Hey all. Tommy here, pinch-hitting for regular box-office soothsayer Patricia, who is off battling near-sub-zero temperatures in Park City, Utah, to attend the Sundance Film Festival this week.

So here's what's happening this weekend at the box office. In the wake of the Golden Globes and in anticipation of this coming Tuesday's Academy Award nominations, a slew of Oscar contenders (most of which were released in 2006) are expanding to more theaters. These include Golden Globe Best Picture winner 'Babel,' the critically acclaimed 'The Queen,' the enthralling adult fairy tale 'Pan's Labyrinth,' Clint Eastwood's other World War II flick 'Letters From Iwo Jima,' the powerful indie 'The Last King of Scotland' and the Edward Norton period drama 'The Painted Veil.' Alas, despite their lofty aspirations and high caliber, these almost-sure-to-be-nominated flicks will get crushed -- and I mean crushed with AUTHORITY -- by this week's only new wide release 'The Hitcher.'

Despite its R-rating, 'The Hitcher' appeals to that primal desire in a large group of moviegoers to watch a beauitful scantily clad woman (in this case Sophia Bush) flee from an eerie-looking -- and clearly deranged -- dude (in this case Sean Bean) who likes to thumb rides in the rain and then end the lives of his car-pool "buddies." Prediction: 'The Hitcher' will be riding solo atop the box office come Sunday.

Prediction deadline: Saturday at noon

1. The Hitcher
2. Stomp the Yard
3. Night at the Museum
4. Dreamgirls
5. Pursuit of Happyness

POST: What's your weekend top five prediction?

POST: What do you think of these movies?

It strikes me a little funny that despite a long and varied career in the English film industry, Sean Bean has pretty much been relegated to the "British baddie" role in Hollywood movies. Well, that and the occasional so-so horror flick.

Solace in Cinema reported on a new trailer for Bean's latest film, Outlaws. The movie was directed by Nick Love, and is about a British military man (Bean) who returns home and bands together with some local malcontents to form a vigilante group. The local heroes then set out to solve society's ills. If you have seen Love's The Football Factory, you know Love isn't necessarily a fan of slow-paced introspective character studies. So don't expect these guys to organize grass-roots political action: It's all pipe bombs and ski masks. Rounding out the cast is Bob Hoskins as a policeman sympathetic to their cause that begins to supply them with what he considers to be some well-deserved targets.

The web site for the film promises a UK release date of March 9th, but as of yet there hasn't been any mention of any North American release. So until then, it's back to bad guys for Bean when The Hitcher hits theaters later this month.

[via JoBlo.com]

Just because everyone here at Cinematical loves The Hitcher, that hasn't stopped us from covering the hell out of the upcoming remake -- which is now opening on January 19th, just so you know. My take on remakes is simply this: Some of 'em work, most of 'em don't, and none of 'em can take the shine off a really classic flick. And while Joe & Jane Movierenter might know nothing of The Hitcher, that hasn't prevented the flick from becoming a cult classic genre flick of the highest caliber. Hell, even my mother loves The Hitcher, and she usually watches movies starring Sally Struthers and/or Lindsay Wagner.

So yeah, the remake is afoot. And if you can get this new-fangled doo-dad over at MSN to give up its wares, you can finally settle in and watch the all-new trailer for Platinum Dunes' new and improved The Hitcher. I think I've been pretty even-tempered toward this project so far, but I gotta say the trailer does next to nothing for me. Aside from the prospect of seeing Sean Bean play a psycho (which he's never done before), I feel rather ambivalent about the new Hitcher. Disinterested, one might say, but I've been wrong before.

Just so you know the score, the original was written by Eric Red and directed by Robert Harmon. The remake comes from screenwriter Jake Wade Wall and director Dave Meyers. The shrieking screamers, previously played by C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh, will now be portrayed by Zachary Knighton and Sophia Bush. And I'm sorry but, as cool as Sean Bean is (and he really is a very reliable and watchable character actor), nothing will be able to match what Rutger Hauer did with the role back in 1986. (According to completely fabricated rumors that I just now made up, Mr. Hauer actually killed 17 real motorists while preparing for the role of The Hitcher.)

[Thanks to BD for the tip!]

I know, I know: You freakin' love The Hitcher and you've been sick to your stomach ever since the remake got green-lit. But the flick is coming whether you want it or not (on February 7th, to be precise), and now we have certifiable visual evidence that this new-fangled version of The Hitcher is almost ready to roll. So here are the pics that a lovely publicist just sent me:



And that's pretty much all we have so far. As a re-cap, I'll remind you that The Hitcher comes from Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes outfit, is being directed by music video mega-pro Dave Meyers (from a screenplay by Eric (Highlander: Endgame) Bernt and Jake Wade (When a Stranger Calls) Wall), and stars the likes of Zachary Knighton, Sophia Bush and Sean Bean as the hitchhiker your mom warned you about. Repeatedly. Recap of the Platinum Dunes output so far: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, the Amityville Horror remake and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake prequel. You dole out the grades.

When National Treasure hit the screens (in a big way) in late 2004, everyone and their symbologist grandmothers were scrambling over each other to dub it a blatant rip-off of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. But now that we can look back to the starchy disappointment that was Da Vinci Code: The Movie, all of a sudden National Treasure doesn't look so silly. I know I didn't think much of the flick upon my initial visit, but it's managed to grow on me just a little bit since then. (Plus a good portion of it was shot in Philadelphia, so it can't be all bad.)

Anyway, you know where I'm going with this: National Treasure 2 is about to get underway, complete with the entire cast (Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel) but minus Sean Bean, presumably because Jerry Bruckheimer thinks it's time for a colorful new villain. Cool. The plot for the sequel is being kept under wraps, but director Jon Turteltaub dropped a hint regarding "Mount Rushmore," a location that might be able to lend itself to quality cinema.

Whether or not National Treasure 2 qualifies as "quality cinema" is up to you; the flick should be ready by late 2007.

Bean Beats Up Girlfriend!

Apparently, Sean Bean, who plays villain in National Treasure, is having a hard time letting go of the evil characters he takes on. While staying at a luxury hotel with his 28-year-old girlfriend, the two reportedly got drunk, then proceeded to kick the crap out of one another. The booze-fueled fight was so vicious, both were left bloody and bruised. Bean, who is currently starring in a re-make of The Hitcher, was stunned to find out he was bleeding and claimed the lady attacked him. Hmm, perhaps he's just trying to frame the girl for a crime he committed? The Hitcher? Bloody fight? Blame falls on the girl? Something about this whole thing feels familiar, though I can't seem to put my finger on it.

Colin Farrell Stalked on Live TV!

Now, this is the way you stalk someone. During a taping of The Tonight Show, a woman from the audience simply walked on stage in an attempt to speak with Colin Farrell, who was in the middle of his interview with Jay Leno. Farrell, who was on the show promoting his upcoming film Miami Vice, was forced to do some police work of his own. As the woman moved closer, Farrell quickly jumped up, grabbed her by the arm, instructed the cameras be shut down and escorted his stalker off stage. Apparently, this same woman tried to file a lawsuit against Farrell, claiming he was stalking her. Hey, how come I don't have a stalker? The whole thing sounds like so much fun!

Haley Was Drunk!

Wow, looks like Haley Joel Osment's car wasn't the only thing wrecked in a serious car crash the other day. After losing control of his 1995 Saturn, smashing it into a brick pillar and flipping over, Osment was rushed to the UCLA Medical Center where, currently, he's in pretty good condition. However, police are now saying they believe the teen actor may have been under the influence of alcohol, though the results of a blood test will not be ready for another three weeks. Drunk driving? Say it ain't so Haley! And here I thought you had a good five more years before rehab came knocking. I'm saddened. That said, part of me wants to buy Haley a drink to congratulate him for flipping his car over and still managing to survive.

Back when the news came out about the cast for the Hitcher remake, I lamented the fact that Sean Bean has somehow turned into the foreign guy that Hollywood tends to cast as a heavy in pretty much anything (either that or he's a really boring, barely-written token male), a tendency that is very much at odds with both his early career and a lot of the TV work he does in England. Well, today comes news that he's been cast in a part that might actually allow him to, you know, act a little bit -- hooray!

Variety is reporting that Bean and fellow Brit Tilda Swinton will play the leads in Come Like Shadows, and independently-financed project being produced by the WB-based Milk & One Sugar. The film is a version of the Macbeth story that, while it will be set during an appropriate time, is expected to be (and this is where things get a little wonky) "user-friendly to a contemporary audience." God only knows what that means, but it makes me a little nervous, just because we can handle Shakespeare that isn't dumbed down, dammit! For Bean, the gig is a return to Macbeth -- he played the role on stage in London three years ago.

Both Steven Soderbergh and Luc Besson are involved in the film as well (the former will executive produce, and post-production will take place in Besson's EuropaCorp facilities), which makes it sound like it might be sort of big and shiny and, just maybe, good. Production begins this fall in Scotland; director will be John Maybury.

Whenever a new horror remake begins production, I get this huge dose of inner turmoil that's actually quite sad and geeky. On one hand ... why freakin' remake The Hitcher??? On the other ... it could be good! Plus, truth be told, if a producer came to me and said "Go on, here's a check. Remake a horror flick," you can bet your gills that "Scott Weinberg's Humanoids from the Deep" would be hitting your multiplex next summer. So there's that ...

Anyway, through the magic of a Rogue Pictures press release, we now have the pretty-full skinny on what to expect from Platinum Dunes' re-imaginivisadaptaion of Robert Harmon & Eric Red's The Hitcher. Relative newcomer Zachary Knighton* will be stepping into the C. Thomas Howell role, joining Sophia Bush (in the Jennifer Jason Leigh role, only this time she's a college kid and not a waitress) and Sean Boromir Bean in the villainous role made infamous by the feral Rutger Hauer.

Screenplay by Eric Bernt (Highlander: Endgame) & Jake Wade Wall (When a Stranger Calls); director Dave Meyers is a first-timer, unless you count the 1999 flick Foolish, which Mr. Meyers would probably prefer you didn't.

Plus there have been some rumors that Hauer himself would make an appearance somewhere in the flick, which might be fun. Or it might not. Ah yeah, the *asterisk* ... Zachary Knighton is someone you might recognize from TV's Life on a Stick, Related, or Love, Inc. Or you might not.

A couple of weeks ago when Sean Bean was cast in A Woman of No Importance, I mentioned how nice it was to see him in a non-glowering role, at least on this side of the Atlantic. The guy really got his start as a romantic lead, and has done a lot of great work in the same vein for British TV. Over here, though, ever since Jack Ryan killed his baby brother, it's been hard for him (apart from when he's hobnobbing with hobbits) to play anything but a baddie. And it looks like our Sean actually gets antsy when he's not making somebody's movie life miserable, because he's going back to his villainous Hollywood roots with a doozy: Bean is taking over for Rutger Hauer in the upcoming remake of The Hitcher. 

A stroll around the internets suggests that, in something of a miracle for a remake, fans are thrilled by this casting news -- hey, if nothing else, Bean's got the same color hair as Hauer, right? What say you, Hitcher fans: Is Bean the right guy to scare the bejesus out of Sophia Bush?

The latest in casting news from Cannes:

• Laura Dern has joined the cast of Tenderness, the Russell Crowe-starring indie flick we told you about last month. The movie takes on the unsettling subject of a teenage serial killer and his romantic entanglement with a damaged runaway girl. Crowe plays a cop who tries to figure the kid out; it's not clear what role Dern will play. The movie begins shooting this week in New York.

• Sean Mathias is directing Colossus, based on Ann Harries' Manly Pursuits, a novel about the Boer War. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film's scored a pretty impressive cast, considering that its budget is a relatively small $15 million: Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, Ian McKellen and Susan Sarandon are all on-board. Though it's not yet been announced which roles the stars will play, the movie "tells of ailing arch-colonist Cecil Rhodes' [probably McKellen] belief that he can only recover his health if he can hear the sound of English song birds outside his window in Cape Town." Get this: Someone is sent from England with 500 freaking songbirds. When he gets there, he falls in love and decides he needs to stop the Boer War from happening. Ah, if only all men in love would immediately resolve to end wars -- what a lovely world this would be.
  

• Oscar Wilde is coming back to the big screen, this time in the hands of Janusz Kaminski, who is directing an adaptation of A Woman of No Importance. Set to begin filming this fall, the movie is about "an ambitious young man, Gerald Arbuthnot, who introduces his prospective employer, Lord Illingworth, to his mother." Because this is Wilde, it turns out the man has a bit of a history with the mother, and in fact is Gerald's dad. Oops. Set to star in the film are Annette Bening, the ubiquitous Lindsay Lohan and the under-appreciated Sean Bean. Thank the lord someone is letting Bean do something funny -- he's been sporting a macho glower for, like, two decades.