Even though I hated his Miami Vice movie, I still consider myself a fan of Michael Mann's work, and I continue to look forward to whatever he delivers next. And it looks like his next will be something to really, really look forward to. Variety reports that Mann will direct a film noir about a Hollywood murder investigation and that Leonardo DiCaprio is expected to play the detective. The project, which was packaged by CAA, is currently being shopped around to the studios with a script written by John Logan.

The film will take place in the 1930s on the MGM lot and will apparently feature cameos from people like Judy Garland and Bugsy Siegel (people playing them, anyway). The plot will likely follow the detective as he is hired by the studio to clean up a scandal involving a starlet who may or may not have murdered her husband. The only other part of the script that has been revealed is that there will be a major shootout that takes place in the Trocadero nightclub on Sunset Boulevard. Despite the fact that no studio is yet confirmed (New Line has been revealed to have bid, but too low), the film will start shooting in February.

There can never be too many period noirs set in Hollywood, which had a lot of interesting scandals during the golden era, but after the failure of The Black Dahlia some studios may be hesitant to think there's a chance for another L.A. Confidential. Still, with Mann, DiCaprio and Logan teamed up -- they all worked together on The Aviator, which Mann produced -- it will be difficult to lose with this film.

Beerfest -- Those oh-so-wacky knuckleheads who brought you Super Troopers (yaaaay) and Club Dread (boooo) are back with a beer-soaked semi-sports comedy that celebrates the irreprressable beauty of yeast, malt, barley and fermented hops. (At least I think that's what beer is made of.) Haven't seen the flick yet, but I'm told it's actually pretty darn funny. Extras include two audio commentaries, a handful of featurettes and more than 20 deleted scenes.

How to Eat Fried Worms -- Yet another kid's book turned into a movie that nobody really cared to see. Then again, home video is where titles like this one make their bread and butter anyway. Extras include a director/kid actor commentary, a gag reel ("gag," get it? cuz it's about the eating of worms!), and a handful of featurettes.

Idlewild -- Kim was pretty surprised by how much she liked this flick, but going only by the box office numbers it seems she was most definitely in the minority. The "Outkast musical" was lauded by some and derided by others, but most seem to agree that it sure is ... different! Extras are pretty slim: two deleted scenes and a pair of music videos.

Miami Vice -- I think it's one of the worst movies of the year. Honest. But hey, if your idea of fun is 140 minutes of two preening actors wandering through a plotless and a stunningly generic plot construct, have a ball. Yeah, Michael Mann knows how to swing a camera around the room, but this flick's about as deep and edgy as an episode of Murder She Wrote. (Rant over. Sorry.) Extras include a director's commentary, six featurettes and a 15-minute-longer Director's Cut.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest -- I can be pretty critical of the Disney output from time to time, but where the Pirates movies are concerned, I'm little more than a hyperactive 8-year-old screaming "Yay, yippee, more!!" And the 2-disc release of DMC is an absolute treasure chest of digital awesomeness. The movie looks and sounds great, the screenwriter's commentary is quite illuminating, and there's more supplemental material to choke a Kraken: Blooper reels, documentaries, featurettes and yes: at least five hidden goodies!

Pulse -- The remake nobody asked for became the movie nobody went to see. I paid to see it only because of my Kristen Bell crush, and while it's certainly not a GOOD movie, I don't think it's as worthless as most PG-13 horror flicks I've seen lately. Extras include two commentaries, three featurettes, some deleted stuff and (of course) an "unrated" cut.

Rocky Anthology -- I'm pretty sure that all the sequels in this new collection are the same DVDs as before, but the original Rocky is given a rather swanky new digital release that should thrill anyone who loves the flick as much as I do. (Available separately) the Rocky 2-disc Collector's Edition comes with three audio commentaries, a half-dozen featurettes / mini-docos and some old-school archival footage that's never been released before. Yo, MGM! Thanks!

It's been awhile since we've seen the debate over release-windows. Maybe now that the Box Office Slump of '05 has long since past, and the issue with day-and-date releases has made the debate almost obsolete, theaters just aren't complaining as much. At least in America, anyway. Last week, distributors and exhibitors throughout Italy were furious about Universal's plan to release Miami Vice on DVD exactly two months after its release in cinemas there. The movie, based on the '80s TV-show, opened in the country on October 6 via United International Pictures and it was planned to be out on video December 6. The head of the Italian exhibitors' association ANEC threatened legislative intervention and Warner Village Cinemas actually stopped playing the pic.

All the protesting and boycotting helped. On Friday it was announced that Universal would change the DVD date to January, which would lengthen the window to the usually honored three months. Unfortunately, the win by distributors and exhibitors probably won't change the success of the movie at the box office. In its first four weeks, Miami Vice made only a little more than $4 million. Comparatively, in the same amount of time Woody Allen's Scoop made almost $5 million, World Trade Center has made $6.5 million and The Devil Wears Prada has made close to $15 million. And obviously, Miami Vice didn't even figure into the top 20 this past weekend thanks to it being pulled from so many screens. So, maybe, just maybe, Italians aren't that into the movie, and it wouldn't really matter if the DVD came out next week. Or, it could be the matter of it opening so late, since in countries like the UK and France, where it opened closer to its release in the U.S., grosses were pretty decent.

[via In Focus Magazine Newswire; box office numbers courtesy of Box Office Mojo]

Odds and ends from Monday:

• Looks like someone is tired of his boring office job. John Krasinski (The Office) has signed on to write and direct an adaptation of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, written by David Foster Wallace. The book itself (which you either love or despise with a passion) consists of twenty-two stories which revolve around -- you got it -- a bunch of hideous men. Pic begins its principal photography this November and, with the exception of Krasinski himself, there have been no other cast announcements.
• IFC Films is looking to dance with the big boys, as they've committed to release four to six films a year with budgets ranging between $4-10 million. As part of the announcement, IFC Films has picked up all North American rights to the dark comedy You Kill Me, directed by John Dahl. Starring Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni and Luke Wilson, pic revolves around an alcoholic hitman who, while taking a break from the killing, decides to become a mortician. Darkish hilarity ensues.
• Man, I love it when these "unnamed sources" decide to stir up crap on the internet. I swear, in my next life, I want to come back as an "unnamed source." Ya know, this way I can make up a ton of stuff and see who actually buys into it. Back on topic, an "unnamed source" told the U.K.'s Life Style Extra that, despite the fact their film sort of bombed with critics, as well as at the box office, Jaime Foxx and Colin Farrell both feel there's enough story present for a Miami Vice sequel. Eh, I can't see Michael Mann or Universal feeling the same way ... then again, stranger sequels have happened. (Ahem, Break'n Revolution?)

I first noticed it back in 1999. While working as a film critic during what became an extraordinary year for movies, there was one month in which everything started to suck. Movies like The Thomas Crown Affair, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Brokedown Palace, Outside Providence, Mickey Blue Eyes, In Too Deep, The Astronaut's Wife, A Dog of Flanders and Chill Factor appeared one after another, leading a colleague and myself to brand the phenomenon as the "August Dumping Ground."

Indeed, this name has proven apt: Movies that open in August are the ones that studios don't really know what to do with. Sometimes they've been shelved for a couple of years and the studios simply shuttle them out as a kind of house cleaning. Last year we had John Dahl's dud war movie The Great Raid and Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm, in which it was obvious (to put it lightly) that Gilliam did not receive final cut. Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo also graced American screens during this period. In 2004, Spike Lee's awful She Hate Me and the butchered, Renny Harlin version of Exorcist: The Beginning opened. 2003 gave us the infamous Gigli.

But studios don't always know what they're doing. The most famous recent example came in 2004 when Miramax released the two year-old martial arts classic Hero in August, convinced that they had a flop on their hands -- a Crouching Tiger retread. It made a fortune, placed on several critics' ten best lists (including mine) and has now eclipsed Crouching Tiger as a pinnacle of the genre.

Reportedly surpassing many studio expectations, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby easily took the box office crown this weekend, earning approximately $47 million at a rate of over $12,000/screen. The film outdistanced its closest competition (insert racing cliche here) by more than $30 million; the miserably reviewed animated feature, Barnyard: The Original Party Animals, finished a distant second with a surprisingly healthy $16 million. The weekend's other big debut, The Descent, ended up in fifth place with $8.8 million from just over 2000 screens.

Despite reducing its exposure by nearly 400 screens, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest continued to rake in the cash; its $11 million this weekend pushed the movie's domestic take to nearly $380 million in five weeks. Miami Vice, meanwhile, took a dive of 63% from its triumphant opening earnings, finishing the weekend in fourth place with $9.7 million; the movie has now made back $45.7 million (domestic) against its $135 million production budget.

I was trying to think of some clever line about how undercover cops busted the pirates, but it wouldn't come so I'll just give it to you straight: Miami Vice knocked Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest off the top of the box office heap this weekend. In its opening three days, Michael Mann's return to his classic 80s TV show made about $22 million on just over 3000 screens, as compare to POTC3's $20.5 million (from about 3500 screens). The folks at Disney probably aren't shedding too many tears, however, because their movie's domestic haul has now reached a company record $358.4 million in only four weeks of release.

In addition to Miami Vice, John Tucker Must Die also had a successful open this weekend, earning a very solid $14.1 million in its debut. The Ant Bully, on the other hand, was a disappointment for Warner Bros., taking in only $8.1 million from 500 fewer screens than John Tucker. Based on the charts, it looks like all the kids were seeing Monster House instead; the film hung strong with $11.5 million, good enough for a solid fourth place in its second weekend.

And, though it didn't make enough overall to get into the top 20 this weekend, Little Miss Sunshine did great business in just a few theaters, taking in a staggering $50,980/screening.

Full numbers are after the jump.

No one but Michael Mann knows why, exactly, he went back to his TV show Miami Vice to bring it to the big screen. If you're an optimist, you can think it was because Mann had something he wanted to say with the continued adventures of Miami undercover narcotics detectives Crockett and Tubbs; if you're a pessimist, you can think that Mann chose to act preemptively, before someone else glommed on to his brainchildren and revamped them. Whether it was a dream of hard-edged urban action or a nightmare of Sean William Scott's face grinning idiotically out from The Dukes of Hazzard poster is immaterial. Miami Vice the movie is here, and can be viewed in the context of no context for what it is: A nicely-made, well-shot popcorn crunching action flick with enough style and flash to hide how ultimately hollow it is.

And even with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx stepping in to fill the (sockless) shoes of Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas from the NBC version of Miami Vice that ran from 1984 to 1989, the real star of the film is its director. Mann's returned to the same mix of digital and film to capture Miami Vice that he used in Collateral, and the results are apparent from the first scene. As Crockett (Farrell) and Tubbs (Foxx) nose through a crowded nightclub to tail a possible perp, the crowd isn't held at the phony-staged distance at which you'd have to keep the extras to make room for a bulky film camera; instead, it crushes up to the camera's point of view, sweaty and dancing and jostling by in pursuit of a drink, a possible partner or the next high.

With a Michael Mann film, I've come to expect that I won't have time to open my notebook, let alone jot down many details. His work, which includes Heat, The Insider and Collateral, is typically that engaging. This isn't something I mind, because even though I'm a critic, I prefer to enjoy the movies I'm watching rather than to meticulously dissect them as they play out on the screen. I tend to leave the analysis for when I get home, where I can think about the movie as a whole.

However, with Mann's latest film, Miami Vice, which is based on the hit television show he executive produced in the '80s, I not only found moments in which to open my notebook, but I was bored enough with the film to fill up pages, mostly with ramblings about how little I've come to accept those meet-and-greet scenes involving undercover cops and drug dealers. You know, the ones in which the cops attempt to convince the dealers that they are not what they indeed are. These scenes all proceed in the exact same way, right down to the dealer's doubting bluff, therefore by now they should be easily accepted, and yet I always find them instead to be ridiculously unbelievable. Anyway, I could go on -- I did during the movie -- but there's no point in concentrating on one little scene. Besides, I wrote down a lot of other things that I can share, such as, "This movie has some awesome clouds in it." I think that note especially speaks for how engaging the actual story was for me.

Just last week, we told you about how New Line had invited a select group of bloggers to preview their Snakes on a Plane booth. New Line has been at the forefront for a while now of grasping the concept that marketing through bloggers is smart business. Now, Universal is stepping up to the blogger buffet.

Weblogs' own Chris Thilk (who blogs for AdJab and occasionally for Cinematical) runs a blog called Movie Marketing Madness. On this blog, Chris has been for a while now giving very detailed run-downs of all the aspects of marketing particular films. Recently, someone at Universal Studios sat up and took notice, and very smartly figured out that a 30-minute phone call to Chris might just pay off big-time. That person was right, in spades.

Not only was Chris able to cover the marketing for Miami Vice in greater detail than he's been able to in the past, but he also blogged about how Universal had contacted him. This, in turn, has led to a cavalcade of bloggers doing what they do best: Blogging about something cool, which then spreads through the blog community like wildfire. It's kinda like that old Breck Shampoo commercial (if you're as old as I am, you probably remember it: I told my friend about this shampoo, then she told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on ... ).

Universal finally grasped what New Line has been trying to hook into for a while now -- that blogging is about community, and that word-of-mouth advertising will spread through that community with little effort (or money) on the studio's behalf, if they simply target the right people to get the word out for them. It's about time studios started waking up to the power of film bloggers. Next step: Film bloggers take over Hollywood and force the studios to make only good films! Muahahahahahah.

[Hat tip to Mack Collier from The Viral Garden ]