an appropriate budget would provide, including a new dream-dwelling mass murderer. But who could possibly replace Robert Englund as the iconic rake-handed Freddy Krueger?

How about Oscar-winning actor Billy Bob Thornton? It’s just a rumor at this point — but it was initiated by the original Freddy himself. Robert Englund was on the late night radio show Loveline last week to promote JACK BROOKS, MONSTER SLAYER (and discuss sex, I guess), and was inevitably asked about the NIGHTMARE reboot. And Englund stated that the last gossip he heard was that Thornton could be slipping on the sweater and burn makeup for the role.

Englund also claims he’s not opposed to being replaced (as he says, he already made the movie), or the remake itself, since he feels it’s the sort of movie that deserves a bigger budget for the dreamscape special effects (they ran out of money while making the first movie).

Thornton seems like the kind of dude who’s receptive to any sort of material, and he does have an existing Bay connection from ARMAGEDDON. Food for thought (or nightmares)!

Chris Columbus to Direct Robert F. Kennedy Film

Variety says that Chris Columbus will direct a feature about Robert F. Kennedy‘s 1968 presidential run. Columbus and his 1492 Productions have acquired screen rights to the Thurston Clarke book “The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America.”

Columbus will produce with 1492 partners Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. Columbus will write the script solo or invite another screenwriter to work with him, adds the trade.

Kennedy’s idealistic campaign, which focused squarely on poverty, racism and ending the unpopular Vietnam War, resonated with Columbus and his 1492 partners. While losing his iconic brother made him wary of crowds, Kennedy refused to insulate himself from the public during his run.

Smart People

Rated: R for language, brief teen drug and alcohol use, and for some sexuality
Release Date: 2008-04-11
Starring: Mark Poirier
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.smartpeople-themovie.com/

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Despite its sharp cast and a few laughs, Smart People is too thinly plotted to fully resonate.

This is not Juno. In fact, I don’t think this movie gives anything new that we haven’t known about. People who are intelligent can be so smart that they lose touch on what’s important, they slowly distance themselves from those who care about them without even realizing it. Smart People got a lot of brain but… not enough heart. Yes it’s smart, witty, and occasionally funny but along the way, something is missing. Something that would make it captivating instead of boring, which is what it is.

All I can say is thank heavens Thomas Haden Church is in this movie. His character is probably the most interesting one. He’d come up with smart-ass remarks and comebacks that are entertaining. Not laugh out loud funny, but good enough to keep us from sleeping.

The tone of the movie for the most part is depressing. The filmmaker wants you to see how smart people can be so detached that when they start to feel something, they don’t know what to do with it or they react in the wrong way. Ellen Page’s character’s crush on her uncle, played by Thomas Haden Church is one example.

Dennis Quaid does an excellent job playing a clueless, unhappy professor, Sarah Jessica Parker has a certain charm and cuteness, but would somebody please give Ellen Page some other character to do!

Don’t get me wrong, I love Juno, but what Ellen Page needs now is not another independent movie (Hard Candy, Tracey Fragment, An American Crime).

She should try another big budget project that would challenge her to do a different role in a different style or genre (she was in X-Men 3 by the way)

The movie does okay in depicting a dysfunctional family without being too outrageous and messed up. But you’ll mostly get frustrated with how it can’t seem to carry itself and bring itself to a good conclusion or resolution.

It’s sorta like hearing a note held for the longest time with only a few fillers from time to time, but only a few unfortunately. The self-realization moments aren’t groundbreaking. This movie fails to leave a lasting impression. It’s another independent movie that will easily be forgotten in time.

‘The Dark Knight’ – fourth times a charm at the box office

Dan Fellman, Warner’s head of domestic distribution, cited several factors for the movie’s hold on the top spot, including repeat business, popularity among older and infrequent moviegoers, and a continued strong showing on Imax screens, which rang up $3.2 million this weekend.

He predicted that “The Dark Knight,” which stars Christian Bale as Batman and the late Heath Ledger as his nemesis, the Joker, would soon bump up a notch and eventually gross about $520 million.

“By next weekend, we’ll be in No. 2, ahead of ‘Star Wars,’ ” he said. That 1977 hit brought in $461 million; “Titanic” topped $600 million.

Though “Pineapple Express” didn’t manage to grab the top spot, Sony executives weren’t exactly crying in their bong water over the box-office performance of the raunchy comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco.

Produced by Judd Apatow, who earlier brought to life such hits as “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up,” the movie opened Wednesday at $12 million and sales more than tripled by the weekend.

“The $40 million for us was just like, wow, we couldn’t be happier,” said Rory Bruer, Sony’s president of domestic distribution.

“Everything about this movie has just played out really well.”

Brandon Gray, president of box-office tracker Box Office Mojo, said “Pineapple Express” was doing better than might be expected, given that its subject matter had a narrower appeal than some of Apatow’s earlier offerings.

“For a stoner action comedy, it’s doing very well,” he said.

In other results this weekend, Universal’s “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” slipped to third from second with $16.1 million in ticket sales and nearly $71 million total.

“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2,” a Warner Bros. movie that also premiered Wednesday, finished fourth with $10.7 million for the weekend and $19.7 million in all.

Universal’s “Mamma Mia!” dropped two spots to sixth but still took in $8 million, enough to push it across the $100-million mark in domestic ticket sales.

Despite some strong showings, this marked the third weekend in a row that box-office receipts were lower than comparable weekends last summer, Dergarabedian said. This weekend’s total was about $120 million, compared with $154 million for the same one last year, his data show.

His numbers also show that box-office revenue for the year is $6.14 billion, down from $6.17 billion for the same period last year. Attendance is off by 4.3%.

Angelina Jolie takes over for Cruise in "Edwin A. Salt"

“Edwin A. Salt” is about to undergo a gender change.
Once expected to star Tom Cruise, the Columbia Pictures espionage thriller will be redrafted by screenwriter Kurt Wimmer as a star vehicle for Angelina Jolie. Philip Noyce remains attached as director and Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Sunil Perkash are producing.

Jolie is close to a deal to play the title character, a CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy and must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence.

Cruise had long flirted with the project, but that ended recently. The well-regarded script had several male movie stars circling.

Jolie took a liking to it, prompting the studio’s decision to rewrite it. Sources said the project won’t require that much of an overhaul to suit her.

After Universal beefed up Jolie’s role in “Wanted” and then marketed the action film squarely on Jolie’s shoulders and watched it gross $132 million domestically, Jolie reestablished in the wake of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” that she is the rare female who is viable in an action genre that has been almost the exclusive domain of men.

“Edwin A. Salt” will undergo a title change, and if everything falls into place, the film shapes up as a return vehicle for Jolie, who recently gave birth to twins. Another candidate for her return is the Lionsgate drama “Atlas Shrugged,” which has been adapted by Randall Wallace from the Ayn Rand novel.

Jolie, who also provided a lead voice in the DreamWorks Animation hit “Kung Fu Panda,” drew strong notices at the Cannes Film Festival for her starring role in the Clint Eastwood-directed drama “The Changeling” for Imagine and Universal. That film opens in late October.

Jolie is repped by Media Talent Group’s Geyer Kosinski.

Bernie Mac dies at 50

Bernie Mac, a stand-up comic who played evil-tongued but lovable rogues in films like “Bad Santa” and “Mr. 3000” and combined menace and sentiment as a reluctant foster father on “The Bernie Mac Show” on Fox, died on Saturday in Evanston, Ill. He was 50 and lived near Chicago.

The cause was complications from pneumonia, said his publicist, Danica Smith.

Mr. Mac, an imposing stage presence with a line of scabrous insults, parlayed his success as a stand-up comedian onto the big screen in a string of comedies that cast him in cameo roles, usually as wily con men like Pastor Clever in “Friday” and Gin, the store detective in “Bad Santa.” He also excelled as short-tempered misanthropes, notably in his starring role as Stan Ross, the nation’s most hated baseball player, in “Mr. 3000.”

In 2001, the Fox network took a gamble with “The Bernie Mac Show,” an unconventional family comedy with Mr. Mac portraying a childless married comedian who reluctantly takes in his sister’s three youngsters when she goes into a drug-treatment program.

The irascible Mr. Mac made a different kind of TV dad, “more Ike Turner than Dr. Spock,” Chris Norris wrote in a 2002 profile for The New York Times Magazine. Mr. Mac’s special style of tough love — “I’m gonna bust your head ’til the white meat shows,” he warns his surly teenage neice — set the show apart from other family sitcoms and raised a few critical eyebrows, but audiences saw enough of the character’s soft center to find the show touching.

“The success of my comedy has been not being afraid to touch on subject matters or issues that everyone else is politically scared of,” Mr. Mac told The Times in 2001. “It’s a joke, believe me. I’m not trying to hurt anybody.”

Mr. Mac incorporated aspects of his standup act and during each episode would break the fictional world of the show and address the audience directly. On one show, he swiveled in his chair and said, “Now America, tell me again, why can’t I whip that girl?”

“The Bernie Mac Show” show ran for five seasons, and Mr. Mac won Emmy awards as outstanding actor in a comedy series in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Bernard Jeffrey McCullough was born in Chicago to a single mother who inspired him, indirectly, to become a comedian. When he was 5, he told a television interviewer in 2001, he saw her sitting in front of the television set crying. “The Ed Sullivan Show” was playing, and when Bill Cosby began telling a story about snakes in the bathroom, she started laughing despite herself. “When I saw her laughing, I told her that I was going to be a comedian so she’d never cry again,” Mr. Mac said.

His mother died of cancer when he was 16, and he was raised by his grandmother on the South Side of Chicago. His two brothers also died, one in infancy, the other of a heart attack in his 20s.

At Chicago Vocational Career Academy, he was voted Class Clown by his graduating class. Already serious about his intended profession, turned down the honor “I said, ‘I’m funny. I’m a comedian, I’m not a clown,’” he later recalled. “My humor had changed from foolishness to making sense.”

After high school, Mr. Mac worked as a janitor, a mover and a school bus driver before finding a job at a General Motors plant. In 1976 he married his high school sweetheart, Rhonda who survives him, as does their daughter, Je’Neice, and a granddaughter.

Desperate to get started as a comedian, he told jokes for tips on the Chicago subway and worked comedy clubs, many of them off the beaten track. “When I started in the clubs, I had to work places where didn’t nobody else want to work,” he told The Washington Post. “I had to do clubs where street gangs were, had to do motorcycle gangs, gay balls and things of that nature.”

In 1983 he was laid off at GM and for a time his family had to move in with relatives. Plugging away at his comedy career, he caught the attention of Redd Foxx and Slappy White, who invited him to do off-the-cuff material in Las Vegas in 1989, and a year later he won the Miller Lite Comedy Search, a national contest, with his profanity-laced monologues on events in his own life and on black life in Chicago

In 1990, he was invited to do two shows with Def Comedy Jam, a tour featuring young black comedians that was filmed for HBO. Small film roles followed, in “Mo’ Money” (1992), “Who’s The Man?” (1993) and “House Party 3” (1994), as well as an HBO variety series, “Midnight Mac,” and a spot with the Original Kings of Comedy, a tour that showcased some of the most popular contemporary black comedians. The tour, which grossed an astounding $59 million, generated several HBO specials and a film by Spike Lee, “The Original Kings of Comedy.”

Mr. Mac made the move to television reluctantly. “The people come to see you, the person they fell in love with, but when they see you on TV you bvecome a whole other character, another person, and they become disappointed, and I wasn’t going to allow that to happen to me,” he said.

Nevertheless, he appeared in a recurring role as Uncle Bernie on the UPN sitcom “Moesha” for several years beginning in 1996, and in 2001 he took the plunge with “The Bernie Mac Show.”

Praised by the critics for its fresh irreverent take on the family sitcom, it became one of Fox’s biggest hits.

The show coincided with a spate of films that made Mr. Mac, if not a box office star, a welcome comedic presence in films like “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” “Ocean’s 11” and its two sequels and “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”

In July, Mr. Mac, a fervent Barack Obama supporter, dismayed his candidate at a fund-raising dinner in Chicago. Delivering a stand-up routine, he told salacious jokes and drew a reprimand from Mr. Obama, who warned him, “Bernie, you’ve got to clean up your act next time.”

‘The Goonies’ to have sequel?

A very, very, very good source – if I revealed his name, you’d know straight away this was a solid bit of news – informed me a few days ago that “the sequel Corey Feldman has been telling media will never happen”, one “Goonies 2”, is indeed… happening. 

Now I don’t know when it’s going to happen, because it has been on the drawing boards for a good decade now (“Star Trek” and “Transformers” scribe Robert Orci told me today that he was involved in a draft in about 1998), but it does seem to be inching forward.

So what have I been told? well, Warner Bros are finally going to give it the respect it deserves – this will be a large-scale theatrical release. It will not be a direct-to-video release.

(A source at Warner Bros has since confirmed this – saying they are developing it as a major movie, but won’t share anything other than that. Nothing we didn’t already know though)

We’ve been told that there are writers on the project – and they’re being paid rather nicely for their services too.

I’ve no idea what the script is about, nor do I know how far into the script the writers are, but we’re told that it’ll apparently involve some of the original cast – I doubt Josh Brolin will return though; and even if he was keen, would Warner want to pay him the hefty fee he now gets? Doubtful – and some new cast members. I can’t imagine ‘all’ of the original “Goonies” coming back, can you? I’d think Corey Feldman, Sean Astin and, er, Short-Round would be the most likeliest recruits for a reprise… if only because they haven’t disappeared off-the-map (Martha Plimpton where art thou? Keri Green… does she still act?). You never know, ‘Chunk’ might even get a call too.

But there you have it, after years and years of rumours – and even some attempts to get the film up by original director Richard Donner – “The Goonies 2” will soon be a reality.

Natalie Portman to remake Dario Argento’s ‘Suspiria’

One of the hipper projects in Hollywood is shaping up to be the remake of Dario Argento’s psychedelic horror flick, Susipira, from director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express, George Washington). Bloody Disgusting just confirmed minutes ago that Natalie Portman will headline the film, which means she’ll hop into ballet slippers and battle a coven of beautiful, gossipy (foreign?) witches.

The actress’s shingle, Handsome Charlie Films, is producing. If you’ve seen the original, you’re probably wondering what the plans are for the soundtrack, but those details haven’t been announced. Here’s what Green told MTV about the project a few months ago…

“Supiria is a classic to me. I want to be scared. I want to be afraid,” he said to MTV. …”It’s an opportunity to take all artistic excellence and be inspired by what was a low budget Italian 70’s gore movie. Where the art world meets the violent and supernatural. I would love to get every geek that loves torture porn and every old lady in line to see ‘Phantom of the Opera’ to come and have this insane experience.”

With its enchanting candy colors and surreal lighting, Dario Argento’s 1977 flick, widely cited as his best work, rivals Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou for its stained-glass color palette. The story dips into nightmare-logic as we follow an American student at an elite European dance academy who discovers it’s a front for evaaal. Argento’s inventive, deranged use of gore is outmatched by a harrowing, instrumental soundtrack by the band Goblin. While it’s not exactly a perfect film, with time Suspiria has arguably transcended the cult genre.