pink panther Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Growing up, Steve Martin was my favorite comedic actor, no contest. The Jerk, All of Me, The Man With Two Brains, Three Amigos!, Little Shop of Horrors, Roxanne, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Parenthood, LA Story, Father of the Bride, Bowfinger...you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's appeared in as many modern classic comedies. And he's obviously still a hilarious man (anyone see him on Letterman last night?). That is why his recent career path is so troubling to me. I can't fault the guy for wanting to make big lazy blockbuster family movies, and obviously there are people who enjoy them. I just wish that one of the greatest comedic minds in film history would take some more chances in his twilight years. I love his novels (read The Pleasure of My Company ASAP), and I adored the film version of Shopgirl, I sincerely hope he can bring us more interesting material like that.

But for right now, we're stuck with Pink Panther 2. Variety has announced the supporting cast, and I must say, it's pretty impressive. The great John Cleese is playing Inspector Dreyfus (perfect casting), memorably brought to life by Herbert Lom in the Peter Sellers films. Also on board are Andy Garcia, Alfred Molina, and "The Queen of Bollywood" Aishwarya Rai, often referred to as "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World." The three will play "detectives and experts who join forces with Clouseau to catch the thief who has been stealing artifacts around the world." In addition to the new gang, Jean Reno and Emily Mortimer are returning to their roles. Pink Panther 2 was written by no less than five screenwriters: first-timers Scott Neustadter and Mike Weber, big-time comedy scribes Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Splash, Parenthood, City Slickers), and Martin himself. Shawn Levy directed the 2006 Pink Panther, Harald Zwart (One Night at McCool's, Agent Cody Banks) will helm this one. Look for Pink Panther 2 just in time for Valentine's Day -- February 13, 2009.

Sony Pictures announced Thursday that for the first time, they will exceed $3 billion in worldwide ticket sales this year. This isn't any kind of record, though; other studios have surpassed the $3 billion mark before (three times before, in fact), but it's still good news for Sony -- and it is only one aspect of their amazing year at the box office. Their domestic take for 2006 is expected to pass the industry record of $1.573 million, an amount and record they reached back in 2002, for any studio in a single year. Another industry record they've already broken this year is for the number of releases to open at #1. So far, this number is 12, but Sony still has two more titles (The Holiday and The Pursuit of Happyness) to release before the year ends.

For the third time in the past five years, Sony will likely finish out the year with the greatest domestic market share for box office gross. The major contributor to Sony's success in 2006 was The Da Vinci Code, which had an international gross of more than $750 million. Other titles that helped out include Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Casino Royale and, surprisingly, The Pink Panther (hey, that's two remakes that originally starred Peter Sellers!).

Overall 2006 has been a seemingly good year for the motion picture industry, especially considering all the commotion last year over the "Great 'Slump' of '05". And yet, according to Box Office Mojo the total domestic gross for all movies in 2006 is right now $500 million less than the total of 2005 -- though some reports say that this year is up 4% over last year (not a big deal since '05 was down 6% from '04). Thankfully, B.O.M. has a handy YTD comparison, so we can actually see how 2006 stands so far against the same point in years '02 thru '05, and comparatively we're experiencing maybe only the third best year in five. We still have a few weeks left until the year closes, and a lot of movies are coming out in those few weeks, so the final tally could possibly outdo 2004's or 2003's grosses, but I wouldn't bet on it.

When I hear mention of filmmaker Shawn Levy, the first person I think about is Portland film critic Shawn Levy, who once penned a rather amusing article on how they're not the same person. Beyond that, if I give the phrase "filmmaker Shawn Levy" any additional thought I immediately think of Big Fat Liar, Just Married, Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pink Panther -- and that just makes me appreciate the other Shawn Levy even more because his output is actually pretty funny. (The director Levy also has Night at the Museum coming up, so he's got at least one more shot at making A good movie.)

Ah, but wait. According to Variety, the Hollywood Levy has just signed a pair of deals, one with Universal to helm an adaptation of Alex Williams' The Talent Thief and one with Fox to direct something called Father Figure, which is being described as a drama with comic elements. (Because we all know how adept Shawn Levy is with those "comic elements.") That one scene in Cheaper by the Dozen when all the kids threw food? Masterful.

Levy is also expected to return to direct a Pink Panther sequel, but not until he gets a look at the final script -- which makes one wonder if he also approved the final drafts of Big Fat Liar, Just Married, Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pink Panther.

So basically, one Shawn Levy's career just took a huge leap upwards, while another Shawn Levy's career just got a little bit more difficult.

Over at her Risky Biz Blog, Anne Thompson has a piece up on the big scoop around United Artists. United Artists has been a studio in limbo ever since Sony acquired both MGM and UA in April of last year. No one was sure if Sony would simply absorb the other company, or whether they would continue to use their brand and logo as a distribution arm. Today the mystery is over, with MGM announcing today that Tom Cruise and his partner Paula Wagner will help relaunch the new United Artists as partner-operators. This finally lands Cruise at a new studio, after being released by Paramount following the disappointing box office take for M:I3, and displeasure over Tom's couch-jumping antics. The new deal gives Cruise and Wagner the ability to greenlight their own projects, and will serve as a pipeline for them to distribute their own content. What remains unclear is how this newly announced deal will affect the new Cruise/Wagner production company that was cobbled together by investors once Tom left Paramount.

Since 1919 United Artists has had a storied past since inception and creation by four of the film world's biggest stars at the time: Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and director D.W. Griffith. It enjoyed both success and failures in the intervening years, giving birth to such franchises as the Rocky, James Bond, and Pink Panther films as part of its highs, and being the studio behind the Heaven's Gate debacle as part of the lows, which left it essentially bankrupt in 1980. The press release lauds Cruise as, "one of the most successful, critically acclaimed and sought after movie stars in the world. Cruise's films have resulted in worldwide box office totals of approximately US$6 billion and his last two films, War of the Worlds and Mission: Impossible III have grossed nearly US$1 billion worldwide." United Artists is hoping that both Cruise name and star power will help bring them home some of that bling.

In what seems like an effort to put the roar back into the lion, MGM chairman-CEO Harry Sloan is looking to turn the studio into a tentpole factory and is about to announce some of the big-budget films currently in development. Not surprisingly, since the studio is anchored by its library of franchise-available titles, most of these tentpoles will be sequels, including Terminator 4, a second installment to the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, the previously reported Pink Panther sequel, as well as a few that Erik mentioned last week.

One release to rule them all is The Hobbit, to which MGM co-owns the rights (with New Line, who made the Lord of the Rings films), and which actually may end up as two releases. There is a good chance the LOTR prequel will be a blockbuster no matter how it's produced, but Sloan is really hoping that Peter Jackson can be snagged to direct. Seeing as Jackson still has The Lovely Bones and The Dam Busters on his calendar, if he were to be interested in the project, Sloan will have to wait a few years to get it started. In the meantime, he can take another look through the library and find some more films in need of easily extended into sequels. Otherwise, he will have to find someone else ... someone that fans will trust and approve. Man, how long with that take?

Earlier this month, Mark reported on a New Line leak that claimed The Hobbit is scheduled for next summer, but the above information doesn't seem to make that possible.

Odds and ends from Wednesday:

• Production Weekly reports that Meg Ryan may replace Annette Bening as Antonio Banderas' co-star in the previously reported flick Homeland Security. Currently, there's no word on why this change is being made, though I imagine it probably has something to do with scheduling conflicts. George Gallo will direct off his own script, which is said to be a "mystery in the tradition of Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief."
• Finally, there's some good news regarding the planned Pink Panther sequel that we're all just dying to wrap our arms around and love forever and ever. That's right, Beyoncé Knowles will not be reprising her role as Xania in part two. (I'll wait a minute while you high-five those people crowded around the screen. Um, you do gather people around the computer when you read Cinematical, right?) According to Moviehole via Sky News, the pop singer-turned-actress rejected the role because she's too busy planning her next album. Yeah, and I have to take a shower once a week ... but you don't see me complaining.
• It's hard to knock this next story because we're talking about a worthy cause here. As part of a promotion for Ashton Kutcher's upcoming film The Guardian (in which he co-stars alongside Kevin Costner), Kutcher will donate one dollar for the first 50,000 people that ask to be friends with the actor on his MySpace page. All proceeds will go towards post-Katrina rebuilding efforts. MySpace is slowly becoming a studio exec's wet dream, as a number of actors and filmmakers (see: Kevin Smith) are beginning to use the website to market their films. Yeah, so head on over to this dude's MySpace page and help provide someone with a better life. Heck, it can be your Mitzvah for the day. [via JoBlo]

It was probably too much to ask of Hollywood that, just this once, they let propriety win out, and allow the new Pink Panther to die a quiet death. By some miracle, you see, the film made money (the IMDb guesses $140 million worldwide; the budget was about $80 million), and when dollar signs are involved, studio heads have a hard time thinking clearly. So, yes, another Pink Panther is coming. And, yes, Steve Martin is back. Can you stand the excitement? The movie is currently being written by newcomers Scott Neustadter and Michael M. Weber; no word yet on if superstar hack Shawn Levy will find the time to direct the sequel to his zillionth profitable pile of crap.

What's best about this news, though, is that the plot of the movie is being kept tightly under wraps. Um, why? Do they honestly think people care what it's about? Or that anyone buys their "high-concept" claim? Give us a freaking break, Sony and MGM. Go make your movie somewhere quietly, sell it to us suckers, and count your money. But please don't pretend that we're actually interested in the story.

I suppose we should have seen it coming when Steve Martin's The Pink Panther managed to not turn into a disastrous box office bomb. Not that it was particularly successful, mind you, but it wasn't an abject failure -- and in Hollywood these days that means plenty of sequel potential! Rumor now has it Martin is actively interested in creating not one, but two (yes, two!) sequels to his vaguely passable comedic venture. It seems as though the writer/director torch will be passed on to Rawson Thurber, although I'm not sure if this should give me hope for the sequel or cause me to have serious doubts concerning Thurber's decision making abilities. I'd love to hope for a glorious return for Martin's career -- the man was a true genius at one time -- but I highly doubt this is the way he is going to re-ascend to any semblance of his former glory. I'd sell my left kneecap for a sequel to The Three Amigos, however. Guilty pleasure, thy name is Three Amigos. 

• Bloodrayne - Teutonic terror Uwe Boll directs movies no more than gravity directs objects to Earth. His grasp of pithy things like story and character development is nearly non-existent, and his penchant for adapting video games has earned him a reputation as a sort of idiot savant (only without the savant part), kind of like if the kid on the porch in Deliverance only knew how to play the riff that Vanilla Ice nicked from Queen's "Under Pressure". His latest, a shameless Blade ripoff about a half-human, half-vampire avenger (Kristianna Loken), is miscast, barely written and staged with the skill of a spastic with cataracts. Currently residing on the IMDB's Bottom 100 (at #34), it and Boll's rotting body of work have elevated the oeuvre of Ed Wood, whose non-charting Plan 9 From Outer Space was once considered the worst film ever made, to common hack status. At least the inclusion of the free PC version of the Bloodrayne 2 video game will help soothe buyer remorse.
 

• Æon Flux - This empty sci-fi flick's listing on IMDB.com is loaded with glowing user endorsements, leading everyone else who has seen it to believe that either drugs were involved in forming these opinions, the Pod People took these users over or an army of undercover PR lackeys is spinning overtime. This cinematic equivalent of a bronzed cow pie, an unimaginative Logan's Run pretender set 400 years in the future after a global plague, stars Charlize Theron as a rebel trying to take down the corrupt government of Bregna, the only city on Earth. From the way-lazy back story title cards and opening narration to the silly costumes to the cartoonish action sequences to the awful deadpan performances, this should be called Peed-On, Sux. Maybe Theron's mother needed an operation or something, but this is a very bad and brainless example of sci-fi, a puffed-up issue movie that ultimately offers nothing but regret. Instead, check out creator Peter Chung's original, pre-anime craze animated MTV series, which was released on DVD late last year.