LOS ANGELES - "Iron Man" will become the first picture of the year to hit $300 million at the North American box office on Thursday.
Through Tuesday, the Marvel-produced comic book adaptation had rung up an estimated $299.3 million in the United States and Canada. And with recent daily grosses for "Iron Man" of no less than $680,000, there was no question about its blowing past the rarefied $300 million mark Thursday.
Last year produced a trio of $300 million movies, led by "Spider-Man 3" with $336.5 million. It took just 23 days to hit $300 million, while "Iron Man" required 51 days. Still, expectations were not nearly as lofty for the Robert Downey Jr. picture before it opened on May 1.
Last May kick-started two other $300 million grossers: "Shrek the Third" ($322.7 million) and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" ($309.4 million).
Among summer 2008's other big openers, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" had earned $279.5 million through Tuesday. Once considered a lock for the $300 million club, the latest installment in the Steven Spielberg franchise might have to claw its way to that level.
Note to women...if you want to win George Clooney's heart, forget about getting a boob job.
Billy Ray Cyrus allowed himself to be questioned yet again about the infamous Annie Liebovitz photo showing his little innocent daughter Miley wrapped only in a blanket.
Budding Disney sensation Selena Gomez denies there's any tension between her and reigning teen-queen Miley Cyrus.
We already knew Nicole Kidman's bodyguard was willing to beat the shit out of photographers to protect her privacy, but now we've learned that he's also willing to lay down his own life for the same."You can only hope that Nicole pays this guy a fortune."
I'm disappointed in the paps, quite frankly. I thought they were more persistent than this. Must be a New York thing. The L.A. paps would've just made a speed-bump out of the guy.
London :Pop star Justin Timberlake, who features in the movie "Love Guru", believes his career as an actor is fated because he was trying out as a TV star before finding fame as a singer.
Contactmusic.com reports that Timberlake has been successful as a actor though he is a musician and he believes he was always meant to be an actor.
He said: "Acting is a huge passion of mine. I was having a conversation with my step dad the other day, and he said, 'It's funny that you eventually got into film.'
"He reminded me how I got a phone call when I was 14 saying that there's a record company that's going to sign me. But two weeks before that, the plan was to drive to Los Angeles for TV pilot season. So I guess everything works out the way it's supposed to."
London : Pop star George Michael has congratulated the lawmakers in California for legalising gay marriage.
Michael is openly gay and he performed in California the day same-sex unions were made legal. Michael, who was once arrested for lewd behaviour in a Beverly Hills public toilet, is happy that gays and lesbians can now be legally married, contactmusic.com reports.
He said: "It's way overdue. It's something that happened ... almost without a whisper in England. Because this is a much more religious society, there are a huge number of people who want unions to be part of something that they can place in their religion."
English actress Emma Watson will be replacing Keira Knightley as the new face of Coco-Chanel perfume Coco Mademoiselle. Watson, famous for her role as potion-loving Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series, has signed a two-year contract for 3million pounds to be the new face for the Chanel scent.
It is rumoured that Halle Berry is pregnant with her first child. While some are saying that the Oscar-winning actress is expecting a baby with her actor boyfriend, Michael Ealy, while other sources claim the couple is in the process of trying for a child.
No one is sure until there is some response from Halle’s spokeswoman who has not release any comment so far. But the media is wondering why so, as the stunning actress has made no secret of her desire to become a mother in public.
Halle, who has been married to David Justice and, then, to Eric Benet, has recently declared she is “done with men”. But the 39-year-old actress admitted while on the Oprah Winfrey show that she is desperate to have children before she turns 40 next year.
She said “If there’s no serious man, whoever I’m dating at the time, I’ll say, ‘Hey, would you like to have a baby? I’ll sign a paper that will say I won’t ask you for one red cent.’”
After a turbulent love life, the sexy star confessed she may have to resort to artificial insemination or adoption to realise her dream of motherhood.
She said, “It looks like the only option I have left is to head for the sperm bank. I’ve been so desperately unlucky in love and that has thwarted my desire for motherhood. It’s so frustrating. “The only other option would be adoption. I really yearn for a child and I can’t wait much longer.”
Popular talk show host Oprah Winfrey has asked 4,700 students graduating at Stanford University in California to trust their instincts.
She told students at a commencement address to depend on their feelings like "a GPS system for life."
She said, "When you are doing the work you are meant to do, it feels right. Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every wrong decision was the result of me not listening to my voice. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it."
She also confessed that she did not trust her instincts when she built her school for girls in Africa. She said she was too busy planning the look of the school but she should have been paying more attention to the employees. One employee was accused of abusing the girls at the school last year.
She added, "I had been paying attention to all of the wrong things. I built a school from the outside in, instead of from the inside out."
The address was special for Winfrey because her best friend Gayle King's daughter was among the graduates.
Rome's diocese said it has barred the producers of Angels & Demons from filming in two churches for the prequel to the The Da Vinci Code the popular book and film that angered many Catholic leaders.
Producers of the film, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, were turned down because the movie "does not conform to our views," said Monsignor Marco Fibbi, a spokesman for the diocese.
The crew had asked to film in the churches of Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria, two architectural jewels in the heart of Rome that include paintings by Caravaggio, sculptures by Bernini and a chapel designed by Raphael.
Permission was denied in 2007, but the issue surfaced only now that filming is ongoing in Rome, Fibbi said. The Sony-produced film was put on hold during the Writers Guild of America strike that ended in February and is now scheduled for release in May 2009.
Fibbi's comments first were reported this week by the Italian entertainment magazine TV Sorrisi e Canzoni. "It's a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment," said Fibbi. "We would be helping them create a work that might well be beautiful but that does not conform to our views."
Fibbi acknowledged that the controversy over writer Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code and its blockbuster movie version had weighed on the decision.
The story drew anger and prompted calls for boycotts by church leaders worldwide with the idea that Jesus married and fathered children and by depicting the conservative Catholic movement, Opus Dei, as a murderous cult.
"This is a prequel to The Da Vinci Code and it's clear that the theme is similar," Fibbi said. He added that the ban would not stop the crew from filming the exterior of the churches.
Brown's Angels and Demons is a religious thriller combining an ancient secret brotherhood called the Illuminati, code-cracking, a papal conclave and a high-tech weapon threatening to destroy the Vatican.
It features Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon of The Da Vinci Code fame, played by Hanks in the movie.
Talented Indian American filmmaker M Night Shyamalan's latest offering The Happening has received mixed response at the box office as well as reviews.
Shyamalan's eighth film has done second lowest business in the opening weekend after his disastrous Lady in the Water (2006). The Happening came in third place with $30.5 million in US and Canadian theatres while The Incredible Hulk was the top film at the box office with sales of $54.5 million.
However, The Happening has not done too badly. It opened in fewer than 3,000 theatres, and has grossed on par with the director-scriptwriter's Unbreakable in 2000 but not quite as much as his Signs and The Village, both of which opened over $50 million.
Considering the film had gathered bad buzz and box office pundits had projected only $22 million for it in weekend ticket sales, it has done pretty well.
More importantly, with a rumoured production budget at just $60 million, distributor 20th Century Fox will consider the apocalyptic horror film a success if it can hold up business over the next few weeks.
As for reviews, The Happening got only 19 positive write-ups of 97 tracked on RottenTomatoes.com on Friday.
In the movie, Mark Wahlberg plays a father who tries to escape from a crisis that poses a threat to humanity.
Shyamalan was honoured with a Padma Shri earlier this year by the Indian government.
Washington : Salma Hayek has started looking for a wedding gown, for the actress is planning a summer wedding for herself, according to French reports.
If reports are to be believed, the Frida star is taking her relationship with businessman fiance Francois-Henri Pinault to the next level and is planning to wed in St. Tropez later this summer (08),
It was just last year that the couple welcomed their baby daughter Valentina Paloma into the world and the baby will be witnessing her parents enter matrimony.
According to reports by Influmedia.com, the 41-year-old Hayek has happily agreed to marry the French millionaire.
The duo first met in April 2006 and they finally spilled the beans on their relationship in 2007.
New York : Actress Pamela Anderson inadvertently showed off her famous twin assets in her native Canada, by wearing a semi-sheer shirt sans the bra.
The former Baywatch babe, who had become an American citizen in 2004, attracted a lot of attention as she hosted the Grand Prix party at a nightclub in Montreal over the weekend, reports the New York Daily News.
The reason everyone was paying her so much attention was that the actress' boobs were on full display under her transparent shirt. It seemed like in her excitement at being back in her native country, the 40-year-old buxom blonde forgot to wear a bra.
The lack of support didn't seem to bother the mother of two, as Anderson shouted, jumped up and down and waved the Canadian flag with gusto at the party.
Pop singer Madonna who is an avid follower of Kabbalah religion, has hit out at Paris Hilton for damaging the credibility of the mystical Jewish faith and insists that such actors merely dabble with the religion, with no intention of practicing it.
“People like Paris Hilton who come into a centre and buy a book or a band and that’s it for them. It doesn’t mean they study it. It’s very hard to be a believer. I’m very serious about it,” the 47-year-old fumed to Britain’s Radio One.
Cameron Diaz gives a new theory on her being late. She claims she’s always late because she lives in her own time zone.
The screen beauty - who is romancing pop heartthrob Justin Timberlake - insists she operates a quarter of an hour behind the rest of the world. She said “I exist on another time schedule and it’s 15 minutes later than everybody else. But that’s it, I don’t go over that. I think it’s rude to be on time.”
The blonde actress blames her punctuality problems on being an overdue baby. She said, “I was three weeks late being born. That’s five minutes for every week so it doesn’t matter if I get up two hours early and I’m ready to go an hour before I’m supposed to be there.”
The model-turned-actress Elizabeth Hurley is looking forward to her marriage with boyfriend Arun Nayar soon, at Lake Udaipur in India as Nayar’s divorce application against his ex-wife has been was granted by the English courts.
The divorce came through in end-October and Nayar had to pay a USD 1.2 million settlement to divorce his wife Valentina Pedroni to whom he was married for seven years. Friends were quoted as saying that the payout had left him financially stretched but deeply relieved that he was now free to marry the woman he loved. Hurley is reported to be delighted with the news.
“Elizabeth is delighted that Arun’s divorce has finally come through,” a friend said. “It was all very hush-hush and was rushed through in an English court. Like Liz and Arun, Valentina had tired of the whole sorry saga and just wanted it to be over.”
According to a voodoo expert Angelina Jolie can be a black magic woman.
Doctor Snake, the author of cult best-seller “Voodoo Spellbook” claims actress Angelina Jolie allegedly used her knowledge of the dark art, Voodoo, to lure Hollywood heartthrob Brad Pitt away from his wife Jennifer Aniston.
A friend of Aniston disclosed that Jolie had given Brad a vial which contained some ‘grey powder‘ that the actor later revealed to be the remains of a bat. Angelina said at the time the unusual gift was to keep Brad safe from accidents.
But Dr Snake insists bat remains are almost exclusively for black magic including spells to ruin relationships. He said, “That vial sounds suspiciously like a voodoo ‘mojo hand’, or magical charm to me.”
Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron has turned down the Bond girl role offered to her in the upcoming James bond series ‘Casino Royale’, opposite new secret agent Daniel Craig.
The role was earlier offered to ‘Tomb Raider’ star Angelina Jolie and ‘Lost In Translation’ actress Scarlett Johansson but now all three actresses have turned down the opportunity to star as famous Bond girl.
This is reportedly giving gapers-creepers to Bond producers as they are left with only a month to sign on a female lead for ‘Casino Royale’ which is set to begin shooting in January.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie starrer Hollywood flick ‘Mr and Mrs Smith’ which earned above USD 186 million at the North American box office last summer is remade by ABC for the television series.
The network has ordered a pilot, which the film’s director, Doug Liman, is expected to shoot, subject to availability. It envisages the pilot will be ready for midseason 2006-07 or fall 2007 consideration.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith revolve around a pair of married assassins hired to kill each other. But instead of the original stars reprising their roles, the filmmakers will be casting new unknown faces as married assassins in the latest incarnation of the movie. “We’re going to do a nationwide talent search and find basically the next Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie,” Liman said.
