Cheech & Chong return to the stage
TORONTO - For a couple of laidback stoners, they sure know how to hold a grudge.
It has taken more than 25 years for Cheech & Chong to put aside their longstanding differences, with the comic pair apparently at loggerheads until just a few months ago.
But that's all behind them now, insist reunited comedians Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, who say they're excited to be resuming their beloved pot-loving alter-egos for a North American tour that kicks off Sept. 5 in Ottawa.
"There was always a great love there, as well as a bit of annoyance," Marin says by phone from Los Angeles of the duo's rocky relationship and how they managed to get beyond the bickering.
"It's like being married, you know, for that long, you just kind of get sick of the other person."
Edmonton-born Chong says the squabbling started back in the mid-1980s, when Marin decided to do the comedy film, "Born In East L.A.," without his longtime cohort.
"That was kind of tough," Chong says in a separate phone interview from Sydney, N.S., where he had a comedy show last week. "It's kind of tough being a partner when your partner does a movie without you."
"After that, he sort of went his way and I went my way."
Marin, who was born in Los Angeles, went on to a mainstream acting career, scoring recurring roles in TV shows including "Nash Bridges," "Judging Amy," and more recently, "Lost," as well as appearing in various films. He also became one of the foremost collectors of Mexican-American art, and says he made a point of distancing himself from his juvenile, pothead persona.
"It was very conscious," the 62-year-old says of forging a new identity.
"It's like turning an oil tanker around, you know. You don't stop on a dime and speed up 180 degrees in the other direction, you kind of start doing it one gig at a time."
Chong, meanwhile, appeared regularly on the TV sitcom "That '70s Show" and says they were in the midst of negotiating a new Cheech & Chong movie when he was jailed in 2003 for selling bongs over the Internet.
He chronicles the experience in the documentary "a/k/a Tommy Chong," recently released on DVD, and the book, "The I Chong: Meditations from the Joint," published in 2006.
"I'm actually just starting to get back into making money," Chong says of the ordeal, claiming it came with massive legal fees and cost him "a couple million" in income and revenue.
Today he can joke about nine months he spent in prison, where he says he was taken in by aboriginal inmates and invited into the "sweat lodge society."
But while his beloved stage character probably helped ingratiate him with other prisoners, he says it also made him a target for federal drug officers hoping to make an example of him.
"I would be offered (marijuana) by snitches and then I would be drug-tested an hour or two later," says Chong, 70. "It was that obvious. It happened more than once."
"When they arrested me, they thought for sure that I had a lot of prior arrests and they thought I was this pothead idiot, you know. They thought I was my character, basically."
These days, he's promoting another book, "Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Biography." Marin had no part in the project and Chong doubts he's even read it.
"It's a taboo subject with us," Chong says.
Up until a few months ago, tensions were still high, he says, noting one meeting that devolved into a massive argument.
Marin says their troubles have always revolved around who would be in charge, but the time had come to let those grudges go.
"We're at the age that we just don't want to argue anymore," he says, noting recent warm-up shows for the upcoming tour were "amazing."
"So we decided not to have a personality conflict anymore."
Chong and Marin say their new concert will feature the "greatest hits" of their career - spanning seven albums and about 10 films - with standup from Chong.
Chong's wife, Shelby, will open the 90-minute show with her own comedy routine.
There are no plans to make another album, but Marin says there's talk of filming the concerts for a possible DVD release.
The "Cheech and Chong Light Up America and Canada" tour kicks off in Ottawa on Sept. 5, heads to Toronto on Sept. 6, and Vancouver on Dec. 5.
"Thunder" still No. 1 at North American box office
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Action film parody "Tropic Thunder" clung to the top spot at the North American box office for a third straight week as the summer moviegoing season sputtered to a lackluster close, Hollywood studios reported on Sunday.
Paramount Pictures' farcical combat movie within a comedy, starring Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr. and Jack Black, sold an estimated $11.5 million in U.S. and Canadian tickets Friday through Sunday to bring its three-week tally to $83.8 million.
While the final weekend heading into the U.S. Labor Day holiday is typically one of the slowest of the summer, the box office was especially lethargic despite five new films competing for attention in domestic theaters. None of those even managed to even crack the $10 million mark.
"It was an underwhelming end to a phenomenal summer," said Paul Dergarabedian, head of box office tracking service Media By Numbers.
Business also was likely dampened by the approach of Hurricane Gustav along the U.S. Gulf Coast, where many families were too busy boarding up their homes and fleeing to higher ground to go to the movies.
"Tropic Thunder," about a group of self-absorbed actors who get caught up in a real-life battle with narco-terrorists while filming a war movie in Southeast Asia, was the only film to post ticket sales in the double-digit millions.
Its biggest competition came from a real action flick, the sci-fi thriller "Babylon A.D." from 20th Century Fox starring Vin Diesel, which grossed an estimated $9.7 million in its first weekend to land at No. 2.
Blockbuster Batman sequel "The Dark Knight" climbed up a notch on the box office chart to No. 3 with weekend receipts of nearly $8.8 million, pushing its cumulative domestic haul to an estimated $502 million after 45 days in release.
"Dark Knight," a Warner Bros picture, becomes only the second film to cross the $500 million threshold. Two weeks ago, it surpassed "Star Wars" as the second highest grossing movie ever, behind only "Titanic" at $601 million.
Weekend ticket sales as a whole were sluggish, however, down 14 percent from the same period a year ago, as several new films failed to gain traction at the megaplex.
Two comedies opening on Friday, "Disaster Movie" and "College," plus Don Cheadle's thriller "Traitor," which debuted on Wednesday, and "Hamlet 2," a comedy that expanded nationally on Wednesday, grossed just $17.9 combined this weekend.
Together with "Babylon A.D." those films together accounted for $27.6 million in ticket sales, only about $1 million more than the top-grossing movie from last year's same weekend, "Halloween," managed all by itself.
The Labor Day holiday on Monday marks the official conclusion to the 18-week summer film season, which can account for as much as 40 percent of the movie industry's total business for the year.
When final studio figures come in later this week, Hollywood is expected to eke out roughly $4 billion in North American box office receipts, perhaps even slightly exceeding last summer's record $4.18 total.
But with the actual number of admissions down more than 3 percent from a year ago, the gain in revenues is fueled mostly by higher ticket prices.
'Dark Knight' swings past $500 million mark
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Batman's rich alter-ego Bruce Wayne has added half a billion dollars to his riches. "The Dark Knight" on Sunday became the second movie in Hollywood history to top $500 million at the domestic box office, raising its total to $502.4 million, according to estimates from distributor Warner Bros.
The film hit that mark in just over six weeks, half the time it took "Titanic," which reached $500 million in a little more than three months. "Titanic," the biggest modern blockbuster, remains No. 1 on the domestic charts with $600.8 million.
Despite its brisk pace, "The Dark Knight" is not expected to approach the total for "Titanic," which put up smaller numbers week after week but lingered at the top of the box office for months.
Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., said he expects "The Dark Knight" to finish at about $530 million, though it could reach $550 million if business persists as strongly as it has.
"I keep raising the number because it just keeps holding better than expected," Fellman said.
"The Dark Knight" will climb to about $505 million by Labor Day, the conclusion of Hollywood's busy summer season. That amounts to nearly one-eighth of Hollywood's overall summer revenue of $4.2 billion, which edges the previous summer record of $4.18 billion set last year, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.
Factoring in today's higher admission prices, "The Dark Knight" would need to take in about $900 million to match the number of tickets sold by "Titanic."
Labor Day weekend was generally sleepy at theaters, with a rush of new movies failing to find much favor with audiences. Through Sunday, Paramount's comedy "Tropic Thunder" remained No. 1 for the third straight weekend with $11.5 million.
The 20th Century Fox sci-fi thriller "Babylon A.D." with Vin Diesel debuted in second place with $9.7 million, while Overture Films' espionage drama "Traitor," starring Don Cheadle, opened at No. 5 with $7.9 million.
Premiering at No. 7 was Lionsgate's spoof flick "Disaster Movie" with $6.2 million. MGM's campus comedy "College" opened well outside the top 10 with $2.1 million.
The top 12 movies took in $75.2 million, down 23 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Halloween" opened with $26.4 million.
"This is kind of an inauspicious end to a really incredible summer," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. "We limped past the finish line."
Springsteen Ends World Tour At Harley Celebration
MILWAUKEE - Bruce Springsteen ended his world tour over the weekend, toned down but revved up.
Springsteen played more than 30 songs over 3 1/2 hours Saturday night on Milwaukee's lakefront for Harley-Davidson's 105th anniversary celebration. He made few comments between songs.
Only for a few moments before "Livin' in the Future" did the rocker — who often brings his liberal-leaning political comments to the stage — stray into politics.
Springsteen performed to a crowd not unlike the one that gave Republican presidential candidate John McCain a warm welcome Aug. 4 at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. Many roared their motorcycles during McCain's speech.
Springsteen said "Livin' in the Future" was about what was happening now: cheese, Harley-Davidson motorcycles (tailoring it to his Wisconsin crowd), transfats, "500 channels of nothing on" and the Bill of Rights.
But he also mentioned wire tapping and rendition — the secret transport of terror suspects from one country to another.
"Things that basically at the heart are un-American," he said. The crowd gave spattered groans but mostly stayed silent.
He did not play "Born in the U.S.A," his anthem about the difficulties Vietnam war veterans faced, or the anti-war ballad "Devils and Dust" about Iraq.
Springsteen's Saturday performance was his last stop on his tour. His Web site said Springsteen and the E Street Band have performed 100 concerts for more than 2 million fans.
Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson expected more than 100,000 people from around the nation and world to participate in the four-day celebration that officially started Thursday in Milwaukee and its suburbs. It included a parade through the city, a party along the lake, activities at the new Harley-Davidson Museum, a special exhibit at Discovery World and other big-name bands.