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The Weekly Trade Round-Up / The Pajiba Staff
Trade News | July 1, 2006 | Comments (38)
Item #1: I’ve been a Seth Rogen fan since before I really knew who the guy was. He was great on the short-lived “Freaks and Geeks,” executive-produced by Judd Apatow, and he was able to parlay that first acting gig into a successful career as the funny sidekick in TV and film roles, including Apatow’s “Undeclared” and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (And though I’d sooner have my ankles clubbed with a sledgehammer than sit through You, Me and Dupree, I imagine Rogen’s enjoyable in that as well.) Apatow’s already got Rogen cast in his upcoming Knocked Up, too. At this point, the pair is putting out a pretty clear Woody Allen-Scarlett Johannson vibe, but hey, I’m all for it as long as they keep churning out solid comedies. The two are reteaming for Super Bad, with Apatow set to produce and Rogen tapped to co-write and co-star. The plot revolves around a pair of high school seniors who set out one night to score beer for a party and hopefully hook up with hot girls before they leave for college. It’s a serviceable idea, but the creative ensemble here could take this from C-level crapfest to B-level enjoyable comedy. And here’s the best part: Michael Cera (“Arrested Development”) will play one of the seniors. This already looks to be a guilty but pleasing add to the Netflix queue. — Daniel Carlson
Item #2: Not content to simply hype the hell out of Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, I’d also like to direct your attention to the filmic adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Though I find no greater pleasure than mocking fanboys, when it comes to Chabon, I am the unkempt, socially awkward object of my own scorn — a blubbering ninny to his prose. Indeed, my toes curled a little when I read on Mr. Chabon’s website that he is adapting the film himself, and that Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) will direct, though the ultimate fate of the project has still not been decided. And who is in negotiations to play the role of Rosa? Natalie Portman, y’all. Ladies and Gentleman, stand back: I may swoon.
For fans of the novel (and if you aren’t, you should be), Chabon drops this, in reference to elements of the book that will and will not make it to the big screen: “Golem: yes. Antarctica: yes. Gay love story: yes. Ruins of World’s Fair: no. Long Island: no. Orson Welles: no. Salvador Dali: yes. Loving reference to Betty and Veronica: no. Stan Lee: no.” — Dustin Rowles
Item #3: Fresh off the inevitable success of Snakes on a Plane (and hear it from us first — we will not cave to peer pressure; we will not give in to the hype; Snakes must earn our adoration with much more than a cool trailer, a few quotable lines, and a movie poster before we spill the saliva of the smitten), Samuel L. Jackson has been cast in Doug Liman’s next project, Jumper. The sci-fi thriller will follow a latchkey kid who discovers he has the ability to teleport and uses his powers to track down the folks who murdered his Ma and Pa. In his quest, however, he draws the attention of the National Security Agency and one of its agents, to be played by Jules Winnfield himself. And though I concede that any film that relies on teleporting powers as a central element is a hard sell, if anyone can pull it off, it’s Doug Liman, who has yet to fail us as a director, even if he is ultimately responsible for foisting “The O.C.” onto us. — DR
Item #4: Because nothing says “manipulative depictions of superficial religion” quite like Hollywood, Jamie “Tubbs” Foxx and his manager are boarding The Power of Duff as producers, and it’s being eyed as a possible starring vehicle for Foxx. The script, to which Russell Crowe and Ron Howard used to be attached (uh-oh), follows a TV news anchor in Rochester who begins praying on the air while reading the evening’s headlines. His prayers begin to come true and, sooner than you can say “Shameless and transparent grab at Narnia/Passion money,” the anchor gets caught up in a controversy about the authenticity of his faith and the supernatural happenings. Sounds blasphemazing, Hollywood. You guys are all right. — DC
Item #5:Well, it’s been a pretty busy week in TV news land, in large part because of the critics’ big summer press tour currently going on out in L.A. Too much to cover in-depth here, but let’s run down some of the interesting nuggets: (a) this is a great idea which plays off of some stuff I’ve talked about before — NBC has made a deal with Netflix (and we’ll presumably see more of these next year) to have the pilot episodes of “Kidnapped” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” available for rent as of August 5 (and come back here next week for my take on the “Studio 60” pilot); (b) the fourth season of HBO’s “The Wire” starts this September (!!) and, in an interesting move, HBO will be premiering episodes on-demand several days before their Sunday night airing; (c) for those “Everwood” fans out there who are pissed at its demise, execs confirmed that it was “7th Heaven’s” last-minute resurrection that killed your show — of course, I find it funny that they made this decision because of the finale’s relatively strong ratings which, presumably, were due at least in part to the fact that it was billed as the finale; (d) J.J. Abrams will be directing several episodes of “Lost” this season, and having him more involved should be a good thing for the show; (e) the second season of HBO’s “Rome,” set to premiere next January, will also be the last, partially due to the show’s immense expense (but since the show was originally only slated as a miniseries, one can’t complain as much about this as they might about, oh I dunno, say, “Deadwood!?!?”); and finally (f) ABC acknowledges it has a battle at the Thursday 9 p.m. slot, with its “Grey’s Anatomy” pitted against CBS’ “CSI,” while CBS tries to claim that it’s actually the underdog here.
Anyway, if you want more in-depth coverage as this tour continues over the next week and a half, I recommend the following three blogs, all written by critics who are doing their best to live-blog the whole thing (and when read together, you get some very interesting cross-perspective): (i) Tim Goodman: The Bastard Machine, (ii) All TV in Hollywood, and (iii) The Ausiello Report. — Seth Freilich
Item #6: Before we get to the business of the box office, we would like, as modestly as possible, to thank Heather Cocks and the Fug Girls in general for mentioning us as a favorite site in the web pages of Vanity Fair, no less. The fact that we’re even on your radar … well, it sort of made our year, and we apologize for interminably mucking up your site with our retarded Blogads.
Now, to the business at hand: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest continued its assault on buttock muscles over the weekend, bringing in another $63 million from restless attendees sucker-punched by what was essentially a two-and-a-half-hour extended bridge, sans the requisite Eddie Van Halen guitar solo. And though it pains us to bring up traumatic memories, Little Man somehow fetched $21 million to come in at No. 2; the comments section in the review, however, did offer an amusing take on the correct usage of the word “ejaculate.” Finally, rounding out the top three, Owen Wilson’s inevitable descent into lame G-rated family comedies continued, as You, Me and Dupree hauled in slightly less than Little Man.
This weekend, the other Wilson brother gets in on the action with My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which at least offers the scene-stealing Rainn Wilson to take our minds off what will no doubt be another amusing premise gone awry. Monster House tests the waters of family-based CGI with a horror twist, though if the trailer is any indication, there is little to look forward to. Also on our agenda, we will find out if M. Night Shyamalan can rekindle the magic of The Sixth Sense or if Lady in the Water will reveal the further devolution of the Shyamalanesque trick ending. Finally, Clerks II arrives in theaters, and I am all atwitter. Like, really atwitter; and seriously, good or bad, you should all go see it, ‘cause if it bombs at the box office, Jason Mewes will have to get back on the smack. And none of us want that, do we? — DR
Comments
Posted by: BLA at July 20, 2006 8:52 AM
A world where Little Man pulls in more money than You, Me, and Dupree is also a world that might have to witness Little Man 2.
However, a world with the lovely word "Shyamalanesque" would be a vast improvement. If only I could use it in everyday conversations.