After a quiet few weeks of movie openings, four major films open across the country this weekend. Will any of them overtake The Dark Knight at the box office?
Read on for our answer...
Tropic Thunder
Stars: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr.
Quick synopsis: A satire of Hollywood, a handful of actors think they are filming a movie - but are actually involved in a war.
Prediction: We're saying it: will climb over Batman and be number-one at the box office.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Stars: Cartoons
Quick synopsis: The Grand Army of the Republic fights the New Droid Army of the Separatists.
Prediction: Only the most hardcore Star Wars fans will turn out for this animated features.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Stars: Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson
Quick synopsis: Sexy stars meet and have romantic fun in Barcelona.
Prediction: Aimed an older audience, will make the top five at the box office.
Mirrors
Stars: Kiefer Sutherland
Quick synopsis: Evil mirrors threaten a family.
Prediction: Scarier than mirrors? How badly this film does at the box office.
We're gonna go out on a limb and say Mirrors won't be the film to knock The Dark Knight off of its perch atop the box office. But this horror film could still be worth a viewing.
Let's see if a handful of movie critics from around the country agree...
- While watching it won't necessarily lead to seven years of bad luck, it does make for a fairly aggravating 110 minutes... -- eFilmcritic
- It skirts along the edge of greatness, but for every one thing it does right, it does another so inconceivably wrong... -- Dread Central
- Mirrors isn't a total wash of a horror film, but it is not unreasonable to expect more from a filmmaker who has delivered stronger, more confident works in the past... -- The Movie Boy
- It's not much of a compliment to call Mirrors "considerably better than Shutter, Pulse, or One Missed Call," but the flick is just good enough to make one wish it had shown up before those turkeys... -- FEARnet
By Sabrina Rojas Weiss
Ever since “Eclipse” knocked “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” off the best-seller list last year, there’s been trash-talking between Twilighters and Potter-heads. And this strange rivalry between the two fanbases was only bound to get worse this December, when the release of the “Twilight” movie was going to coincide with “Half-Blood Prince” ’s fourth week in theaters.
(UPDATE: “Twilight” has now moved up its release date to November 21, taking the spot vacated by “Harry Potter”!)
Now that Warner Brothers decided that they need more box-office magic in 2009 than they do this holiday season, both sides of the wizard/vampire debate should breathe easy, right? Wrong. While the Potter fans are sorely disappointed about the delay, some Twilighters seem to be gloating about it — at least according to the comments on yesterday’s MTV News report on the date change.
So did Warner Brothers really move the date fearing that Catherine Hardwicke’s flick would take a bite out of Harry’s B.O. take? Not likely. As vocal and enthusiastic (and MTV-loving) as Twilighters are, “Harry Potter” has much stronger numbers. First-day “Breaking Dawn” sales of 1.3 million were impressive, but “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” sold 8.3 million copies in its first day out.
Warners’ decision to change the movie’s date was “a very curious move,” according to Jeff Bock of industry research firm Exhibitor Relations, especially considering how few family-friendly films will be released this fall. With the lack of competition, and because the “Half-Blood Prince” was one of the most well-received in the series, he thinks it could have done “upwards of $300 million.” Those projections could drop, given that the July release date places Harry in competition with summer blockbusters like “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
“I think there’s something we’re not being told, and maybe that does have to do with the script,” Bock said.
“There’s no way that ‘Harry Potter’ was worried about ‘Twilight,’ but ‘Twilight’ has got to be feeling very good right now,” Bock said, projecting that the vampire movie could do somewhere around $70-100 million. “Maybe it won’t be as big as ‘Harry Potter,’ but if a company like Summit Entertainment pulls off $100 million, that’s quite a coup. Things are looking really bright for ‘Twilight’ right now.”
But numbers aside, I want to know what’s really behind the harsh exchange of words going on between these two groups. I mean really, if Robert Pattinson can manage to embrace both worlds, can’t we all just get along?
Considering the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight - super hero movies grounded in reality - you can't blame writers for trying emulate this formula.
But is it really possible for a film about He-Man?!?
Screenwriter Justin Marks, who is penning a movie about that cartoon reportedly called Grayskull, seems to think so. This is what he told MTV about his vision:
“The script is very true to the characters — we’re not talking about putting nipples on the Trapjaw suit. But we had to come up with a reason again why Trapjaw would actually not just be something that’s totally absurd, but why he would need those bionic parts added to him. Which gives a sort of sense of where [the movie] is going in some way.”
Given such a realistic base, Marks said he has more latitude in creating He-Man’s world of Eternia, adding he's free to create an epic universe unlike “anything we’ve ever seen before on a visual level.”

By the power of Grayskull, how do you make He-Man a relatable super hero?
With a new version of 90210 airing on The CW this fall, perhaps Brian Austin Green - who played David Silver on the original Beverly Hills, 90210 - thinks there's a huge, mainstream push for stars of the show to receive extra attention these days.
What else could make the relatively unknown actor mention himself as a candidate for the next Batman villain.
"I would love to be the Riddler," Green said to MTV. He further explained "I hope to God that they don't try to replace Heath and have the Joker. And Two-Face is gone. So they need a new villain, and the Riddler makes sense."
It does. But so does the idea of Johnny Depp taking on the role.

Green sounded serious about his desire to play the part, however. He explained that he'd need a lot of time to prepare for it.
"That would take years of preparation. It's tough. Heath set the bar at a new level, which I think is fantastic for comic book lovers and movie lovers. He changed the face of what people expect out of those films. If you watch the old ones, I mean, they were great for what they were, having Danny Elfman's music, but this is a new level."
What do you think? Does Brian Austin Green stand any chance at portraying The Riddler? Dude is dating Megan Fox.
So he must have something going for him.
Forget The Dark Knight.
With Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder on his resume, this is the summer of Danny McBride.
"He's the guy everyone will be talking about. That guy is unstoppable," comedian Bill Hader, one of McBride's co-stars in Tropic Thunder, told USA Today.
How does McBride feel about all the attention?
"I guess it's my big summer. I don't know. I feel like I've had more eventful ones when I was a kid," he joked. "When we went to Nags Head or something."
On a serious - but still funny - note, McBride owes all his recent screen time to The Foot Fist Way, a film he co-wrote with two film-school friends and made for about $80,000. They took it all the way to Sundance.
These days, the rising star just wrapped Land of the Lost, opposite Ferrell. Next up? Writing and shooting the HBO series East Bound and Down, about a burned-out baseball player.
"I've been writing around the clock," McBride said. "I do the same things I've always done — watch movies and play video games and just do nothing, talk about ideas and write. Kind of boring."
Rachel McAdams will forever be linked wirh Ryan Gosling. It's largely because these two stars have dated off and on for many years.
But it's also because they comprised the main couple in the ultimate chick flick: The Notebook.
In a recent interview with T Magazine, the beautiful actress answered a few questions about her career... and Gosling, of course.
Do you like to audition? I love auditioning. Since The Notebook and Wedding Crashers, I don’t have to audition anymore, and I miss it. You get to show your interpretation of the character. I get nervous when I don’t audition. What if they hate what I want to do?
I also like screen tests, where they put you in a room with your male co-star. They want to see if the two of you have chemistry together. There’s something wonderfully old-fashioned about a chemistry test. During a movie, chemistry is so important, and yet they just assume actors can fake their way through it. That doesn’t always work.
In The Notebook, you and Ryan Gosling had amazing chemistry. Are love scenes difficult? They’re strange. A kiss with anyone, on or off camera, can be intimidating. I’ve been kissing for nearly two decades now, and I’m always convinced I’m not doing it right. Chemistry is so important in a great kiss. You can act your way through anything, but it’s hard with a kiss. It’s much better if there’s an attraction.
Steve Carell was the last member officially added to the Frat Pack so it seems fitting we made him our last Frat Pack member for Reel Movie Stars.
Steve Carell's career was started bring a correspondent The Daily Show, but it truly sky rocketed thanks to his starring roles in The 40 Year Old Virgin and on the television series, The Office.
We decided to give Carell some Reel treament with 9 films, 8 pictures, and one heck of a biography.
Now for some fun Carell trivia you may not have known:
Now enjoy this photo montage from our final Frat Packer being featured as a Reel Movie Star:
After just covering fellow Tropic Thunder co-star Jack Black, Reel Movie Stars is back with the film's director, Ben Stiller.
Our sixth installment of Reel Movie Stars is absolutely considering a member of the Frat Pack and is by far one of its most prolific members.
In honor of Stiller's return to the director's seat, we've gone ahead and added 22 movies to the comedian's filmography and one of the most complete biographies the Reel editors have ever put together.
But what would a Reel Movie Star blog be without some fun facts:
Now we'd like to leave you with some pictures of this amazing writer, director, and actor:
Here's a comedic duo we can't wait to watch in action:
Steve Carell and Tina Fey are set to play a married couple in Date Night, a 20th Century Fox comedy to be directed by Shawn Levy.
According to Variety, the plot follows a couple who find their routine date night becomes much more than just dinner and a movie.
The starting production date is unclear at the moment, as the film must be scheduled around Carell's sitcom The Office and Fey's 30 Rock.
Levy is currently shooting Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, while Carell recently starred in Get Smart and Fey appeared in Baby Mama.
The premise for Hamlet 2 is one only writers that penned politically-incorrect films such as Dick and Team America: World Police could come up with.
Enter Andrew Fleming and Pam Brady.
They came up with the idea of Dana Marschz, a beleaguered high school drama teacher whose drama class is about to get shut down unless he can come up with a stage production that justifies its existence. The solution? A sequel to Hamlet, of course.
Below are excerpts of an interview Flemning and Brady gave to ComingSoon.net:
When you decided to make the movie, which came first, the idea of a Hamlet 2 or the character of Dana Marshz?
Fleming: The character. We kind of reverse-engineered the movie from the character. I don't know why. We were just talking and we knew we wanted a teacher, and we loved drama teacher right away, and we both loved that kind of super-enthusiastic character who wakes up and every day is a creative opportunity even in the face of no positive feedback.
Brady: It's true. He has no reason to keep going, but then he lives by a code... I always think those characters are great, it's almost like "A Confederacy of Dunces" kind of delusional character that just can't be stopped.
Steve Coogan stars in Hamlet 2.