New movies already seen as bombs
You won't find many reviews for either of this weekend's major movie releases.
Sony Pictures refused to screen its Tommy Lee Jones comedy Man of the House for critics. Alliance Atlantis wouldn't preview its new Christina Ricci werewolf flick Cursed either.
Sony is following orders from Revolution Pictures which created Man of the House and Alliance Atlantis is heeding directives from Miramax's Dimension Pictures.
Revolution even screened its road trip comedy Are We There Yet?
So, hard as it is to comprehend, the company must consider Man of the House far inferior.
Man of the House had a production budget in excess of $40 million US plus a $25 million marketing budget and is being released on 2,300 screens across North America.
It stars Jones, Cedric the Entertainer and Anne Archer as well as hotties Christina Milian, Kelli Garner, Vanessa Ferlito, Monica Keena and Paula Garces as cheerleaders under the protection of Tommy Lee Jones.
Dimension's Cursed has been a troubled project for almost two years.
It's been rewritten, reshot and re-edited so many times that director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson are distancing themselves from it.
It started out to be an R-rated horror comedy in the vein of the Scream movies Craven and Williamson collaborated on. It's now a PG-13 flick.
Cursed cost Dimension $38 million plus a $25 million marketing campaign. It will be released on 3,000 screens.
When a studio refuses to screen a film for critics, it essentially reviews the film itself, admitting it's a dog that needs one clear day before reviews and word-of-mouth start chipping away at audiences.
Cursed has the better chance of making some pocket change this weekend, given that White Noise, Hide & Seek and Boogeyman have all made upwards of $50 million.
Horror movies are popular and Cursed has slick production and the Scream cache.
All Man of the House has going for it is Jones and without a black suit and Will Smith, he has limited box-office clout.
Smith's Hitch and Keanu Reeves' Constantine will rule the box-office again.
Thompson shot himself while on phone
ASPEN, Colorado (AP) - The widow of journalist Hunter S. Thompson said her husband killed himself while the two were talking on the phone.
"I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun," Anita Thompson told the Aspen Daily News in Friday's editions.
She said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly ESPN column - but instead of saying goodbye, he set the telephone down and shot himself.
Thompson said she heard a loud, muffled noise, but didn't know what had happened. "I was waiting for him to get back on the phone," she said.
Hunter Thompson, famous for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other works of New Journalism, shot himself in the head Sunday in the kitchen of his Aspen-area home. He was 67.
His son, daughter-in-law and six-year-old grandson were in the house when the shooting occurred.
Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets.
His suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship, she said.
"He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision," she said. "It was a problem for us."
WHAT A DRAG!
John Travolta in drag? As bizarre as it sounds, Travolta is the front-runner to play the overweight laundress Edna Turnblad in the new film adaptation of "Hairspray," knocking out Harvey Fierstein, who originated the role on Broadway.
And many involved with the show aren't pleased.
"All the creators of 'Hairspray' very strongly wanted Harvey for the movie," says Tom Meehan, co-writer of the Broadway production. "This is a decision New Line made; they can do what they want."
Travolta's publicist had no comment.
What New Line wants, says Meehan, is for "Hairspray" to be a blockbuster Christmas release for 2006. New Line refused comment on the casting negotiations, first reported in yesterday's Variety.
But Meehan said it was widely known among the show's creators that the studio had also been considering Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson. "They were thinking big," he says, laughing. "It got pretty wild."
Edna was first played in the 1988 John Waters film by the late drag queen Divine, who famously ate real dog excrement in Waters' trash-terpiece, "Pink Flamingos."
Michael McKean, Bruce Vilanch and Fierstein have all interpreted Edna on Broadway, but Fierstein was considered the true soul of the hit musical, based on the demented yet sweet movie about kids in racially segregated '60s Baltimore.
Fierstein wouldn't comment on Travolta's possible casting, other than to say, through a spokesperson, that since he gets royalties, "the bigger a hit 'Hairspray' is, the happier I am."
Travolta "is certainly a good marketing hook," says Hollywood Reporter columnist Martin Grove, even if he "may not be the first name to come to mind." Travolta's career has gone through truly steep low points ("Perfect," "Battlefield Earth," "Look Who's Talking!"), but he's built a decades-long career on playing characters that are cool in an off-kilter way: the dim rebel Vinnie Barbarino on "Welcome Back, Kotter," Danny Zuko in "Grease," Tony Manero in "Saturday Night Fever" and the smack-addled hit man Vincent Vega in "Pulp Fiction," his 1994 comeback.
"Edna Turnblad is not a character you associate with him," says David Poland, editor of Movie City News. "He's never played high camp. But now he's aging. It's time for him to start playing senior adults, instead of clinging to the macho stuff."
And there are few things less macho than donning a polyester housecoat and technicolor make-up - which was traumatic even for Divine, who spent almost his whole life in drag.
As Edna, Divine was stuck "in my flip-flops and hideous housedress, with varicose veins drawn on my nubbly shaved legs and everything wrong with me accentuated, schlepping along in these pin curls."
Even Travolta's champions, Grove and Poland, say cross-dressing could prove too much for the actor.
"I just saw him at the premiere for his new movie, 'Be Cool,' and he is a big, macho guy," says Grove. "He does not look like he would enjoy being in drag."
"He's never played in this realm before. He plays characters at a lower note," says Poland. "In many ways, it's why he's still a star."
Yet for all the complaining about Travolta's likely casting, even co-writer Meehan understands the bottom line.
"Harvey is not the world's greatest singer or dancer; he's just a great, great performer," says Meehan.
"We all agree that we'd love to have a successful movie, so we're not going to walk away."