UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING TAKES BIG BITE OF BOX OFFICE

Underworld: Awakening sank its teeth into the necks of box office pundits over the weekend as the vampire flick, starring Kate Beckinsale, opened with $25.3 million, far ahead of most of their predictions. It was helped by 3D and IMAX surcharges — $3.8 million of its total came from IMAX venues. Landing in second place [...]

BOX OFFICE AWAKENING AS UNDERWORLD SEQUEL TAKES OFF (Updated)

The top two films at the weekend box office performed well above expectations and helped push the overall gross more than 30 percent above the same weekend a year ago, according to studio estimates. Sony Screen Gems’s Underworld: Awakening debuted ahead of the pack with an estimated $25.4 million (it made an additional $13.4 million [...]

LUCAS TO RETIRE FROM BLOCKBUSTERS, MAKE “PERSONAL” FILMS

Apparently disgusted with his treatment by Hollywood studios when he approached them to finance Red Tails, his film about World War II’s famed Tuskegee Airmen featuring an all-black cast, George Lucas has told the New York Times that he will no longer make films for Hollywood (with the possible exception of another Indiana Jones movie). [...]

LUCAS: HOLLYWOOD WON’T MAKE AN ALL-BLACK BIG-BUDGET MOVIE

His films may have earned more money than those of any other producer, but George Lucas says he was unable to find a single studio executive willing to back his film, Red Tails, about the Tuskegee Airmen, the heroic World War II group of black pilots. Appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Lucas [...]

DON’T FORGET: JOBS ALSO GAVE US PIXAR

While Steve Jobs will forever be associated with Apple, history will likely regard his influence on the entertainment business to have been as consequential as his influence on the personal computer business. It goes without saying that Apple’s iPod and the iTunes store has transformed the way music is now played and collected. But equally [...]

STAR WARS FANS SAY NO TO ADDED NO’S

Star Wars fans who like their movies just the way they originally were are up in arms once again over George Lucas’s latest tweaks to their beloved films. The latest uproar was ignited earlier this week when the BadAssDigest blog reported that Lucas has changed the audio in a crucial scene in Return of the [...]

PROP MAN WINS VICTORY OVER GEORGE LUCAS

The British prop designer who created the Stormtrooper helmets for Star Wars has won an important legal battle in the U.K. where he is selling replicas of them. Although a U.S. court had previously ruled against the prop man, Andrew Ainsworth, the U.K. Supreme Court judges upheld a ruling by an appellate court in 2009 [...]

STAR WARS TV SERIES — TOO COSTLY TO SHOOT

George Lucas says that he has 50 scripts for his planned Star Wars TV series ready to go before the cameras, but that he’s waiting for technology to be developed that will bring down the costs of shooting them. In an interview with cable channel G4′s Attack of the Show!, Lucas said . “We’re just [...]

BOX OFFICE SLUMP CONTINUES

The virtually uninterrupted downtrend in ticket sales this year was extended once again as total receipts this weekend fell more than 13 percent behind last year’s for the comparable week. The top moneymaker was Battle: Los Angeles, with $35.6 million,but that was just a little more half what Disney’s Alice in Wonderland earned in its [...]

HIGH NOON FOR RANGO

True Grit is no longer the only Western at the box office. Paramount this weekend is debuting Rango, a Western with a difference. First of all, it’s the first one in memory to be animated. Second, the hero is a chameleon. Third, he’s voiced by Johnny Depp. Fourth, it cost $150 million to make, making [...]

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