Family Films »

"Damn the Gods"? Nah, more like "Damn the Suits" who opted to give Clash of the Titans a 3-D upgrade in the wake of Avatar's popularity, unaware or unfazed by the fact that A) that film was actually shot for 3-D, not just given layers in post-production, and B) that film didn't succeed massively because of star Sam Worthington (no offense, fella).

So Warner Bros. has bought themselves a week, moving Clash back from March 26th to April 2nd in order to capitalize on Easter weekend and give How to Train Your Dragon a whopping week before squeezing in on its 3-D screens. This move has left other studios to scramble to avoid competition (or fill the gap left behind), and so far as B.O.M. is concerned, here's how things have settled at the moment:

• Fox's family-friendly Diary of a Wimpy Kid has moved to March 19th from 4/2
• Universal's sci-fi actioner, Repo Men, has moved to March 19th from 4/2
• MGM's raunchy romp, Hot Tub Time Machine, has moved to March 26th from 3/19
• Disney's Nicholas Sparks/Miley Cyrus vehicle, The Last Song, opens on March 31 instead of 4/2
• Summit's kiddie comedy, Furry Vengeance, has moved to April 30th from 4/2

In an unrelated move, Screen Gems' Takers (which was supposed to open this month once upon a time) has moved to August 20th, instead of going right up against Universal's Robin Hood in mid-May. They may be thieves, but they ain't about to steal money from Russell Crowe, believe me you.

Disney has never made a film it didn't want to return to at least once or twice, and (usually) spin off into direct-to-DVD sequels. The latest to receive a Mouse House double dip is Enchanted, and Variety reports the film has already attracted Anne Fletcher to the director's chair. Jessie Nelson will pen the script. At this point, none of the original actors are signed to return, though Disney is hoping they'll all sign on for a sequel.

I absolutely loved the original Enchanted. It was delightfully self-aware for a Disney film, and yet it wasn't slick or modern enough to lose any heart. As romantic comedies go, it's a pretty empowering one for females of all ages. Giselle fights a dragon, finds her own willpower, and starts her own business. She could survive just fine without Patrick Dempsey. I love it. It's just one of the sweetest, funniest movies I've seen, especially from Disney.

I see no reason for a sequel. The point of Enchanted (and any fairy tale, modern or medieval) is that it ends happily ever That's it! They've overcome their drawbridges and dragons, and now they get to chill out. This is what Shrek failed to grasp a dozen times over, and what Ever After miraculously dodged. Considering Fletcher's uneven resume (The Proposal, 27 Dresses), one assume they'll undo "happily ever after" and force Giselle to make some traumatic choice between New York and Andalasia. Perhaps Dempsey will get to save her, just to even things up. Whatever they cook up, it's just an unnecessary twist for a feel good movie.

"Have fun."

I'd forgotten those two words of blessing passed on from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson during the first five minutes of 2003's The Rundown until I re-watched it last night. They pass each other in a nightclub, Schwarzenegger making a last-minute cinematic pit-stop on his way to the California Governor's office, and The Rock on his way out of the WWE's squared circle and into movie stardom.

It was obviously supposed to be a symbolic passing of the torch, from the last generation's action superstar to the young up-and-comer, but what went wrong? The Rock has only done two action films since then (Walking Tall and Doom, which he wasn't even the star of), and has instead spent most of his career in comedies (Be Cool, Get Smart) or family fare (Planet 51, Race to Witch Mountain, The Gameplan).

Right now, the former pro wrestler can be seen in the high-concept (and lukewarmly reviewed) comedy The Tooth Fairy as a hockey player who gains magical abilities and fairy wings to place quarters under the pillows of toothless children. His next film is Adam McKay's latest Will Farrell comedy The Other Guys. Where's the next generation Schwarzenegger we were hoping for?

Two weeks ago, we heard news that a pregnancy guidebook, What to Expect When You're Expecting, is being turned into a film. In my response, I predicted that we'd also eventually get an adaptation of the book's sequel, What to Expect: The First Year. But now it seems someone will beat Lionsgate to the punch on that idea, because DreamWorks is already developing a movie based on a parenting guide.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio bought the rights to an upcoming book called Eat, Sleep, Poop: A Common Sense Guide to Your Baby's First Year. The guide will be adapted by Four Christmases scribes Matt Allen and Caleb Wilson as a comedy (as opposed to a horror film, which some of us might presume it to be). And just so you know, this has some prestige attached: three-time Oscar-nominee Walter F. Parkes (Awakenings) is producing with Laurie MacDonald (The Ring).

Like What to Expect, this has franchise potential. Pediatrician Scott W. Cohen, who wrote Eat, Sleep, Poop, plans to continue with a series of follow-up books. The first book comes out of his experience raising a child of his own, which drastically changed the way he practices his profession. So it seems the film's plot could come more out of Cohen's story than from impersonal instructional steps, as What to Expect appears to be doing.

MacGruber
I had hoped that we as a society had gotten past the idea that a good movie can be made from a Saturday Night Live sketch. Yes, we have The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World in the plus column, but on the flip side we also have turkeys like Superstar, A Night at the Roxbury, It's Pat and god knows how many others. While there were a few minor laughs in this red band trailer, I'm pretty sure MacGruber, Will Forte's MacGyver parody, will fall into the latter category. We'll find out for sure on April 23.

Happy Tears
Comedy drama starring Demi Moore and Parker Posey as sisters who must care for their father (Rip Torn) now that his health has taken a turn for the worse. This one is from the director of Teeth. Posey is worth seeing in just about anything and the rest of the cast is pretty good too. This will be out sometime in February.

Cyrus
No, this is not the long-awaited Miley Cyrus biopic. John C. Reilly plays a man who has finally found true love in a woman played by Marisa Tomei. The conflict comes in the form of her creepy son played by Jonah Hill. Looks like this could be pretty funny. No release date yet.

By all accounts, Tooth Fairy is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's last family film for a while, which means that yours truly and the rest of the fans of The Rundown will hopefully soon see this decade's definitive action star soon kick ass again. As heir apparent to the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone both in terms of physique and personal charm, he has understandably detoured into projects that introduce him to different audiences -- as they did. But because of the rabid energy of contemporary fandom, 360 degree stardom seems more threatening now than it did then, if only because it takes our heroes away from us and gives them to someone else, at least temporarily; meanwhile, Johnson's particular efforts to curry fandom from the pre-teen set have thus far been lackluster at best, even if there's something strangely charming about him gamely sending up his own tough-guy image.

Tooth Fairy is the latest in his recent line of family comedies, and like its predecessors, it's a mediocre but largely inoffensive chapter in Johnson's crusade to charm kids. He plays Derek, a hockey player sentenced to serve time as a real tooth fairy after attempting to crush the imagination of his girlfriend Carly's (Ashley Judd) daughter. Slowly discovering the value of wondering "what if," Derek slowly blossoms into a buff barterer of bicuspids, but finds his own dreams dissolving when a prodigious newcomer named Mick (Ryan Sheckler) threatens to overshadow him out on the ice. Ultimately, it takes a domineering full-time fairy named Lily (Julie Andrews), a wannabe tooth–taking pencil-pusher named Tracy (Stephen Merchant), and the fairies' Q-like inventor Jerry (Billy Crystal) to push, prod and provoke Derek into becoming the best tooth fairy possible, hopefully in the process inspiring him to excellence elsewhere.

I'm sure all you wanting to see The Rock yuk it up as the Tooth Fairy will be rushing out to theaters this weekend to see The Tooth Fairy. But what if you waited until it arrived on DVD, or what if you're not paying attention and think it's already out on DVD, and you accidentally picked up Chuck Bowman's 2006 horror flick The Tooth Fairy? Your kids might be scarred for life when you put the thing in the family DVD player and instead of being delighted by the antics of a former wrestler wearing prop wings, they're introduced to a scary witch that kills children for their molars and incisors. The idea of these two very different films has me inspired to pitch a "vs." film titled...

Tooth Fairy vs. Tooth Fairy

You've seen Freddy vs. Jason and Aliens vs. Predator and hoped for further "vs." films pitting your favorite monsters and serial killers against each other. But why must these films only involve two baddies battling each other? Why not a family film hero vs. a horror villain? Because horror fans don't like family films and families don't watch scary movies? Well, this movie could compromise the genres and bring the two audiences together for increased box office worth.

He's a master of the crime drama, but one of things that makes Martin Scorsese truly great is his diversity as a director. For his next project, he's tackling a number of genres he's never done before, all in one film -- a science-fiction/fantasy historical fiction family adventure based on the Caldecott award-winning children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Described by author/illustrator Brian Selznick as "not a exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things", the massive book chronicles the life of street orphan Hugo, a young boy living in a Paris train station at the turn of the twentieth century. Hugo is obsessed with finishing work on a mechanical man that his late father discovered, while keeping his obsession a secret.

Selznick was inspired in large part by the films of George Melies, and the fact that Melies himself collected turn-of-the-century automatons. Expect to hear some casting news very soon -- Scorsese is scheduled to start shooting in June from a screenplay by John Logan (The Aviator).

(via Variety)

As it turns out, Michael Bay will not be directing an adaptation of the upcoming young adult sci-fi novel I Am Number Four, which he bought the rights to last summer. Instead, Heat Vision reports that D.J. Caruso, best known for his Shia LaBeouf-headed Hitchcock homages Disturbia and Eagle Eye, will be at the helm. Sadly for comic book fans, this does mean another obstacle in the way of Caruso's long-planned film of Y the Last Man.

But those of us who are fans of Jon Cryer's '80s classic Hiding Out can rejoice with this news. Because if you are indeed a fan of Hiding Out, it's probable that you'd also enjoy a science fiction version of the movie -- even one that's unofficially so. See, I Am Number Four, which was written by James Frey (of A Million Little Pieces infamy) and Joby Hughes, is about a group of aliens who escape their planet just before it's destroyed by other aliens and head to Earth. The title character (that'd be "Number Four") does his hiding out as a high school student.