According to early estimates from Box Office Mojo, this summer's second big-budgeted extravaganza failed to pick up more than $20 million at the box office this weekend, with the poorly-reviewed comedy What Happens in Vegas finishing right behind in third. Of course, Iron Man took the top spot for a second week in a row with roughly $50 million, while Speed Racer -- which some projected to take home at least $30-40 million -- came in second with $20.2 million, as What Happens in Vegas slid into third with $20 million. Rounding out the top five were Made of Honor ($7.6 million) and Baby Mama ($5.7 million).

So what happened to Speed Racer? Part of the reason had to do with its targeted audience, which, supposedly, was kids, though kids weren't very familiar with the cartoon the film was based on. That, and the flick clocked in at over two hours -- a running time that's been mentioned a lot this weekend, as well as one that's way too long for a PG-rated kiddie adventure. That said, its PG-rating scared away those adults who grew up with the cartoon; people who, most likely, were looking for something a bit more skewed toward adults (especially when Iron Man came out the weekend before and kicked a whole lot of ass). Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure we can rule out that Speed Racer franchise at this point.

Coupla questions for ya: Why do you think Speed Racer failed to power across the finish line in spectacular fashion? Also, what happens to the Wachowski Brothers now? Will folks think twice before giving them $150 million and free reign?

Here's where I get confused: If you knew a pair of people like the characters played by Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in the new feature-length sitcom pilot What Happens in Vegas, you'd probably hate them. Undoubtedly, in real life, you'd want to punch / mock / immediately walk away from people so outrageously stupid, selfish, and insufferable. So here's my question: Why would you actually PAY for the experience of meeting two such woeful and worthless people? It's not like there's much upside for you...

Pre-packaged movie star detritus of the most inane order, What Happens in Vegas offers an I Love Lucy premise, an Odd Couple leading duo, and a Three's Company screenplay. (I mean, like, season five Three's Company, when you could spot the flaccid punch-lines the split-second the set-up is delivered.) It's not like I went in gunning for the flick, because I happen to think that A) Ashton Kutcher is a fairly funny guy, B) Cameron Diaz is still (often) a generally appealing movie star, and C) "high concept" comedy can sometimes make for one colorful and energetic night at the cinema -- but I've been to writing seminars that offer more humor, creativity, and cleverness than what's on display here. And trust me, writing seminars have none of those things.

I knew I was being a little conservative on my $62 million prediction for Iron Man, but HOLY JEEZ! The comic book adaptation had the tenth highest opening weekend in history, and the second biggest for a non-sequel. In addition to the $98.6 million Marvel's armored avenger made domestically, he also pulled in $96.8 million overseas, putting the $140 million budgeted film comfortably into the black. Last week's other newbie Made of Honor took second with a comparatively reserved but still respectable $14.7 million. Here's the rundown:

1. Iron Man: $98.6 million
2. Made of Honor: $14.7 million
3. Baby Mama: $10 million
4. Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: $6.1 million
5. Forgetting Sarah Marshall: $6 million

Again, just two new ones this week:

Speed Racer
What's It All About: Andy and Larry Wachowski, the team behind the Matrix trilogy, adapt the classic 60's anime Speed Racer using a visual style reminiscent of Japanese animation melded with a modern video game aesthetic.
Why It Might Do Well: The trailer was amazing, and Cinematical's own James Rocchi describes the film as "a blast of pure pop family fun" in his review, which you can read right here.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The 40% rating on Rottentomatoes.com suggests this one may have trouble knocking Iron Man out of first place.
Number of Theaters: 3,600
Prediction: $43 million

That picture up there is the official one-sheet for the upcoming romcom What Happens in Vegas. If we went by this poster, the movie looks like one of those cheek-pinchingly happy romcoms full of Vegas weddings and matrimonial bliss. But this is the movie where Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher fall to the huge Las Vegas cliche -- hitting Sin City to forget their problems, while getting drunk and getting married.

The twist -- they play a slot machine as they decide to dissolve the marriage and win $3 million, so splitting up isn't so easy. They're sentenced to 6 months of "hard marriage" by a judge who freezes their winnings. It's just so romantic! Both of them act like asses to the other, and then, oh my god, they realize that they're meant to be! They fall for each other! Yeah, I'm being really hard on this, but c'mon -- Ashton is notorious for his bad romcoms, and the trailer is just a melange of stereotypes and over-done jokes that doesn't seem to offer anything fresh. Cameron and Ashton get hitched on May 9.

What do you think?

Drunk, hammered, stoned, in the groove... Whatever you care to call it, today's trailers are about being in a chemically altered state.

What Happens in Vegas
I really liked Ashton Kutcher in The Butterfly Effect and I thought he was funny in That 70s Show. Why then does everything else he does make me cringe so? Kutcher and Cameron Diaz play a pair of strangers who have a night of fun together in Vegas and wake up the next day with screaming hangovers and wedding rings. The plan for a quick and simple divorce is complicated when the two win $3 million together. This romantic comedy looks utterly predictable and downright irritating. Dennis Miller is an interesting choice as the judge who sentences the two a period of actual matrimony before they are allowed a divorce. The day this hits theaters I think I'll be busy washing my hair, despite being bald as a plucked chicken.

Animals
This one makes the list today because, as I recall from the book, the story is propelled by a drunken tryst. I had a modest amount of anticipation for this one. I wasn't crazy about the novel Animals, but it was written by John Skipp and Craig Spector, two wunderkind of the late 80's splatterpunk movement -- a style of horror fiction that favors the extreme. I would have thought some of Skipp and Spector's other books like The Light at the End or The Cleanup would have made a better choice for adaptation. That said, Naveen Andrews looks like he'll make a decent lycanthrope, and the oddly hairless werewolves you see in the trailer are surprisingly cool looking. There hasn't been a decent werewolf flick in awhile, so maybe we're due.

Just after Christmas last year, Erik Davis threw up a still from What Happens in Vegas, the new movie starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. The romcom is about two people who fall into the typical cliche -- they've both had some problems in their lives, so they go to Las Vegas to blow off steam. There, they meet, get trashed, and get married. However, this time around, there's a big catch. Just as they're about to part ways and hunt down someone who can get them an annulment, they win $3 million. A judge then freezes their money and sentences them to, well, their marriage. Following the usual romcom rules, the two despise and torment each other, yet grow to love one another.

I'm betting this isn't one of those films that's going to go very far. (Because I Said So!) It will probably pull in a decent chunk of change right away and then fizzle off quickly, unless the big laughs aren't being shown in the trailer, which was just posted on the film's official website.

The one bit of this that I actually enjoyed -- a scene of Kutcher urinating into a sink. However, my appreciation of that scene wasn't because it was funny, but because I once knew a guy who would relieve himself in basement utility sinks rather than use the bathroom in the middle of the night and risk waking anyone up. But that's just my experience...I hope.

[via JoBlo]

If it wasn't for those Shiny Happy Fabio followers, comedian Zach Galifianakis would've stopped Bubble Boy before his journey even began. (He was the ankle-weight-wearing bus dude who wouldn't give the kid a nice, cheap discount.) Since then, he's been a hacker, a homeless man, Santa, a friend of time-traveling Tru, and taught a certain kid about hunting Into the Wild -- just to name a few. Now he's got two more roles on the way, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

One of the roles will be in Tom Vaughn's What Happens in Vegas. He's going to play "Dave the Bear," Jack's (Ashton Kutcher) anti-marriage best friend who is less than happy when Jack marries Joy (Cameron Diaz) during a drunken night in Vegas. As I told you when news broke on the project, the pair get hitched and then undermine each other to get the big payout they win in Vegas. I imagine the Bear will plot against the aptly-named Joy, as THR says he's playing her nemesis.

For role number two, Galifianakis is going to get scientific by starring in the Disney/Bruckheimer flick, G-Force. His role is that of "the lead government scientist in charge of a guinea pig commando program, helping [to] send the highly trained elite agents on a dangerous mission." Elite animal agents, that is. Sounds like appropriate wacky-scientist casting to me. But for now, we've got Largo, Visioneers, and Little Fish, Strange Pond on the way -- all of which are in post-production.

Anyone out there buy Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz as a married couple? Nah, me neither. Anyone out there buy Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz as two Vegas vacationers who get married while plastered only to participate in a massive battle when one of 'em wins a huge jackpot with the other one's quarter? Nah, I don't really swallow that one either. (Anyone out there have a clue as to what will happen at the end of this flick? I sure do.)

But that's not stopping Fox from moving forward on What Happens in Vegas..., an obviously broad-style romantic comedy that's scheduled for release next summer. Starter for 10 director Tom Vaughan steps into his first big-time studio gig with Vegas, and he's working from a screenplay by second-timer Dana Fox. (She also wrote -- brace yourself -- The Wedding Date.) So it sounds like a perfectly conventional summertime rom-com -- even though I still can't imagine Diaz and Kutcher as a couple.

But according to The Hollywood Reporter, we may have two additional reasons to look forward to What Happens in Vegas... . (Is it just me or do you also hate it when movie titles end in ellipses??) Looks like Fox has settled on two actors to play the best friends of the leads -- and those actors are the seriously funny Rob Corddry and the seriously adorable Lake Bell. Mr. Corddry you probably know from The Daily Show, although he's also popped up in Failure to Launch, Blades of Glory and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. Ms. Bell is best known for TV work (Miss Match, Surface, Boston Legal) but also has a bunch of movie projects in the pipeline.

Fox has claimed June 27 of next summer for their Vegas trip.

As previously reported (when it was just a rumor), Variety has officially confirmed that Tom Vaughan has replaced Julian Farino (Entourage) as director of What Happens in Vegas for 20th Century Fox, starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz (two people who, honestly, probably belong together in real life). Apparently, scheduling conflicts have interfered with Farino helming the film; instead, he will jump over to the newly-announced The Year of Living Biblically, for Paramount and Plan B. Vaughan is the man responsible for the little-seen, yet enjoyable Starter for Ten, and will direct Vegas off a script written by Dana Fox (The Wedding Date).

Our plot here revolves around two strangers (Kutcher and Diaz) who, while in Vegas, get wasted and subsequently get hitched. Not only that, but one of them had also won a jackpot off the other's quarter at some point during the drunken festivities. As expected, while they fight over who should be the rightful owner of said jackpot, they somehow wind up falling in love with another along the way. And yes, as I write this this I'm already wiping away tears of laughter and heartache. Oh Vegas, how can anyone not love you. Kutcher, who at one point was on his way to leading man status, has recently dropped a bit in rank. His last notable role was in last year's The Guardian opposite Kevin Costner, but that flick was as forgettable as Kutcher's TV series Beauty and the Geek. Diaz, on the other hand, is only as popular as the guy she's currently dating, so now that she's single this gal is gonna have to put in some overtime. No word on a release date yet, but I expect we'll be seeing this gamble show up at some point next year.

Let's play a little word/movie association game. I'm going to tell you a few words, and you have to guess the plot. Ready? Vegas. Booze. Man. Woman. The last two might not be necessary, but if you thought of a plot that involves two people getting drunk in Sin City and getting married, you've got the plot for the upcoming 20th Century Fox film -- What Happens in Vegas (not the 2005 film with a tranny, hooker and mob boss). It's obviously steeped in cliche, but with Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz heading it (their deals are almost closed), I'm sure that it will rake in the big bucks like a screaming, slot machine win.

The romcom is coming under helmer Julian Farino, the director of the cable television show Entourage, from a script by Dana Fox, who penned the recent The Wedding Date. Now I'm not sure that more plot details are necessary, but in case you're a fiend of sin and ill-conceived weddings, keep reading. Kutcher and Diaz are two people who find themselves married after a night of debauchery. One used the other's quarter to play the slots and won a huge jackpot. Of course, both want the money, and they try to undermine the other to get it. However, since this is a romantic comedy, they must fall in love while battling for the bucks. I can't help but wish that Britney Spears was in this role -- not for her acting chops, but it would've been amusing to see her in the role. And heck, they could've gotten Justin Timberlake and really reveled in self-mockery. (He's not the ex-hubbie, but he's the actor of the exes.) But alas, we'll have to settle for maybe-missus Timberlake and Mr. Moore.