If power does not corrupt, it certainly ages. The bright young things in the Obama administration will never look as good as they do now. Remember when Clinton's minions were just as fresh-faced?
Hottie 27-year-old chief speechwriter for Obama, Jon Favreau, acted inappropriately with a cardboard cut-out of Hillary Clinton at a party (HE GROPED IT) and it ended up on Facebook and now everyone's talking about the golden boy gone douche. What if it leads him to not get his White House appointment, now that Hillary is Secretary of State? He already sent an apology to the Clinton camp, for the crime of posing in photographs where he's "dancing with a life-sized cardboard cut-out of secretary of state-designate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and another where he's placed his hand on the cardboard former first lady's chest while a friend is offering her lips a beer," as the Washington Post put it. Come on, dude's 27—you have to take the good with the bad. And God knows what kind of hours ol' Obama has him working.
When Vince Vaughn first made his mark with Swingers, he was so whippet-thin that his wild, improvised riffs almost seemed to be a unique form of cardio. Now that a decade has passed, though, things have changed — a fact that Esquire's new issue takes great pains to point out. Vince Vaughn is not thin anymore, each line of its cover story (entitled "The Biggest Man in the Room") seems to say. No, Vince Vaughn is now a fatty, a great big fatty fat person. Think we're joking? Enjoy this opening paragraph, with all the ooky, relevant parts bolded in Defamer ChubbyFont™:
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:
Wyclef Jean has been busy stumping for Obama as of late, but perhaps he'll find time to take a short break today to celebrate his 36th birthday. Others who may (or may not) indulge in cake today: Socialite Debbie Bancroft is 54. Artist Ryan McGinley is 31. Chicago director Rob Marshall is 48. Legendary newsman Jimmy Breslin is 79. New Yorker staff writer and author Ariel Levy is 34. Film critic Richard Roeper turns 49. Eminem celebrates his 36th. Ziggy Marley, the son of Bob Marley, is 40. And Kirna Zabête co-owner Beth Buccini is 37. Weekend birthdays after the jump.
· Now playing: The new trailer for Changeling, your official 2008 vintage Angelina Jolie Oscar Bait™ [YouTube] · For every dollar Nicole Kidman made in 2007, her films made a dollar. You don't need a calculator to guess what that makes her. [Forbes] · This should make Terry Giiliam happy: Warner Bros. plans a January Dark Knight rerelease to coincide with Oscar nominations. [Reuters] · Would Rose McGowan make a better IRA car bomber or executioner? If this was 1971, according to her we might have found out by now. [BBC] · If Jon Favreau had his way, Iron Man 2 would be in 3-D. Whoa! Hold it there, big fella — has anyone consulted Justin Theroux about this? [Collider]
Like most celebrants of cinema's smoldering, dangerous geek-stud archetype, we've been following actor Justin Theroux's career arc for a while — mostly in front of the camera, obviously, where his roles in Mullholland Drive, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Six Feet Under and elsewhere yielded a batch of performances we presumed would catapult him to the A-list sooner or later. But now it's just getting ridiculous, as we're learning that Theroux just nabbed one of the most desirable writing gigs in Hollywood: Iron Man 2.
The Earth is easing back on to its axis today after a full month of panic that Jon Favreau might skip out on directing Iron Man 2 — not that he threatened to, mind you, though all it took was one candid MySpace entry to fertilize fanboy concern that money, ego, release-date controversies or all of the above might conspire to shatter the fragile bond between the director and the cheap-ass overlords at Marvel.
We're receiving our first signals this week that the Jon Favreau Power Index has irrevocably entered "player" levels of awareness. While the global $550 million take for Iron Man says pretty much all the industry needs to know about the viability of the franchise itself, director Favreau bristled recently (and publicly to fans on Iron Man's MySpace message board) at Marvel Studios' sequel announcement — especially that troublesome part about Iron Man 2's scheduled April 30, 2010, release date. Or, as Favreau might say it these days, "Nobody asked Jon Favreau!":
While the broadcast portion of yesterday's MTV Movie Awards was short on thrills, the same cannot be said for the red yellow carpet. Armed only with a laptop, an iPhone and a video camera, Molly McAleer and your Uncle Grambo did our darndest to bring you a sense of the hustle and bustle as a gaggle of celebs — which ran the gamut from A to Z-List — strolled and sprinted by us on their way into the Gibson Ampitheater at the still smoldering Universal Studios. The following video, culled together by our magical pixie of a videographer, conveniently boils down the two hours we spent baking in the hot California sun into two short minutes. From Rainn Wilson's special message to you, the loyal Defamer audience, to a horrifying closeup of the veins that punctuate Verne Troyer's bald dome, kick back and relax with our SPF 100 recap of last evening's pre-show festivities. [MTV Movie Awards]
Gosh, Marvel Studios, just take a minute to chew your food, would you? Less than 24 hours after its debut picture Iron Man finished a $100 million opening weekend, studio boss David Maisel was all over town announcing Marvel's forthcoming slate — through 2011. As we noted yesterday, an Iron Man sequel is naturally to follow on April 30, 2010, while an adaptation of Thor will drop that same summer on June 10. It gets fairly outrageous from there: The First Avenger: Captain America appears May 11, 2011, followed by The Avengers — combining Iron Man, Captain America, The Incredible Hulk and Thor a mere two months later. (The studio says its sitting out 2009 as a result of a development lag left over from the writers strike.)
We assumed in last week's Defamer Attractions column that $75 million opening-weekend estimates seemed awfully conservative for Iron Man, but even our $90 million forecast undershot the film's $100.7 million three-day take. (It was $104.2 million if you count Thursday night previews, and more than $200 million globally.) Aside from the obligatory splash for any early-summer tentpole, we're surprised observers didn't see the finely calibrated alchemy that Marvel and Paramount used to spin its Iron into box office gold:
PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so send them in often! Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line so we don't lose them) and tell everyone about the time you saw Randy "S'aight Dawg" Jackson whiz by you on a Segway.
· Ah, that's better. Now Jodie Foster's people can enjoy their weekend, knowing their client is special enough to Warner Bros. to finally have her name spelled correctly.
· We recommend that you watch the first few minutes of this video from the set of Iron Man because it's painfully obvious how little Robert Downey, Jr, usually ready to launch into a stream-of-consciousness digression the moment someone produces a recording device in his presence, doesn't want to talk to the poor kid from MTV. Also of interest: Favs seems to have slimmed down quite a bit, and is in fine directing shape.
· We recommend that you watch this video only if you're willing to wash your eyes in bleach at its conclusion. [via LA Rag Mag]
· Judd Apatow isn't thrilled with this "Mayor of Comedy" business. Besides, he makes way more money than a mayor these days.
· You know what never ceases to be a little weird, even though it's old news? The whole born-again Kirk Cameron deal.
