One big-budget box office disappointment does not usually signal the end of a movie star's reign. The woeful under performance of Land of the Lost has observers looking for someone to blame, however, and Will Ferrell is under suspicion. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, columnist Patrick Goldstein suggests: "He's in danger of becoming the comedy equivalent of George Clooney, someone who enjoys a great deal of goodwill but who isn't actually a real movie star."

Goldstein doesn't provide his definition of a "real movie star," but in the context of his column, it clearly is all about the ability to open a big tent pole production to big box office numbers. Goldstein claims: "The verdict in Hollywood: Ferrell hasn't done a good job of managing his brand. [Adam] Sandler is the master of dumb hijinks. Eddie Murphy has become a cuddly family star. But who is Will Ferrell? No one knows anymore."

The theory is that Ferrell made his bones playing "the stupid guy" in a string of raunchy comedies (Old School, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) but hasn't been accepted when it's branched out (Melinda and Melinda, Bewitched, Stranger Than Fiction). Ferrell evidently plays another "stupid guy" in Land of the Lost, but it wasn't sufficiently outrageous for the teen/20s crowd, who flocked to The Hangover, and was too potentially scary for families, who returned to Up.

Why did you skip Land of the Lost? Confused by the marketing? Burned out on Will Ferrell? Do you want to see him return to raunchy, R-rated comedies -- like The Hangover? Are Ferrell and George Clooney "real" movie stars?

Though it would never ever happen in a million years (we wish and hope and pray), it's still fun to play around with image software to see what a live-action movie based on the animated TV show The Simpsons would look like if it starred a bunch of today's hottest actors and actresses. Australian graphic artist (and Cinematical reader) Brad Anderson created this project as a way to promote his new graphic design business, and I have to say he did a pretty good job finding celebrity images and then tweaking them to fit the Simpsons mold. Can you guess who is who just from looking at the image above? Go ahead and try, I'll give you a moment ...

Give up?

Here's the cast: Homer (George Clooney), Marge (Cate Blanchett), Bart (Ewan McGregor), Lisa (Reese Witherspoon), Maggie (Jennifer Aniston), Otto (Johnny Depp), Krusty (Vince Vaughn), Ned Flanders (William H. Macy), Moe (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Burns (Willem Dafoe), Millhouse (Dustin Hoffman), Mr. Smithers (Stephen Colbert) and Chief Wiggum (Ricky Gervais). We posted the Simpsons family in the gallery below, along with a larger version of the image up top. Head over to Brad's site to view the rest, and throw this guy some business if you're looking for a graphic designer. For the love of god, he's a Simpsons fanboy! Pay the man!

Overture has acquired the movie The Men Who Stare At Goats, which is based on the awesomely insane non-fiction book by intrepid reporter Jon Ronson. The book is a series of Ronson's investigations into the more bizarre aspects of the Bush administration's military, er, strategies. Like trying to kill goats just by staring at them or control the weather with your mind and, well, basically everything that dude in college who took too much acid was trying to tell you was true.

George Clooney plays the nutty (yet dreamy!) psychic spy Lyn Cassady who claims that he's been "reactivated" after 9/11, and Ewan McGregor is the reporter who investigates Cassady's strange tales. The fictionalized version of Ronson's book sounds a little more madcap than the reporter's tales of torturing suspected terrorists with the Barney theme song for hours, but I can't wait to see Clooney go eye-to-eye with a "de-bleated" goat for hours.

Goats is slated for a December 2009 release.

Ah, another week, another jumble to the calendar -- specifically, to 20th Century Fox's release slate.

According to Box Office Mojo, the studio has moved The Tooth Fairy back from November 13th to next January (because where else are you going to stick a Dwayne-Johnson-as-hockey-player-as-tooth-fairy outing?), and Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox has moved back a week from 11/6 to 11/13 as their choice contender for the family dollar. This now places it right after Disney and Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol (really, the first week of November?) and just before Warners' Cats & Dogs sequel (really, the second movie of Cats & Dogs?).

I'm not sure how much Johnson's recent Race to Witch Mountain cost, but I can't help but think that he'd like to outperform that film's good-not-great $60-ish million gross, and January could be just the grounds to do that in. (Paul Blart: Mall Cop opened within a week of the proposed new date and has raked in... almost $144 million? Yep, over $140 million.) Mr. Fox, on the other hand, is a mainstream proving ground for the ever-quirky Anderson, and with a voice cast that includes George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, and Anjelica Huston, let's hope it has reason to top the $28 million gross of that last animated adaptation of a Roald Dahl book, 1996's James and the Giant Peach.

But of course, none of that matters, because the real news is that Sandra Bullock's apparent psychological thriller rom-com All About Steve has found itself a home on September 4th. Sure, it's a little early in the awards season to stake a claim, but I'll leave the for-your-consideration campaign in their hands...

When it comes to George Clooney's political leanings, I have to tell you, I'm a little conflicted. Does it make me a hypocrite that I cringe whenever most actors wax poetic on the state of the union, but whenever Clooney gets a little high on the horse I tend to give him a pass -- maybe it's because I usually agree with him, or maybe like most of the world, I just can't seem to say no to 'The Clooney'. So while most of Clooney's political fare has been a relatively easy sell, his latest politically charged flick definitely will not fall into that category. Luckily for him, he has found the perfect partner in crime. Variety reports that Clooney has joined forces with Liberal darling Aaron Sorkin to write a script for the film version of Jonathan Mahler's book, The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power.

Clooney is producing under his Smoke House banner, and is reportedly looking to direct and star as the Navy lawyer, Charles Swift. Along with the Georgetown U. law professor Neal Katyal, Swift worked tirelessly to ensure a fair trail for Osama bin Laden's driver, Salim Hamdan. Hamdan was captured back in 2001, and was convicted and sentenced to 5 1/2 years for providing material support to Al-Qaeda after being held at the infamous Guantanamo Bay prison. So even if you don't agree with Clooney and Sorkin's politics -- and I can guarantee that there are a lot of you out there who don't. I'll just be keeping my fingers crossed that The Challenge doesn't keep Sorkin so busy he doesn't have time for that other legal drama we have been hearing so much about.

So where does that leave me with actors and their politics? Plenty has already been said on the subject, so I won't rehash it all here. But while Iraq movies continue to crumble at the box-office, and the only presidents we are willing to dissect are the ones long past. I have to give Clooney credit for his willingness to tackle one hell of an unpopular subject -- don't you?

Seth Rogen's revival of The Green Hornet may not see the light of day. You remember, of course, that Stephen Chow left the director's chair. It was then rumored that he might not even play Kato due to commitments to a Jack Black superhero comedy. Sony was hunting frantically for a director to make that spring shooting schedule, but no replacement has been found.

Now the usually reliable Drew McWeeny of HitFix is reporting what we have long suspected -- that you may be hearing the death knell of the Green Hornet. With Chow dropping out, Sony began to hesitate. Rumors flew at Sundance that the film was dead and McWeeny reports that if it isn't yet, it probably will be soon.

The Green Hornet has been in and out of development for years. George Clooney famously headed up one almost-but-not-quite attempt, as did Kevin Smith. McWeeney notes that "if this particular configuration doesn't happen, then I suspect it never will," which I have to agree with. If Rogen fails, he can at least take some pride that Clooney and Smith failed before him ... but it has to sting (pun not intended), especially after all that physical training he's put in. We'll watch and see what happens -- and I'll be curious if there's more cheering or weeping in the comments.

Sometimes a little patience will be well rewarded. The picture to the right isn't some image from the archives -- it's George Clooney on the ER set. (One of a few you can check out over at Starzlife.)

Last March, word hit that ER would be looking back to past characters, and Clooney could possibly reprise his role as Dr. Doug Ross. Cinematical readers weighed in, and while I was hoping for a rush of love from Facts of Life fans, 58.2% of you wanted to see Clooney return to the emergency room, and your wish has been granted.

There is no word on what sort of storyline Clooney is jumping into, but sleuthing the images has proved one thing: A wedding ring can also be seen in the pictures, which means that Ross is probably still shacked up with wife Carol (Julianna Margulies).

But after Burn After Reading, I can't help but wonder if Ross has the same sort of carpentry-related extracurricular activities that Harry Pfarrer had...

[via Ace Showbiz]

Once again, we're sending some love to our warped friends over at Worth1000 for their latest brilliant photoshop contest. This time they asked readers to take any celebrity and place them in a different time period. So, for example, above you see WALL-E making a cameo in a Charlie Chaplin movie (my personal favorite). Or, you could take, say, Charlie Chaplin and photoshop him into an image from 2009. Get the idea? Folks were all over the place with this one -- from Marilyn Monroe starring in The House Bunny to Casablanca starring George Clooney, Nicole Kidman and Christian Bale, you'll no doubt find some fascinating imagery in this particular contest, even if some of them are just so very wrong. Check out our favorites in the gallery below, and the rest over at Worth 1000.



[via Superpunch]

What does last year's most talked-about teen flick have in common with this year's most talked-about pre-teen flick? Here's a hint: A director and an actress. Yes, Juno director Jason Reitman has finally chosen the female lead for his follow-up flick Up in the Air -- based on Walter Kim's (Thumbsucker) 2001 novel -- and he's chosen none other than Anna Kendrick. Who? Oh wait, I forgot to put this next to her name: Twilight actress Anna Kendrick.

The Hollywood Reporter tells us that Kendrick, who played one of Bella's friends in the poetic vamp tale, beat out other actresses like Emily Blunt and Juno herself, Ellen Page. Go figure! In the film, Kendrick will play "a young woman who finds herself pulled into the orbit of a "career transition counselor" (i.e. professional firer) careening through the airless world of business travel." Oh, and that "career transition counselor" will be played by George Clooney. I haven't seen Twilight, but Kendrick was excellent in the small indie Rocket Science, and from what I remember she's got a sort of Emma Stone thing going on. Ya know, cute, girl-next-door-but-intelligent kinda personality. I dig her. Paramount will shovel it into theaters, but there's currently no word on a release date.

Cinematical had a chance to chat up Jerry Bruckheimer earlier today while in London visiting the set of a really big Disney film that we can't talk much about ... yet. However, while there our small group of dedicated online writers pressed The Bruck on his upcoming projects -- most notably Pirates of the Caribbean 4, The Lone Ranger, and National Treasure 3.

Regarding National Treasure 3 and Pirates 4 (which he says is eying a 2012 release as of right now), those scripts are being worked on as we speak. Of course IMAX and 3-D technology was part of the discussion, and it was not ruled out. Says Bruck, "Absolutely. I'd love to do it, so let's just see if we can work it through the production schedule with everything else." Additionally, while Johnny Depp has officially signed on to star in The Lone Ranger as Tonto, rumors George Clooney snagged the lead role as The Lone Ranger were quickly dismissed by Bruckheimer: "We haven't decided who is going to play the Lone Ranger yet. Get a director first and then figure it out." We'll have so much more from London and from this "really giganto Disney film" at a later date. (And trust me, you will definitely want to read that story.)