Weekend Box Office: February 15 - 17

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  A Good Day to Die Hard - $25 million

2.  Identity Thief - $23.4 million

3.  Safe Haven - $21.4 million

4.  Escape from Planet Earth - $16 million

5.  Warm Bodies - $9 million

6.  Beautiful Creatures - $7.4 million

7.  Side Effects - $6.3 million

8.  Silver Linings Playbook - $6 million

9.  Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters - $3.4 million

10.  Zero Dark Thirty - $3.1 million

The Die Hard series may just be phoning it in at this point, but Bruce Willis' fifth round as John McClane managed to do what what his action movie buddies Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone weren't so far this year:  open in first place.  Granted, the estimated $33 million A Good Day to Die Hard has earned since opening on Thursday isn't all that great, and Identity Thief may actually squeak back into first by tomorrow when the President's Day holiday weekend wraps up tomorrow, but it appears the series is still pretty popular.  In fact, it's very popular overseas, where it's already grossed $79 million.

In second place was Identity Thief, which dropped just 32% from its first-place finish last weekend.  The comedy has earned $70 million so far.  Safe Haven, the latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation, also opened on Thursday (it actually opened just ahead of Die Hard, Thursday being Valentine's Day and all), and finishes the weekend with $30.2 million.  Escape from Planet Earth didn't really register with families this weekend, earning a so-so $16 million.

Beautiful Creatures failed to catch the Twilight crowd, bottoming out this weekend with only $10 million since opening on Thursday.  That crowd seem more interested in Warm Bodies, which continues to do well, earning another $9 million.

Next weekend is the Oscars, which is good, since there's not a whole hell of a lot going on in theaters, other than the horror film Dark Skies, and the drug dealer-action thriller Snitch, starring Dwayne Johnson.  Oscar frontrunner Argo is due out on DVD this Tuesday, so it might be a good time to catch up on that instead.

Get Off My Falcon! Harrison Ford Returns for Episode VII!

Of the three leads from the original Star Wars trilogy, I have to be honest. Han Solo was the one I wanted to see return the least for Episode VII. The character-arc for a seasoned Luke Skywalker writes itself (He becomes the Ben Kenobi to this trilogy's protagonist). Princess Leia could be upgraded to Queen Leia if not a walk-on cameo. And Chewbacca and the Droids are easy fits while we're at it.

But how do you adjust for an older Captain Solo, especially when many hard-core fans feel the character was neutered in Return of the Jedi (A stance I personally don't hold though it has merit)? Plus the never-ending vibe Harrison Ford just doesn’t give a shit onscreen anymore? Need I bring up the infamous "Harrison Ford gives a damn!" claim by Jon Favreau to sell Cowboys & Aliens?

But hey he's Han Solo and who doesn't love the space pirate turned Rebel General? Courtesy of Latino Review's El Mayimbe is confirmation on the matter.  Harrison Ford has signed on the dotted line to return to that galaxy far, far away a long time ago.

Come 2015 (whether its May or December; jury's still out), we'll see Solo, and presumably the Millennium Falcon, return under the helm of J.J. Abrams in 3D.

Sam Mendes Likes the Sound of Directing Next Bond

He's been back and forth on whether he will stay put in the world of James Bond post-Skyfall. But when your installment is the highest grosser in history (Even beating fellow juggernauts The Dark Knight Rises, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Amazing Spider-Man globally) and viewed by many as the best, that changes perspective. Money talks, perhaps?

The Daily Mail reports Sam Mendes is "75 per cent" leaning towards returning to direct. A major contributor to his change of heart is reportedly the decision to nix the two-film plan by screenwriter John Logan, sticking to the tried-and-true standalone formula. Hey if it's worked for 50 years, why change course?

If Mendes approves the script (It currently exists in a two-page treatment form), work will commence late this year or at the start of 2014 to make its projected, but yet to be officially announced, November 2014 release.

Peter Dinklage Joins X-Men: Days of Future Past

There was bound to be actors in X-Men: Days of Future Past who are virgins to the merry world of mutants. The first of those new additions is none other than Peter Dinklage, the Emmy-winning fan-favorite from Game of Thrones.

Nobody knows who he's playing but it's a "key role." So of course, everyone thinks its Puck. Let's give Bryan Singer and Dinklage's acting abilities more credit than that, fellas. For all we know, he could be one of the time-travelers. Or a human from the Me-Decade. Or yeah maybe he's Puck.

Source: Bryan Singer

The Internship Trailer - Point & Laugh at "How Old" Vince Vaughn & Owen Wilson Are

The joke is their characters are "out of touch."

The bigger argument to be made is the onscreen personas, and their associated comedic shtick, of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson are truly on borrowed times. The Internship, the new comedy from Shawn Levy, is hoping to recapture that Wedding Crashers magic.

If we're going off this trailer alone, we're in trouble. Too much time has passed since their career-defining 2005 comedy for us to care that they're together onscreen again. Vaughn and Wilson are too young to be going this route. If this is the basis for the jokes, cast older. I don't buy these guys are "old."

Hugh Laurie Co-Starring in Brad Bird's Tomorrowland

It's easy to take TV actors for granted. I mean, they're always there. Especially for a long-running show like House, M.D. Once the medical drama hit syndication, it was impossible not to catch it somewhere on the tube (USA Network ran repeat marathons religiously for awhile). Since its May 2012 finale, star Hugh Laurie has been away from the public eye.

He and longtime pal Stephen Fry said they were working together again but all's been quiet on that front (for the moment). Laurie was offered the heavy in the Robocop redo and, for whatever reason, that didn't go down. THR reports the British thesp will co-star in Tomorrowland. That's the secret sci-fi flick directed by Brad Bird, written by Damon Lindelof, starring George Clooney and scheduled for Christmas 2014 release.

"Secret" being the key-word. Nobody knows a damn thing about it though the trades describe it as "in the vein of Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Laurie will play the villain.

Iron Patriot Is Front & Center in Iron Man 3 Poster

Marvel has released a new character-poster for Iron Man 3 (per Coming Soon) and it's all about Jim Rhodes (Don Cheadle) in the Iron Patriot armor. It looks, as the kids call it, bitchin' too.

Somewhere in the world Terrence Howard is crying, "That could have been me!"

New Oblivion Trailer is an Upgrade

Tom Cruise has a good gage of projects. There's a reason he's been a movie-star going on thirty years and you know he's going to give it his all. But you couldn't get me interested in Oblivion. The trailer and photos had the blandest, milk toast look.

There's supposed to be a mystery behind Cruise's ex-Marine turned futuristic janitor (The Wall-E comparisons are certainly apt). It just didn't enough to intrigue. What's the deal with Morgan Freeman and his Mad Max-looking followers? Are those mutant gorillas?

To their credit, this new trailer is a big improvement. Not so much new footage (this is mostly material from the first trailer), but it manages to flesh out the mystery and the environment.

Source: MSN

"Kiss Of The Damned" Official Poster

Beautiful vampire Djuna (Josephine de La Baume) tries to resist the advances of the handsome, human screenwriter Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia), but eventually gives in to their passion. When her troublemaker sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) unexpectedly comes to visit, Djuna's love story is threatened, and the whole vampire community becomes endangered…

MOVIES.COM

Left Behind Poster is Awesomely Awful

How do you go from Kirk Cameron to Nicolas Cage?

Cameron, to his credit, didn't blow his Growing Pains and Like Father Like Son cash on the "True Hollywood Story" cliché of cocaine and whores. He found God is all, which is cheap. As a weekly churchgoer, I can vouch.

No telling on Cage. He's such an oddball snorting heroine would make him normal. No, he blew his money on crazy non-drug-fuelled items. Like a castle. You did not misread that sentence. Nicolas Cage owned a castle. It drove him broke and now he's taking any work his agent will throw at him, including this mid-sized budget remake of Left Behind.

Someone out thinks we need a "reimagining of an old mythology" for a thirteen year old Christian movie based on a bunch of Christian books. Hey, I'm Baptist and even I won't waste my money. "What would Jesus view?" Not that shit.

Anyway, here's the poster (Got this from The Film Stage but Coming Soon had a miniaturized version this morning. We'll credit both. Because that's how we roll, bitches!) It looks so awful it almost makes me want to see the Vic Armstrong-directed film. Almost.