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Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs!

Weekend Box Office
“Signs” ran crop circles around the competition to top an unusually strong weekend box office for August.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at North American theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures are to be released Monday.
1. “Signs,” $60.3 million.
2. “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” $32.4 million.
3. “The Master of Disguise,” $13 million.
4. “Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat,” $7.5 million.
5. “Road to Perdition,” $6.6 million.
6. “Stuart Little 2,” $6 million.
7. “Men in Black 2,” $4.7 million.
8. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” $3.01 million.
9 (tie). “K-19: The Widowmaker,” $3 million.
9 (tie). “The Country Bears,” $3 million.

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And look, it is August right now!

Box Office Looks to Heat Up in August
You won’t catch Hollywood studio executives talking about the dog days of August this year.
Continuing the trend of recent summers, several studios will unleash some of their most ferocious box office prospects over the last month of the season. The period is still marked by rampant vacationing among production executives, but is no longer a time for their distribution colleagues to let loose stray poodles on the moviegoing public.
This weekend, Sony unspools “The Master of Disguise,” a Dana Carvey laffer perhaps best described as neither pedigreed pooch nor mutt. But one week later, Sony’s unspools its megahyped actioner “XXX,” starring Vin Diesel.
Disney opens M. Night Shyamalan’s high-profile Mel Gibson starrer “Signs” Friday, and a week later, corporate cousin Miramax bows its big family sequel “Spy Kids 2” on Aug. 9. That same weekend, Warner Bros. debuts the Clint Eastwood starrer “Blood Work,” followed one frame later by the pricey Eddie Murphy picture “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.”
Colliding with “Pluto” will be wide bows by Universal’s much-anticipated surfer girls movie “Blue Crush” and New Line’s Al Pacino starrer “Simone.” The Labor Day session then begins Aug. 30 with at least three wide openers and several expansions by platforming limited releases.
It’s enough to give a vacation-starved distribution executive pause. But most studios have done what they can to position films in their best light.
“We think ‘Simone’ will stand out because the picture is a different sort of comedy,” said New Line distribution president David Tuckerman, whose “Austin Powers in Goldmember” debuted at No. 1 last weekend.
A whimsical tale about a failed director who aims for success with a cyberactress, “Simone” is much more adult-oriented a film than, say, “Goldmember.” Meanwhile, Tuckerman hopes the spy spoof’s laughs will put up a fight for the youth audience against “XXX.”
Over the coming frame, “Goldmember” will knock heads with the Paramount concert documentary ” Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat,” in addition to “Signs” and “Master of Disguise.” Forecasting chances for the Mike Myers starrer this session, Tuckerman estimated, “Anything less than a 50% drop for a picture this big would be good.”
“Goldmember” hunted down $73.1 million in its opening weekend, and daily grosses since then have been equally groovy. The comedy was expected to reach a shagadelic $100 million domestically by the end of its seventh day Thursday — the fastest pace ever for a comedy.
“Signs,” which unspools in 3,264 theaters, looks poised to gross well north of $30 million in its opening frame. That would put it squarely in competition with “Goldmember” for this weekend’s No. 1 spot.
“I’m really jazzed about the picture, and I think it’s going to be a nice cap to our summer,” Disney distribution president Chuck Viane said of “Signs”‘ prospects.
“Master of Disguise,” set for 2,565 playdates, may approach the double-digit millions. And “Martin Lawrence” — scheduled for only 750 engagements keying on urban markets — figures to be good for at least the high single digits.
As for any of the pictures’ prospects over subsequent weekends, much depends on whether “XXX” lives up to expectations. Sony marketing maven Geoff Ammer has sought to push the picture partly by stressing it was directed by Rob Cohen and produced by Neal Moritz, who last collaborated, with Diesel, on 2001 youth hit “The Fast and the Furious.”
“We needed to capitalize on the hugely successful team that brought ‘Fast and the Furious’ to the marketplace,” Ammer said. “But this is also a picture that is much broader than ‘Fast and the Furious.”‘
That would be notable, for as Ammer pointed out, “We’re finding this summer that it’s hard to get somebody over 34 to go to the movies.” Tracking data bode well, with awareness high among prospective patrons.
The marketing campaign has featured lots of action shots for the youth crowd, but also stressed older-appealing cast members like Samuel L. Jackson.
But in the end, there’s only so much to be pulled out of one’s bag of cute marketing tricks, Ammer confessed.
“You don’t want to get so clever that nobody comes to see the picture,” he said.

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Red, black, whatever Jennifer Garner wears is awesome!! Actually, she is awesome!

Mark Steven Johnson explains why Elektra doesn’t wear her traditional red costume in the film adaption of DAREDEVIL.
Miffed with the Elektra black costume? Director Mark Steven Johnson explained things to Wizard a little and gives hope to those who want to see the bandana – “In our movie, Daredevil is already established and his red is intrinsic to his character,” he says. “But Elektra hasn’t turned into an assassin yet-it’s more of an origin story for her. I wanted her costume to be one that would enable her to make that transition from Elektra Natchios into Elektra: Assassin. I wanted her to be able to slip in and out of the shadows in her search for Daredevil, and bright red sashes and headbands wouldn’t allow for that. But in the future, once she’s been established as a cold-blooded killer for his, I’d love to see her costume evolve into that of the comic character”.

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Interesting!

McGregor and Finney Set to Star in Burton’s Latest
Ewan McGregor (EPISODE II) and Albert Finney have agreed to star in Tim Burton’s latest film, BIG FISH. The Columbia film will begin production in Alabama in January with Dan Jinks, Bruce Cohen and Richard D. Zanuck producing. The film is based on Daniel Wallace’s novel BIG FISH: A NOVEL OF MYTHIC PROPORTIONS. Finney will play a dying father whose son is trying to learn more about him. The son tries to recreate the father’s life in legends and myths and few facts that he knows. Through his adventure, the son starts to understand his father’s achievements and failures. McGregor will play a younger version of Finney’s character.

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Scotty Don’t!

Green Sees An End to AUSTIN POWERS
Though “Austin Powers” creator Mike Myers is open to the possibility of more sequels of his spy spoof blockbuster, Seth Green thinks “Goldmember” is a good way to go out.
“It feels to me like this is the end of the movies,” said Green, who plays Dr. Evil’s son Scotty. “It would be a fitting end and I think a satisfying one for audiences. If there were to be some kind of continuation, I would leave that up to Mike to see where we go with it.”
Green says he had to take his role as Doctor Evil’s son seriously so he wouldn’t laugh when he and Myers did their “Scotty Don’t” routine.
“I just decided to really commit to the reality of it,” Green told reporters. “You know, this is my dad and I hate him. And he’s trying to be stupid and make fun of me in front of all these people. And I’m not going to laugh at you because you’re dumb. And coming from that place, it is a little bit easier to not break. And if I found myself laughing, I would just make it into something (like that’s) ‘so stupid, don’t you just see how dumb he is?'”
Green said he was surprised to see his silly dance at the end of “Goldmember” make the final cut.
“That was not intended for public consumption,” he explained. “If you watch the movie, you can actually see where the real scene ends: A close-up with me falling out of chair was supposed to happen.
“I was just doing something silly for the gag reel. I come into ADR and (director) Jay (Roach) goes, ‘You remember that dance you did?’ and I said, ‘The dance I did? The gag reel thing?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah. Yeah, we made that the end of the movie.’ And I was just horrified, horrified.”
“Austin Powers in Goldmember,” the second sequel about the toothy, oversexed spy, collected nearly $73 million to set a weekend debut record for a comedy film.

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Thats who he looks like!

Austin roasts Opie ó by accident
Austin Powers in Goldmember is so loaded with gags that audiences drown many out. But one joke is getting extra, unintended, laughs.
As Scott Evil (Seth Green) begins to live up to his last name in the new spy spoof, he loses more and more of his red hair, more closely resembling his villainous bald dad, Dr. Evil (Mike Myers). That’s the joke. But plenty of people are getting a second laugh when they realize that Scott’s comb-over makes him look just like director Ron Howard.
“All the press has mentioned it,” says Green, referring to reporters who saw advance screenings. “But it wasn’t intentional.”
Myers is loving it. “It is the most hilarious, inaccurate conclusion that I’ve ever heard in my life,” he says. “We just wanted to have a funny device to illustrate the idea that he was turning into his father.”
Howard, whose brother Clint is in Goldmember and whose business partner is producing Myers’ movie The Cat in the Hat, hasn’t seen the film. If Myers says it’s not intentional, says a spokesman, Howard has no complaint.

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A different Bruce story!

Carrey to Play Reporter in Comedy
Actor Jim Carrey will play a disconsolate TV reporter in the upcoming comedy, “Bruce Almighty,” which will be shot on location in Buffalo and Niagara Falls in September.
Carrey’s character, Bruce, exasperates God with his constant grousing to the point where he’s given the chance to run the universe for a day.
Director Tom Shadyac, who also directed Carrey, 40, in “Liar Liar” and “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” said the actor watched Buffalo TV stations while growing up across the border in Canada and learned everything he needed to know for his role from local news broadcasts.

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Will There Be an Austin Powers 4?

Myers and Roach Talk AUSTIN POWERS 4
Nooo, baby! That’s what director Jay Roach says when asked if “Goldmember” is really the last “Austin Powers” movie. “Yeah, it’s true that it’s been reported that ‘Goldmember’ is the last in the series,” says Roach. “But I’ll tell you that halfway through production of this film, Mike Myers and I looked at each other and said, ‘What about Austin Powers 4?’ ”
Plot ideas? “Mike and I said, ‘Hmmm, what if Dr. Evil goes into the future? I had ideas and Mike has a billion characters in his head.
“Suddenly, we were saying, ‘What about Austin Powers in space?’ ” And one more idea that could happen? “I have an idea for a prequel,” Roach says. “You’ll see Dr. Evil as the ultimate cold warrior guy and, meanwhile, Austin Powers launches the British invasion.”
Another shagadelic detail about the movie with the $71.5 million mojo at the box office this weekend: Getting Ozzy Osbourne and family for a cameo was rough. “It was a complex deal and happened at the last minute,” Roach says. “Ozzy and Sharon didn’t know if they wanted to do it until the last minute. We needed five hours from them. They gave us one. But they did it because they love Mike Myers who [was on the set] the day we shot their cameo even though he wasn’t in the scene. Mike just stood there off-camera talking to their dogs and helping the Osbournes feel good about themselves.”
PS: The actual shoot will be featured in the new season of “The Osbournes” on MTV.
And Dark Horizons had this from Mike Myers:
Mike Myers talked with ITV the other day about the possibility of another comedy adventure: “I would love to do more, Jay and I were apprehensive about doing a 3rd, then we felt that we had a good idea, we had a great time doing it, the response has been awesome, weíve loved this whole experience. I think now we would love to do a 4th one, I donít have an idea yet so if I come up with an idea – then yeahÖI had so much fun”.

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Awesome idea!

UNBREAKABLE 2 a Possibilty
Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan told SCI FI Wire that he originally wanted to do a sequel to his superhero film Unbreakable, but thought better of it when critics and audiences reacted lukewarmly to the movie. “I would have, but I just didn’t feel enough love,” Shyamalan said in an interview while promoting his next movie, Signs. “That’s the true answer. Most people won’t give you the true answer. I just didn’t feel enough love.”
Shyamalan added that he was a bit surprised by the negative reaction to the movie, which starred Bruce Willis as a reluctant hero. “I was mostly surprised at the lack of the acknowledgment of what at least we aspired to do, [which] was to do the classy, non-fighting [non-Green-] Goblins-on-the-roof version [of a comic-book story]. Spider-Man was the goblins on the roof. I liked Spider-Man a lot. And my favorite part of it was the first hour, again, becoming Spider-Man. That’s what I like, and that’s what I wanted to make a movie of. And yeah, I have other ideas for Mr. Glass [Samuel L. Jackson] and Bruce’s character, but … .”
Asked if he might be persuaded to do a sequel, Shyamalan said, “I don’t know. There’s a lot of [fans], like when we had the first screening of Signs, these Unbreakable fanatics came out in force. And I was like, wow. They all came out. They came out with the DVDs and the posters. I was like, holy moley. And there was one Sixth Sense DVD there. And everybody else was Unbreakable. And I was like, wow. I guess there is a little cult thing going on. But that was really sweet. I don’t know. I don’t know. Maybe.” Signs, which stars Mel Gibson as a man who must deal with crop circles on his family farm, opens Aug. 2.

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