The NYPD continues its crackdown on Times Square's fake superheroes and cartoons, arresting two Iron Men, an Elmo, and a Spider-Man over the weekend on disorderly conduct charges. Police were handing out fliers Saturday informing tourists, "Photos with costumed characters are free. Tipping is optional."
The promote its premiere of the new Iron Man movie, a theater in Jefferson City, Missouri, hired several people to dress in full tactical gear and storm the screening with fake weapons drawn.
For weeks, I've been reminding you all that The Avengers is on the horizon — it doesn't take a box office psychic to realize a film of this magnitude will do well. And wouldn't you know, The Avengers' Friday take was $80.5 million, making it the second biggest Friday opening of all time. (Number one remains Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, because wizards are cooler than superheroes, clearly.)
There's nothing Hollywood likes more than a new toy; Smell-O-Vision, the casting couch, Pauly Shore. In their day they've all been played with to death by the dream factory. And now, they've got hands on another treat — Digital 3D.
Before his career resurgence in Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.'s best-known performances involved Wild Turkey, aluminum foil-wrapped inducements, and the cushy beds of strangers. As the actor recounts, these roles apparently never made it overseas.
It's a bad time to be a Marvel movie actor, unless you're Robert Downey Jr. (or Gwyneth Paltrow, who'd be the first to say that it is always a good time to be Gwyneth Paltrow).
Too Many Irons In the Fire: Though Robert Downey Jr. is signed on for an Iron Man sequel and an Avengers film that will group together Marvel heroes including Thor, the Hulk, and Captain America, the actor is starting to sounds a little concerned about the latter property. "If we don't get it right, it's really going to suck," he told MTV. "Nothing that happened in Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion." [MTV]
· Election Day is finally here, and celebrities are pulling out all the last-minute stops: "Patricia Heaton was on the trail in Indiana for McCain, [while] Hank Williams Jr. started the National Anthem at a rally for Sarah Palin in Colorado Springs, Colo., by saying, "You know, I’m usually at ‘Monday Night Football’ tonight, but Colorado, this is a lot more important tonight. Join me now in our national — you know, that, uh, Mr. Obama’s not real crazy about, we’re singing it right now." Should he win, Obama's first order of business is replacing "The Star Spangled Banner" with the Subway $5 Footlong jingle. Too bad there's nothing you can do about it, Colorado! [Variety] · Charlize Theron will star opposite Tom Cruise in The Tourist, playing a female Interpol agent who's always standing in a 12-inch-deep ditch for some reason. [Variety] · Iron Man helps nudge Marvel comfortably into the black in its third-quarter, but the company warns that 2009 should provide less robust dividends. And that's even factoring in the money they'll save on Terrence Howard's personal moustache groomer and fresh fruit requirements! [Variety] After the jump: Who is Jack Falcone, and why is Steven Soderbergh making him?· The busy, busy Steven Soderbergh, when not making Dogma fleshcore [NSFW] or Liberace biopics, and 3-D Cleopatra extravaganzas, is also planning Making Jack Falcone, an undercover mob story for Paramount. [THR] · Ron Livingston will star in Defying Gravity, an international co-production about "eight astronauts from five countries who take on a mysterious six-year mission through the solar system." If the distance between Earth and the nearest star system is 2.7 million light years, how long would it take Astronaut Livingston to get there and back, assuming he's traveling in a vacuum during a non-Leap Year year. Use the space below for scrap. [THR]
When it was announced that Don Cheadle would be taking on Terrence Howard's role in Iron Man 2, a simple explanation of "financial differences" (as well as an inability to get the War Machine costume sufficiently baby-wiped) was all that was forthcoming from the filmmakers' side. Then, Howard spoke to NPR and compared the Marvel braintrust to a non-singing network of pimps, forcing the filmmaking team to take the gloves off. Now, in a discussion with EW, sources close to Marvel and director Jon Favreau leaked the real details behind Howard's firing, and they involve bad acting and one very surprising salary:
Click to viewBoomp3.com On the London set of Sherlock Holmes, free spirit Robert Downey Jr. did his best to cheer his director Guy Ritchie up. Partnering up with the effects and stunt departments, Downey crafted a rig that allowed him to fly around the set. A rather glum Ritchie perked up at the sight of Downey soaring majestically, as Downey shouted down, “Relax, Guy. I’m going to fly in this movie, too. People love it when I’m flyin’.” [Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.
The "pimps" at Marvel Studios may have finally closed the deal that pulled the last inch of Iron Man's blockbuster rug from beneath Terrence Howard, but a radical group of franchise purists are fighting his ouster with the new petition "Terrence Howard as War Machine in Iron Man 2." It seems a legal impossibility at this point, with Don Cheadle locked in as Col. Jim Rhodes, but! As the scrappy revolutionaries in Audrina Patridge's neighborhood showed us on Tuesday, there is no affront that can't be corrected with a surge of Democratic fervor — and maybe some fanboy earnestness to spare:
