Rejoice Harry Potter fans, as Warner Bros. has moved Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince up two days.
Initially pegged for release on July 17 – a Friday – the film will now be released on Wednesday, July 15. This move is similar to the one done with Order of the Phoenix, which was moved up to Wednesday. It earned $44 million on the opening day, bringing in a total of $139 million over the five-day period.
The sixth film in the series follows Harry’s adventures as things get more serious for the gang since Voldemort is now out there. A new trailer for the film will go online at 9pm EDT this Thursday.
Even before the first movie has been made, Road Trip and Old School director Todd Philips has been tapped write a sequel to his upcoming comedy The Hangover for Warner Bros.
The first film follows three groomsmen who wake up after an intense bachelor party in Las Vegas. They have lost the groom and forgotten everything that happened; they must now retrace their hazy steps in order to figure out where things went wrong and hopefully get the groom back in time to walk down the aisle.
Philips will be back to direct and produce the sequel. The studio is so confident in the film that it has already made deals with the film’s trio of stars – Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms.
Production begins later this year.
Steve Carell is attached to a comedy acquired by Warner Bros. called Dumped. Vic Levin will adapt the comedy for Carell based on a novel by Andrew Gottlieb.
Carell will play a man searching for new meaning in his life after his wife abruptly files for divorce.
Following the failure of Punisher: War Zone and the major drop-off of Watchmen at the box office, Warner Brothers has announced that they won’t be doing any more R-rated superhero and possibly tentpole films in general.
The studio owns rights to all DC properties, including Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Flash, all of which have films in the making.
Interestingly, one exception appears to be the upcoming Jonah Hex film, which will be rated R as it is not seen as a superhero or tentpole feature.
I have heard everything on loglines. This one is really below the belt. Steve Carell will star in and produce testosterone comedy Hi-T for Warner Bros.
Perhaps, the studio is taking this concept on because it’s so ridiculous like 40 Year Old Virgin but proved out at the box office. Hi-T revolves around a man dealing with uncontrollable mood swings after an injury forces him to take testosterone injections.
I believe Hemingway covered this topic well in The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway didn’t call it mood swings. He called it “he had it real bad.”
Having finished writing Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and Greyskull, Justin Marks is now moving to his next project – to adapt the DC Comics property Suicide Squad for Warner Bros. and Lin Pictures.
The series was originally a backup feature in the ‘60s focusing on a team of non-super-powered people fighting monstrous menaces. It was relaunched in the ‘80s as a team of supervillains given one last shot at redemption by the government by accomplishing missions that will most likely kill them. The latter setup is the one Marks will work from.
The villains are yet to be chosen, though many are speculating that Deadshot is a strong candidate.
Kid fantasy classic The Never Ending Story might be heading our way courtesy of Warner Bros. and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Appian Way, as they are having discussions about reviving the franchise.
Originally released back in 1984, the film centered on a boy named Bastian Balthazar Bux who discovers a parallel world in the self-titled book. As he delves deeper into the book, he finds his life intertwined with the plot of the novel, in which a hero in the land of Fantasia must save the universe on behalf of an empress.
The new version will reportedly go into the more nuanced details of the book that were glossed over in the original. No writers are currently attached to the project.
When was the last time you heard a painting get a big screen treatment? Warner Bros. has acquired screen rights to Ivan Clarke’s limited-edition painting book The Lonely Dog.
Clarke planned the project when he left his dog alone, caught the look on the pooch’s face and painted a fully clothed character with a lonely look. He and Weta Workshop’s VFX head Richard Taylor hatched a mythology for the character that became the Lonely Dog.
The book was a big success, though only ninety were published, selling for as much as $6000 each. It is being turned into a CG animated film that Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster will produce.
The inevitable has happened: The Dark Knight has taken in more than $1 billion in worldwide box office. It is only the fourth film to do so.
Warner Bros made the announcement yesterday afternoon, stating that the combined domestic and international gross has totaled $1,001,082,160 to date. Half of this figure was made domestically – about $533 million.
Titanic, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest are the only films to have crossed the magic number.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan of Watchmen fame is in negotiations to board the comic book adaptation The Losers for Warner Bros and Silver Pictures.
Based on the comic book series by Vertigo, the film will follow a special forces team betrayed by their handler and left for dead. They regroup for revenge and the opportunity to remove their names from a secret CIA death list and to conduct covert operations against the CIA and its interests.
Morgan will play Clay, the group’s leader, whose signature look is black suit without a tie. He is currently shooting The Resident, so schedules are being worked out right now.
Written by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, the film will be directed by Sylvain White.