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Comic-Con 2010 is finally over, and we've got the blisters, sore throats and random swag to prove it. But Comic-Con is all about news and surprises, of course, and this year's convention had plenty in store. From the reveal of the 'Avengers' cast to the announcement of Linda Hamilton as Chuck's mom on 'Chuck,' here are the 10 biggest stories -- five from movies and five from TV -- that had fans buzzing.


The 5 Biggest Movies Stories at Comic-Con

1. The 'Marvel' panel lives up to the hype.
By far the most anticipated panel of Comic-Con was that of Marvel Studios, which promoted a lineup of 'Captain America: The First Avenger' and 'Thor,' though it was widely expected that there would also be a "secret" presentation at the end announcing the cast of 2012's 'The Avengers.'

The first two panels alone were enough to make fanboys froth at the mouth: After a teaser trailer depicting Captain America (Chris Evans) in his suit hurling his shield toward the camera, director Joe Johnston showed a scene featuring Hugo Weaving as Red Skull -- despite the fact that the movie's only been shooting for a week. (The footage was so rough, it still had time codes at the bottom.) The 'Thor' trailer was longer, with a fantasy/historical/action feel, a strong romantic storyline between Thor and Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), and ... Hemsworth shirtless.

Then the big reveal. The screen went black, Samuel Jackson's voice narrated a trailer tease for 'The Avengers' as the title treatment appeared, and the cast came out on stage: Jackson (Nick Fury), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), and the three previously missing pieces of the puzzle in Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, Mark Ruffalo "reprising" (or more accurately, replacing Edward Norton in) the role of Bruce Banner/The Hulk, and Joss Whedon as the movie's director. Those people lucky enough to be in the room had never felt prouder to call themselves geeks.

2. 'Scott Pilgrim' screening wows the fans.
There'd been a lot of buzz around Edgar Wright's adaptation of the comic-book series 'Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,' and Universal had a huge presence at Comic-Con, including a Scott Pilgrim Experience which allowed fans to customize t-shirts or make flip books of themselves and their friends. (Note: We made a flip book ourselves, and we think it's hilarious.) The movie, which stars Michael Cera as a guy who has to defeat seven evil exes to win the girl of his dreams (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), had its premiere on Thursday night, and it proved to be quirky, unusual and fun, with highly stylized effects that mimic aspects of video games and comics. While it remains to be seen how the movie will fare with general audiences, the fans went crazy for it, and certainly there was no better place to see the movie than in a packed theater at Comic-Con. Fans who stuck around were treated to a special performance by the indie band Metric.

3. Han Solo and James Bond, together at last.
Jon Favreau, with two 'Iron Man' films under his belt, already has plenty of cred at Comic-Con; so when he came out to present the panel for his sci-fi Western 'Cowboys and Aliens,' there were enthusiastic cheers for him alone. Then he brought out the cast: Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell ... and, making his surprise Comic-Con debut, Harrison Ford, who was escorted by police officers and handcuffed in apparent reference to the man who, at a previous panel, had stabbed someone in the eye with a ballpoint pen (though it was later reported that the Ford stunt had actually been planned earlier, as a joke that he was being forced to appear against his will). The crowd exploded. Han Solo and James Bond -- plus Indiana Jones -- on a panel together? Madness!

4. 'Tron' footage and party takes fans back to the future.
Comic-Con has been a major showcase for 'Tron: Legacy' ever since the first trailer debuted there three years ago. As expected, the film, which opens in theaters this December, was highlighted both in a packed panel -- where eight minutes of footage was shown, including a scene in which Sam (Garrett Hedlund) is taken into the game and has his outfit put on him by four "Tron girls" -- and a buzzed-about party at Flynn's Arcade, which had been done up to look like an abandoned arcade and a futuristic nightclub, complete with people in skin-tight costumes who wandered through the crowds with vacant looks on their faces. (In attendance at the party were stars Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain and director Joe Kosinski.)

5. Warner Bros. panel shows new 'Harry Potter' footage, but 'Sucker Punch' gets the buzz.
Although 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows' is one of the biggest movies of the fall, there wasn't much hype surrounding that panel, with only one cast member (Tom Felton, who plays Draco Malfoy) in attendance. But the terrific extended footage from Part 1 of the film went over big -- the scenes, which showed a heightened intensity as the series draws to a close, included Harry and Ron fighting in the tent, a shot of Bill Nighy as Rufus Scrimgeour, a glimpse of the seven Harrys, and Hermione firing her wand -- and there's hope that at next year's Comic-Con, the full cast will appear to promote the final film.

Next came the 'Green Lantern' panel, and if fans were disappointed that the footage didn't show Green Lantern in his suit, Ryan Reynolds' charm more than made up for it. In what must have been the most endearing moment of this year's Comic-Con, the actor responded to a young fan's question about the oath by reciting it from memory ("In brightest day, in blackest night ..."), then growling out the end, "Beware my power ... Green Lantern's light!" while holding up the Green Lantern ring on his finger. He also signed a comic book for the fan, whose day, presumably, had just been made.

But the biggest buzz coming out of the Warner Bros. panel was for Zack Snyder's 'Sucker Punch,' a fantasy-action film with an all-female cast that includes Emily Browning, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung and Jena Malone. The footage from the movie, which is about a young woman (Browning) who attempts to escape from an insane asylum before she is lobotomized, looked stylish and explosive; but we can't describe it better than our friends at Cinematical, who tweeted, "OMG Sucker Punch is Tarantino meets Final Fantasy meets your most erotic fetish dream."

The 5 Biggest TV Stories at Comic-Con

1. Linda Hamilton is Mama Bartowski on 'Chuck.'
'Chuck' fans, you have your mother. Yep, after months of speculation the cast and crew revealed Hamilton's role on 'Chuck' and more about the upcoming season and its various guest stars -- the Old Spice guy (!) -- at their Comic-Con panel. Turns out Linda Hamilton called up series creator Josh Schwartz about the coveted role. Cool, huh?

2. 'Supernatural' stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki spill details on season 6.
One of The CW's most popular shows is sticking around past its original five-year plan and we sat down with the stars and creators to find out what's up with Sam and Dean.

3. 'The Walking Dead' have risen.
AMC's new zombie series has been generating a ton of buzz both at Comic-Con and in the overall TV world. At the convention zombies roamed around to the delight of the audience. We've got news in a roundup here and even more panel coverage here. The show is based on a Robert Kirkman-penned comic book series based in Los Angeles, but the series was filmed in Atlanta ... leaving one fan at the panel very angry.

4. 'Glee' tackles 'Rocky Horror.'
You may have heard of this little show called 'Glee.' Well, it's back for a second season, tackling Britney Spears episode centered on the scene-stealing cheerleader, Brittany. Plus, the kids are going to do 'Rocky Horror'! For more tidbits, including new romantic pairings, check out our panel coverage.

5. 'Dexter' debuts a killer season 5 trailer.
'Dexter' always seems to make quite the impression on everybody, not just the anti-hero's victims. This year, fans were treated to a very memorable season 5 trailer. We have the trailer and are so excited! What do you think, 'Dexter' fans?

Source: Moviefone

Over the years, whenever I've stopped by the Warners lot to interview Clint Eastwood, I've always been struck by how much his Spanish-style studio bungalow felt like a home away from home, down to the little parking space right by the front door. The whole domestic image is especially appropriate, since Eastwood has been making movies regularly at Warners since he directed "The Outlaw Josey Wales" there in 1976, when Gerald Ford was president, Harvey Weinstein was promoting rock concerts in Buffalo and some of Warners' top young executives were still in diapers.
Eastwood is just one of a host of filmmakers that have what you might call special relationships at the studio, which under the aegis of Warner Bros. Picture Group President Jeff Robinov has been especially aggressive in courting a new generation of gifted filmmakers.

The biggest payoff, of course, came this weekend with the release of Christopher Nolan's "Inception," which not only was the weekend's top-grossing film, making more than $60 million, but has created shock waves all across Hollywood, serving as a reminder to cautious studio bosses that a strikingly original film could compete at the height of the summer moviegoing season with all the usual sequels and remakes and other franchise fodder.

But would Warners have made "Inception," which cost $160 million to produce and even more to market, if Nolan hadn't earned the trust of Warners' top brass after making a string of well-received films at the studio, including the critically beloved "Insomnia" (bankrolled by Alcon Entertainment but distributed by Warners) as well as the mega-hits "The Dark Knight" and "Batman Begins"?

"I don't know if we would've made 'Inception' without already having the relationship with Chris," Robinov told me over the phone Monday. "But he is so compelling and so good in a room that we were willing to bet on him making 'Batman Begins' at a time when all he had made was 'Memento' and 'Insomnia.' And you could argue that we took an even bigger risk of betting on him with 'Batman Begins,' since we had so much riding on that film, which was an effort to reboot one of our biggest brands.

"But to make a studio successful, you always have to believe in talent and that often requires taking a certain leap of faith with filmmakers, which is easier to do if you've enjoyed a certain level of success together."

Warners is the studio most invested in filmmaker relationships. In addition to Nolan and Eastwood, it has longstanding relationships with Steven Soderbergh, who since 2000 has made all but one of his major studio films at Warners, and Zack Snyder, who has two upcoming films on the Warners slate after making "300" and "Watchmen" at the studio. Rob Reiner, whose "Flipped" is due out from Warners next month, hasn't made a film away from Warners since the mid-1990s.

But Warners isn't alone. Even though the age of the studio system, when actors and filmmakers were under long-term contracts to studios, is long over, most studios still have steadfast relationships with key filmmakers whose work often reflects the studio's vision of itself. Sony's Amy Pascal, who loves films about complicated romantic relationships, has enjoyed a close creative alliance with James Brooks, whose "Everything You've Got," is due out from Sony this fall.

Brooks hasn't made a film outside of Sony since 1987's "Broadcast News."
Universal, which has a particularly good track record at making irreverent comedies, has a close rapport with Judd Apatow, who has made all three of his films as a director at the studio.

Universal also has a strong relationship with Paul Greengrass, who has made all four of his U.S. studio films at Universal, including two of the studio's series of "Bourne" thrillers. Paramount has a close relationship with J.J. Abrams while Shawn Levy, one of the top comedy directors in the business, has made five of his last six films at 20th Century Fox. Fox, of course, is also the home of James Cameron, who has been there longer than even Rupert Murdoch, having made all his films (outside of "The Terminator" series) there since "Aliens" in 1986.

It's not even unusual for filmmakers to outlast their original studio patrons. "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which flopped at the box office this weekend, was directed by Jon Turteltaub, who may not have a lot of critical cachet but definitely has Disney staying power.

While the studio has had a complete turnover in its executive ranks, Turteltaub is still alive and kicking, having made eight straight films at Disney (including the hit "National Treasure" films) dating back to 1993's "Cool Runnings."
Why do studios keep such close ties with filmmakers even after the executives who originally brought them in have been sent packing? Keep reading.

"Believe it or not, there is still such a thing as an institutional memory in Hollywood," says "Erin Brockovich" producer Michael Shamberg, who is producing Soderbergh's next Warners film, "Contagion," which shoots in the fall. "Most of the studios have either inherited or adapted a lot of the old studio practices.
Once a director has made a lot of money for a studio, they're eager to keep that director in the fold. That's just good business practice. And if you're a filmmaker, if all things are equal, you want to stay at the same place, where you have executives that you know and trust and are comfortable with."
It's no secret that Warners has the most top filmmakers in its fold because, unlike some studio bosses, Robinov actually recognizes that the true source of creativity on a film derives from the filmmaker, not meddling studio executives.
"We're just a filmmaker-driven studio," Robinov says. "It doesn't mean that it's always going to be easy or that things are always going to work out as we'd hoped. But every movie needs a strong vision and the people that have the most exciting and interesting and accessible vision possible are the filmmakers. So they are the ones we want to build a long-term relationship with."

After Nolan had struck pay dirt with "The Dark Knight," everyone in town was throwing juicy projects at the filmmaker's feet. "But Chris hadn't found anything that quite landed with him," recalls Robinov. "So he went back to working on 'Inception,' which he'd started seven or so years ago. When it was done, his agent, Dan Aloni, said that Chris wanted to offer it to us first, out of respect for the relationship."

In Hollywood, respect for the relationship is a two-way street, especially when the filmmaker has just directed one of the top-grossing films of all time. Robinov and Warners chief Alan Horn immediately read Nolan's script and met with the filmmaker. "We asked a lot of questions and he had answers for all of them," says Robinov. "We wanted to know whether people would be able to understand where they were--in terms of the different subconscious levels and dream states. But Chris knew exactly where he was going, narratively and digitally. We agreed on a budget and Alan greenlit the movie right there in the room."

In the relationship game, not every bet pays off. Insiders have predicted that Baz Luhrmann, after the failure of "Australia," may make his next film elsewhere after having directed all of his U.S.-made films at Fox. Warners has hedged its bets in the past, famously forcing Eastwood to find outside financing for films like "Mystic River" and "Million Dollar Baby" before the studio pitched in with part of the budget. Night Shyamalan was an integral part of the Disney family until then-production chief Nina Jacobsen told the filmmaker she had problems with his script for "Lady in the Water." Insulted, Shyamalan left the studio in a huff, taking the film to Warners, where it bombed.

It's easy for relationships to flourish when everything is going smoothly. The true test comes when a film tanks. Studios often blame the filmmaker while filmmakers often blame the studio's marketing efforts. So the real test of Warners' belief in its filmmakers doesn't come so much with Nolan, who has something of a Midas touch, but with a filmmaker like Soderbergh, who has delivered both hits (the "Oceans Eleven" series) and misses ("The Good German" and "The Informant!").

Referring to those last two films, Robinov says: "They weren't necessarily all that accessible, but they were really interesting to us on an artistic level. And if you want to send a message to the creative community that you're willing to try to do different things, then you actually have to try to do different things. That's the bet we make and it always starts with the filmmakers."

Entertainment Weekly's movie critic, Owen Gleiberman, lamented in his column that he feels like he is the only one who just "doesn't get" this week's No. 1 box office smash, the sci-fi action thriller 'Inception.' It's just not true, Owen. You're not alone in being dazzled by Christopher Nolan's special effects, plot filled with trickery and Marion Cotillard's soporific French accent, but still scratching your head and saying WTF?!?!

The WTF factor is going to be box office gold for 'Inception,' since moviegoers will be seeing this film once and then again and maybe again, to try to unravel the intricacies of the sometimes complicated plot twists.
"'Inception' is going to turn out to be like a cinematic rubik's cube -- audiences won't be able to put it down," says New York Daily News film critic Joe Neumaier.

Taken at face value, the plot is simple. Leonardo DiCaprio is able to enter other people's dreams and steal their thoughts. A fugitive from American law desperate to clear his name to return to his family, he embarks on a mission to plant rather than steal a thought in the mind of the heir to a large corporate conglomerate.

But it's not that simple at all. There's an angry dead wife who haunts Leo's dreams and a crackpot team of dream infiltrators, whose roles in the process are more confusing than the guys from 'Ocean's 11.' Then there's the entire concept of "inception," dreams and reality in general that would make Freud give himself a sedative.

Among Gleiberman's WTF questions were the following:

"When you're inside one dream level, what's happening, at the same moment, in the dream level above it? Does its significance vanish? Has it ceased to exist? Since various people are occupying the same dream, who's determining, at any given instant, what happens in that dream? Why does one person have more sway than the next? And why did everything, on all the dream levels, look like bits and pieces of the same action movie? What are the rules, and therefore the strategies?"

Each of these queries is entirely valid. But those questions exist for a reason, a business reason. Each question means a new conversation generated by the moviegoer about their confusion. That conversation can inevitably lead to someone else buying their own ticket to the movie to see what all the fuss is about (and prove that they are smart enough to answer these outlying questions).

"The WTF factor increases audiences' curiosity -- but it has to seem fun and not like work. 'Mulholland Drive' was a critical success and a limited release, but didn't have that 'fun' factor.' 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' did this art house-wise, and, of course 'The Matrix' did it on a mainstream level," Neumaier explained.

"The water cooler factor with 'Inception' is that people want to suss it out with their coworkers who saw it, and that makes the uninitiated curious about what all the fuss is. And that will help drive box office sales."

And it will also lead the original moviegoer back to the theater (because you just can't wait for the DVD -- these questions will be harder to answer on the small screen) leading to a high percentage of repeat ticket sales. The repeat business seems to be coming as a combination of the movie's puzzling plot coupled with its overall quality.

"The mind-bending puzzle movies certainly have a mixed track record. For every 'Sixth Sense' ($293 million a the box office), there's a 'Fight Club' ($37 million at the box office)," explained Box Office Mojo President Brandon Gray. "A better example is 'The Matrix.' The first 'Matrix' had a lot of repeat viewing and the second one did not. The second one tried to inject a lot of pseudo-philosophy and people ended up being turned off by it. It can swing both ways. It depends how satisfying the movie is in general. It can't just be confusing."

But 'Inception' seems to have hit that sweet spot of satisfying and yet confusing that draws moviegoers back again and again.

Now excuse us, we have to get in line (for the second time) for tonight's showing.

Like a lot of you we’ve spent most of the weekend thinking about one thing: Inception. You can see our attempt to explain what’s going on the movie here but before you can even begin to guess at director Christopher Nolan’s intentions or what happens after the movie’s mind-blowing final sequence, you’ll need a clear idea of all the levels of Inception.

With that in mind, we’ve put together a helpful visual aid. Here it is, an illustrated guide to the five levels of Inception:

SPOILER WARNING: What follows should only be viewed by people who have already seen Inception. It contains heavy, critical spoilers which will impact your viewing of the film. If you haven’t seen Inception yet, stop reading and don’t come back until you do.

It's pretty hard to forget August Diehl in one of the truly great scenes of "Inglourious Basterds." Brad Pitt sure didn't.

When it came time to casting a husband for Angelina Jolie in "Salt," the star's real-life husband piped in and suggested the excellent Diehl.

"Brad had said what a strong actor he was," director Phillip Noyce tells PopcornBiz. "And we were looking for someone with no baggage. We wanted a fresh face -- to keep the audience off guard."

The careful observer will recall that there is actually some baggage. Diehl is such a menacing presence in his beer hall scene of "Basterds," that he's really hard to forget.

But he's almost unrecognizable in "Salt." Amazingly, he does a 180 degree temperament turn -- playing a sensitive, warm husband apparently truly devoted to the study of spiders and his wife. Diehl actually has very warm smile lines on his face, an expression he didn't use at all in "Basterds."

"Yes he was quite ruthless in 'Basterds,' " says Noyce. "But if you're wearing a swastika emblem that gave you a lot of power."

And in "Salt" the actor was able to portray "the innocence and temperament of the man that Salt falls in love with."

"He's just a great actor," says Noyce. We couldn't agree more.

The question is, which is the real Diehl?

It’s been a while since things went rather quiet at Walt Disney Animation Studios in the wake of several canceled projects, awkward renamings, and general confusion and lack of direction. All that remained on the studio’s animated slate were this year’s Tangled, next year’s Winnie-the-Pooh, and Reboot Ralph – the computer animated film that has mutated from ex-Disney artist Sam Levine’s Joe Jump. It left the animation community wondering… what’s next?

Word has started to emerge that the gears are turning at Disney once more. King of the Elves, a fantasy based on a story by Philip K. Dick, was originally scheduled for a 2012 release before development was scrapped. Happily, allegations have recently emerged that work has resumed on this project. Even better is the recurring rumor that the film has been retooled as a traditionally animated feature, giving Disney’s artists something meaty to work on after Pooh.

Animation fans were further intrigued recently when word emerged, most notably on the Animation Guild blog, that a new project had been greenlighted for development. Note that this is only a go for development, not production, and that innumerable projects have traveled that road without making it to theaters. But if this is a project new to development, and not a revived concept like Elves or the still-dormant Snow Queen, what could it be?

Would you believe… Jack and the Beanstalk? That’s what I’m hearing, at least. As part of Disney marketing’s panicked flight from all things female in the wake of Princess and the Frog’s underperformance, the next animated film to go into development at Disney is a “boy” film.
Haven’t we seen that before? Some dude with mouse ears? In Fun and Fancy Free? Ah, well.
You should consider this information ultra-dicey at the moment, but some rumors are too good not to share. And remember – while I definitely trust my source, things change on the ground all the time. Is that CYA? You bet, but it’s also true.

Have you heard anything about Jack and the Beanstalk? If so, shoot me an email…

UPDATE: This is apparently director Chris Buck’s new project, following the cancellation of Snow Queen. Again, please remember that being greenlighted for development is not the same as getting the go-ahead for production.

Source

If you emerged from the cinema after watching Vanilla Sky pretending you understood, you can finally own up.

Film enthusiasts have voted the 2001 Tom Cruise film the most confusing of all time.

And if you understood the twists and turns of Donnie Darko, complete with sleepwalking, time-travel and premonitions, here’s a reason to feel pleased with yourself.

It was voted third in the list of baffling cinema experiences, chosen by more than one in ten.

You may be surprised to find the mind-bending Matrix Revolutions only in fourth.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, starring Kate Winslet, and two of Stanley Kubrick’s films, 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange also made the list.

Helen Cowley, of Lovefilm rental, which conducted the survey, said: ‘It’s clear dreaming is the biggest cause of confusion for viewers.

‘Switching from reality to dream sequences pulls the wool over our eyes.’


Top Ten
1 Vanilla Sky

2 Mulholland Drive

3 Donnie Darko

4 The Matrix Revolutions

5 Memento

6 Twelve Monkeys

7 Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

8 2001: A Space Odyssey

9 Revolver

10 A Clockwork Orange

Comic-Con reveals exclusive poster art for the upcoming Marvel movies, ‘The First Avenger: Captain America‘ and ‘Thor.’




SOURCE

It may have to do with that sinking-ship film (and all his dead wives).



by Ramin Setoodeh

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most respected actors of his generation (he’s 35), so why is he always so pissed off in the movies? It’s not for lack of admiration. Last year, Zac Efron and Chace Crawford were separately asked whose careers they’d like to emulate, and they both confessed their man crushes on Leo. A few weeks ago, The New York Times singled out DiCaprio as the rare star who escaped his tween past to become a real actor, as a kind of comfort to Twilight’s Robert Pattinson. The Guardian threw its weight behind a Brit in Harry Potter, asking: “Is Rupert Grint the new Leonardo DiCaprio?”

He might be, because the old Leo has clearly moved on. DiCaprio got his start on TV’s Growing Pains, earned an Oscar nod for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and then achieved titanic stardom in 1997 in a movie about a sinking ship. But then, instead of trading on his heartthrob looks, he leveraged his box-office muscle to work with A-list directors including Danny Boyle, Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott, Sam Mendes, and now Christopher Nolan. For those of you counting at home, Inception is the third movie in a row in which DiCaprio’s crazy wife suddenly dies. (The other two: Revolutionary Road and Shutter Island, which, from the first shot, echoes Inception so closely it’s odd that DiCaprio made both films back to back.) DiCaprio’s career has been engineered to make audiences forget Titanic, but he has swung so far in the other direction that he has alienated the female fans who made him a star. That’s undoubtedly the idea, though that doesn’t make it a good one. He seems interested only in characters who project a certain kind of masochism, and misogyny. His best film of the decade, The Departed, featured a nearly all-male cast. He was nimble in Catch Me if You Can, but that was in 2002, the last time we saw DiCaprio in a comedy.

That’s not to say that DiCaprio should stay away from dramas, but he would help himself tremendously if he lightened up, costarred with an actress like Reese Witherspoon, or at least did a movie where his wife survives until the closing credits. What’s worse: DiCaprio has spawned a whole generation of actors who are so serious they’re making movies only for people on antidepressants. Efron dropped out of the Footloose remake to do Charlie St. Cloud, about a guy who talks to the ghost of his dead brother. Pattinson’s first post-Twilight movie, Remember Me, took place on September 11. Daniel Radcliffe took a break from Harry Potter to get naked with horses in Equus, and Shia LaBeouf, Tobey Maguire, and Jake Gyllenhaal are in some kind of mega–scowling contest. That leaves us with one heartthrob who isn’t afraid to play to his strengths, and his abs. Can Taylor Lautner actually act? The jury is still out, but he’s getting $7.5 million per movie. As the rare Hollywood hunk who isn’t afraid to smile, he deserves it.

Opening his new film on the same weekend he debuted The Dark Knight two years ago, director Chris Nolan again scored with critics and fans with Inception.

The brain-twister raked in $60.4 million, according to studio estimates. While some analysts had projected an opening as high as $70 million, the bow establishes Nolan as the thinking man's action filmmaker.

"He's a star for us," says Dan Fellman of Warner Bros., which released Inception and touted Nolan as much as star Leonardo DiCaprio. "It's clear there's no kind of movie he can't make, and make well."

Inception was a labor of love for Nolan, who worked more than a decade on the story of a thief who specializes in stealing thoughts. Nolan's earlier movies, from Mementoto The Prestige, turned tidy profits despite having more twists than pretzels. But not enough to convince a studio to produce his special-effects-driven thriller.

That changed after Dark Knight, which became the third highest-grossing film ever with $533 million and prompted Warner Bros. to open its checkbook to Nolan. Now the director is working on the Batman sequel, which he'll write and direct, and a Superman film, which he'll produce, Fellman says.

The film marked DiCaprio's best debut, eclipsing this year's Shutter Island, which opened to $41.1 million. The picture also scored with Imax audiences. While the gargantuan screens account for less than 1% of the USA's screens, Imax accounted for 12% of Inception's business.

"For all the fuss over 3-D, this is a 2-D movie that is doing terrific business," says Imax's Greg Foster. "And people see Chris' movies more than once. We're not moving this out of theaters anytime soon."

The animated Despicable Me dropped a healthy 42% from its opening to take second place with $9.4 million. The comedy has done $118.4 million in two weeks.

Nicolas Cage's Sorcerer's Apprentice couldn't conjure up much business, opening to a middling $17 million. The movie has done $24.5 million since its opening Wednesday.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was fourth with $13.5 million, followed by Toy Story 3's $11.7 million.

Ticket sales surged 10% over the same weekend last year, though attendance remains down by 2% from last year.

Final figures are due Monday.

SOURCE

Credit: mediocrechick

Can you feel the excitement? In a mere four days, Inception will hit theaters, melt your face and take its rightful place as the biggest non-animated film of the summer. At least until Salt comes out next week and blows Inception out of the water. Wait, what? Ahead, Movieline dissects why Angelina Jolie’s summer action spectacle is poised to win the box office war with Christopher Nolan’s pedigreed mind-bender.



· Angelina Jolie
While Leonardo DiCaprio is forced to share the Inception marketing campaign with a cadre of character actors — he didn’t even get Russell Hammond status in the movie poster! — Angelina Jolie is the marketing campaign for Salt. And you know why? She’s the biggest actress in the world and probably behind only Will Smith and Johnny Depp on the worldwide-fame scale. People love Jolie; they like Leonardo DiCaprio. Don’t believe me? DiCaprio only has one $40-plus million opener on his resume (Shutter Island), Jolie has three.

· The release date
After Salt gets released on July 23, the summer might as well be over from a four-quadrant standpoint. To wit: The remaining releases are niche films with specific target audiences like Eat, Pray, Love, The Other Guys and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It just feels like Salt could be the one film that not only has legs, but will appeal to a wide variety of demographics. Inception probably will too — if only it didn’t slam into Salt seven days after its release.

· Running time
As Salt Fan Club president Jeffrey Wells revealed, Salt runs 95 minutes without credits; Inception runs for 148 minutes. Based on simple time telling skills, that means theaters will be able to squeeze more showings of Salt into a single day than Nolan’s epic. And that means a greater potential for dollars that even Inception’s IMAX screens won’t make up for.

· Accessibility
Without even seeing Salt, you can describe it to your friends in three words: Jolie as Bourne. Try using three words for Inception: Leo’s dream heist? Matrix with dreams? Bond as Matrix? Leo Ocean’s Matrix? Critics love it? Um, yeah. Inception might be better than Salt, but it certainly isn’t as straightforward.

· Expectations
The killer: With a sprawling cast, the “From the director of The Dark Knight” tag and maximum ubiquity, people are just plain expecting Inception to be the greatest movie of all-time (something critics are stoking with the comparisons to Stanley Kubrick). If/when Inception predictably falls short of all this hype, the backlash will begin fast and hard. Meanwhile, no one is expecting Salt to be anything other than a good-time action film with a major star doing crazy stunts. Advantage: Angelina.

"THE BOUNTY HUNTER" did not debut at the #1 spot! I guess Jen is really losing her star power! "Alice in Wonderland" manage to be #1 for 3 weeks in a row! This is pretty exciting because I love both Johnny Depp and Anne Hathaway! They deserve this success!

So we're all firmly against reboots, right? Bastardizing well-loved material to make a quick buck, allowing upstart new directors
to destroy something precious, all that nonsense. But what about an arty reboot? That's possibly the best way to describe a potential new Lars von Trier project, in which he would, no joke, attempt to remake Taxi Driver five times, with a few extra rules to make things really challenging.

The news comes out of the Berlin Film Festival and a report from a Danish newspaper that says Scorsese has agreed to cooperate with von Trier on a follow-up to the film. Based on the sleuthing and Google translating that JoBlo.com was able to do, Von Trier would make the film according to the rules laid out in the 2003 documentary The Five Obstructions, in which Von Trier challenged his friend to remake his favorite film five times. Presumably this time the friend, Jorgen Leth, would get to lay down his own rules for Von Trier-- last time the challenges included setting the new film in Cuba, or making it entirely animated.

There's no telling what's going on with this story in actuality, whether it's a rumor cooked up in the insanity of a film festival or if Scorsese really has just slipped a gear and agreed to something so nuts. Given that the last big news story about Von Trier was the ultimately false one about him working with Penelope Cruz, I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

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Long Beach, California (CNN) -- A lifelong fascination with science fiction and the ocean has driven "Avatar" director James Cameron's career, he told the TED2010 conference Saturday.

"The ocean is so rich with amazing life," he said beginning a session called "Wisdom," the final one of the conference. "Nature's imagination is so boundless compared to our own human imagination."

Cameron said some thought his filming of "Titanic" was about the opportunity to depict "Romeo and Juliet" on the doomed ship. In fact, he said, "Secretly I wanted to dive to the wreck of the Titanic."

He did wind up exploring the wreck and said he saw amazing forms of underwater life. Cameron was struck by the comparison between deep ocean exploration and space travel; in both cases there's a search for alien creatures and no hope of rescue if you can't get back yourself. "I completely closed the loop between being a science fiction fan as a kid and doing this stuff for real."

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a nonprofit that hosts conferences which attract an influential audience and prominent speakers, including Bill Gates this year and last year. TED makes its talks available for free on the web.

Cameron's ground-breaking film, Avatar, has received nine Academy Award nominations and is the highest-grossing film ever (without taking inflation into account).

A late addition to the program, he told the audience of 1,500 and hundreds of others watching remotely that he decided in his teens to become a scuba diver but lived in a little village in Canada 600 miles from the ocean. He became certified as a diver in a YMCA pool across the border in Buffalo, N.Y., but didn't get to start exploring the ocean until he moved to California two years later.

In the past 40 years, Cameron has spent 3,000 hours underwater, with 500 of that in submersibles.

Cameron says he's learned a lot about science, but even more significantly he has learned lessons about leadership.

He says he asked himself why he tackled exploration. "You're doing it for the challenge, the thrill of discovery and the strange bond that happens when a small group of people form a team," Cameron said. "In that bond you realize the most important thing is the respect that you have for them and they have for you."

In the four years he spent making "Avatar," he said he tried to apply that same lesson.

"Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own," he said. "Don't put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you...failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it's a leap of faith.

"In whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not."

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Until Taylor Lautner beefed up and began walking around shirtless in "New Moon," there wasn't a chance in the underworld that werewolves could steal pop culture's rabid affection for vampires.

But now that moviegoers' appetites have been whetted for this particularly hairy breed of supernatural beast, perhaps the new horror movie "The Wolfman," starring Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, can help the myth finally step out from the, er, non-shadow of vampires after all.

In the past 30 years, there have been a number of films dedicated to the frightening -- and sometimes hilarious -- things that can happen when under the werewolf curse, yet the genre has never soared into popularity.

We're officially past "New Moon" frenzy, and werewolves haven't exactly shown up in TV series, novels and other movies the same way vampirism has since "Twilight" and its cohorts left their mark.

"Vampires have always been more popular because there's a romantic element," Slantmagazine.com film critic Nick Schager said. "They're striking, dashing, and there are sexual components to the legend."

The werewolf, on the other hand, is not only plagued by a "cheesiness" factor that happens when the special effects are poor, Schager said, the myth itself is also decidedly less romantic.

Even Lautner's character, whose houndish transformation does retain some elements of the werewolf myth, turns into a wolf only when the undead come around, making him a somewhat safer choice for his love interest.

On top of that, the "New Moon" wolf men seem to become more attractive once their supernatural gene kicks in, and in typical werewolf genre films, "you don't get to be the good-looking, debonair hunk from 'True Blood,' " Schager said. "It's all about losing control and turning into a beast."

The genre has also suffered from less-than-scary films, Yahoo! movie critic Sean Phillips said.

"I think for a long time, werewolves were feared, but in the silly '80s, we had to bring the werewolf down," he said.

John Landis' 1981 film "An American Werewolf in London" is perhaps one of the most iconic in the genre, but it fits squarely into the "comedy-horror" category. There's also nothing horrific about a barely post-pubescent Michael J. Fox using his newfound canine aggression to ask for a keg in 1985's "Teen Wolf."

The ensuing years weren't much better, with such tales as 1994's "Wolf" using the legend as the basis of satire.

"The classic monsters have been softened and commercialized; they're almost comical now," Phillips said. "They're lighter, gentler versions of the beasts they used to be."

Since Del Toro's film is rated R, Phillips believes that "The Wolfman" will attract an audience that's into horror, even if they're not into werewolves.

Indeed, "Wolfman" producer and actor Del Toro hasn't been quiet about his intent on keeping the film in line with its terrifying inspiration, the original 1941 "The Wolf Man," starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi.

"[The horror] was intentional," the 43-year-old said. "We wanted to bring the story to the 21st century, [but] at the same time, we wanted to stay truthful to the original."

"The Wolfman" maintains the mythology that has captivated fans of the genre for decades, delving into "what extent human beings are animals, to what extent we're civilized and to what extent you can repress animal instincts," co-star Hugo Weaving said.

Even the effects needed to be different. Instead of relying on CGI, as other werewolf films have in recent years, "The Wolfman" kept it classic by bringing in venerated makeup artist Rick Baker to use more practical special effects on Del Toro. (Baker is no stranger to creating wolfmen; he also did the makeup effects for the groundbreaking "American Werewolf in London," which earned him an Oscar.)

That doesn't mean the practical effects haven't been augmented with CGI -- this is 2010 -- but the combination of the two creates a character that's "more iconic wolf man versus what they've done in 'Underworld,'" said film critic Todd Gilchrist.

Most important, "Wolfman" stays true to the heart of the mythology. Being a werewolf isn't a lifestyle or a source of power; it's a frightening, inescapable curse that renders the afflicted unable to control their actions.

"In 1981, with 'The Howling' and 'American Werewolf in London,' the people who were the beasts didn't have any self-loathing about their werewolf affliction," Schager said. "If it's not a terrible thing to become a werewolf, and he's in control of himself and is not a rampaging beast, what becomes scary about it?"

Nothing at all, which is why Gilchrist believes that werewolves haven't gotten their pop culture due: They're not obviously frightening anymore.

"The way that these horror movies were done in the '30s and '40s was very effective, because there was an unknown visual landscape for horror. Audiences hadn't seen these creatures, which is why they were much more susceptible to being scared by them," Gilchrist said.


But by now, audiences have "seen so many different kinds of beasts that kill people, not to mention the technological sophistication needed. Can you really make a movie about a guy who's dressed up as a wolf in 2010?"

Add to that the lack of versatility in werewolf movie plot lines, and Gilchrist doesn't predict a burst of wolf movies or HBO television shows.

"The vampire movies in the past year are all different. 'Daywalkers' and then 'New Moon,' those couldn't be more diametrically opposed," Gilchrist said.

But werewolf movies tell more or less the same tale, he said.

"Some of them were maybe more empowering, some were more tragic, but they're all pretty much the same," Gilchrist said. "There's going to be perennial interest in werewolves as a movie property, but it's not going to launch a trend."