4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — the critically-lauded “Romanian abortion film” that was controversially denied a chance to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film — has just passed the million-dollar mark at the American box office, reports Andrew O’Hehir of Salon.com: After a strong and varied weekend kickoff to the spring indie-release season (as reported by indieWIRE), it appears that this year’s art-house film that could, “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” has achieved a... Read more

Lou Lumenick notes that the next film to be released without being screened for critics first is Superhero Movie, which opens this Friday. He also notes that the film may become a casualty of the “grass-roots fan boycott” that some irate Star Wars fans have launched against the Weinstein Company; apparently an independent, Star Wars-themed movie called Fanboys has become the latest acquisition to get hacked up by Harvey “Darth” Weinstein, and the boycotters want the movie released in its... Read more

Here are the figures for the past weekend, arranged from those that owe the highest percentage of their take to the Canadian box office to those that owe the lowest. Never Back Down — CDN $2,170,000 — N.AM $16,824,000 — 12.9%The Other Boleyn Girl — CDN $2,710,000 — N.AM $22,515,000 — 12.0%The Bank Job — CDN $1,940,000 — N.AM $19,430,000 — 10.0%10,000 B.C. — CDN $7,560,000 — N.AM $76,100,000 — 9.9%College Road Trip — CDN $2,780,000 — N.AM $32,005,000 —... Read more

Sun Media says Will Smith is looking to add a sword-and-sandals epic to his resumé, and he’s got his eyes set on ancient Egypt: Enter Taharqa, the last Pharaoh of the 25th or Nubian Dynasty (the one in which blacks of Ethiopian descent ran Egypt). Carl Franklin (Devil In A Blue Dress) has already banged out a script called The Last Pharaoh, full of Ethiopians battling Assyrians for the throne of Amun-Ra. Now it’s being polished by Chris Hauty (Never... Read more

That would be one way to spin this Variety story: Alliance Films, Canada’s leading film distributor, is set to lose its most lucrative output deal as a result of Warner Bros.’ slashing of New Line. . . . Alliance makes its money from its deals with U.S. minimajors like Miramax, Focus and New Line, with New Line reportedly providing some 15% of Alliance’s annual box office revenue in Canada. Alliance has a deal with New Line until the end of... Read more

Back when it was first announced that Scott Derrickson would direct a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951; my comments), I asked how the message of the original film could possibly translate to the present day, given that we no longer seem to face the threat of two superpowers destroying the planet in a full-on nuclear exchange. Rumours of an answer to my question reached my ears a while ago, but now, the star of the film,... Read more

Remember how Peter Jackson said we would be able to see the skin pores on his performance-captured, computer-generated versions of the Tintin characters, as if that were a good thing? Check out this “photorealistic” version of Homer Simpson: Or this “photorealistic” version of one of the Mario brothers: To be clear, these images were made not by Jackson or his crew but by a blogger named “Pixeloo” — but they capture, perhaps in an exaggerated form, precisely what it was... Read more

Time for another quick round-up of various miscellany. 1. The Daily Mail says it looks like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson may have found their Tintin — and the lucky guy who may be playing the plucky young Belgian reporter is 17-year-old British actor Thomas Sangster. If Sangster is in this film, can Colin Firth — his co-star in Love Actually (2003), Nanny McPhee (2005) and The Last Legion (2007) — be far behind? 2. Evolutionary scientists crashed a screening... Read more

Today’s Globe and Mail notes that a certain movie with a naughty word in its title has been getting some free publicity here in Canada — and perhaps in the States, too? — thanks to the controversy that flared up a few weeks ago over Bill C-10: Proponents of Ottawa’s controversial tax bill have pointed to the upcoming Canadian film Young People Fucking as a reason to curtail public funding for movies some deem offensive, while opponents of the bill... Read more

Shutter is a horror film released by Fox, and Meet the Browns is a Tyler Perry film released by Lionsgate. Is anyone surprised that neither film is being screened for critics? (To be fair, Meet the Browns was reportedly screened in Toronto, since the Canadian distributor for Perry’s films sometimes follows a different plan than the American distributor. But Meet the Browns is being released in only three cities on this side of the border, all of them back east... Read more