Grown Ups Sequel Happening - Adam Sander's Own Stranger in a Strange Land

"Sequel" is a foreign term for Adam Sandler.

In this day and age of turning every comic-book, old Saturday morning cartoon, television show and even toy-line into a $200 million blockbuster intended for mass-market consumption, it's fascinating to note how the former SNL alum turned comedy movie-star has never done one. That's because he's never had to.

Unlike for example Star Trek, where you're selling the characters of Kirk and Spock and their familiarity in pop-culture (plus the sci-fi and action, obviously) and not the actors filling the roles Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, Sandler's position is so unique because he is the brand-name product in his own comedies. Regardless of the premise, people go in knowing what they'll get. Sandler will be a middle-to-upper class Joe with a smoking-hot wife and kids. There will be farts, falling down, old people harmed and always room for his old SNL cohorts to pop up in either prominent or minor parts depending on the absurdity of the plot.

It's a formula that's kept him, his pals in front of and behind the camera and, most importantly, Sony fat and happy over the years. So it's of interest to see Variety's scoop of Sony and Sandler's Happy Madison Productions are suddenly thinking sequel with the hiring of Fred Wolf to pen a follow-up to Grown Ups, the 2010 comedy that's hook was "See Adam Sandler and his old buddies hang out!" A hook that worked to the tune of $271 million, his biggest grossing comedy worldwide.

The official, press-release quotes will say the notion of reprising a role is what peaked his curiosity to do his first ever sequel. Don't buy into that bullshit. Sander's coming off Jack & Jill, which even his wide-demo and loyal audience looked at with contempt asking "Really, Adam?" and let's face it, one can't stay at the top forever.

Not to suggest it's all downhill from here for Sandler. He remains one of the few actors who secures asses in seats based on his mug slapped on the one-sheets. But I'd say going to a sequel to one of his bigger, and most popular, movies these days is more a sign of the times than anything else.

The Muppets vs. Fox News: What the Hell?!

Chalk this one up for the lovers, the dreamers...and the nitwits.

Fox Business News gave Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert an early Christmas present over the weekend when they accused The Muppets of brainwashing children with an anti-capitalist message.

Yeah, that's right.  The Muppets.  The source of their disdain?  This guy:

No, not Bobo the Bear.  And not Uncle Deadly, either.  They're talking about millionaire oil baron Tex Richman, who's played by Chris Cooper.  In The Muppets, Richman plans to tear down the old Muppet studios so he can drill for oil.  While most people would classify anyone who wants to tear down the Muppet studios for any reason as an evil bastard, the folks at Fox Business News' Follow the Money seem to feel that this is yet another of example of liberal Hollywood trying to demonize the rich and successful.

You can watch this seven minutes of asinine madness below, courtesy of MediaMatters:

So yeah...that happened.  And am I the only one who found that even harder to take seriously when they're spewing this while clips of dancing chickens are playing alongside them?

Now, a few things to review here:

First, the obvious:  They went after The Muppets?  Really?!  What the hell?

Secondly, have any of these people actually seen this movie?  Tex Richman isn't the villian because he's a successful millionaire in the oil industry...he's a bad guy because he's a jerk.  He not only wants to destroy Muppet Studios, he's planning to enjoy destroying Muppet Studios.  It's not an environmental message about the evils of the oil industry, it's a purely sentimental one about the Muppets trying to save their studios.  And Tex is one mean guy about it.  He instructs his two henchmen to maniacally laugh whenever he reveals his plans.  He even raps about having so much money that he gold-plated his own cat.  That's not nice!

Third, at what point in The Muppets are the rich considered evil?  Kermit is living in a mansion.  Miss Piggy is the fashion editor for Vogue and lives in Paris.  Scooter is working at Google.  Gonzo has a successful plumbing business.  Even Rowlf has a nice house with a hammock.  And when they need to raise $10 million to save their studio, they work to get the cash by putting on a show - they don't go askng for a bailout!  And worse, when it looks like they may get the money, Tex Richman tries to sabotage their show. 

How does that not make him the bad guy?  Oh, that's right...it does make him the bad guy.  And he's not all that different from Doc Hopper, the bad guy from 1979's The Muppet Movie.  Doc Hopper owned a chain of successful frog's legs restaurants who chased down the Muppets after Kermit refused to be his company's spokes-frog.  Was that an anti-business message too?  I was five years old the first time I saw that movie, and even then I knew the reason he was a bad guy was because he was hurting frogs, and not because he had a successful business.  I'm guessing today's five-year-olds have been smart enough to know why Tex Richman is no good either.

It's worth pointing out that The Muppets was released by The Walt Disney Company...who's hoping that this film breathes new life into the Muppets franchise, so they can sell lots of videos and toys and theme park merchandise.  Sounds like a pretty pro-business move to me.

Of course, it's also worth pointing out that Fox is a corporaton too.  And coincidentally, they have a new Alvin & the Chipmunks movie coming out in a few weeks.  So I'm sure it was no coincidence at all that they needed to come up with a manufactured controversy about something as innocent and fun as The Muppets (how different are they from those commie evironmentalist penguins in Happy Feet, really?)  to convince families to consider saving their movie money for that instead?  Sounds plausible...although Alvin is destined to easily outgross The Muppets at the box offce anyway, so why even bother?

But instead of making a valid point, they wound up sounding just like this:

He may have been gone a long time now, but it looks like Jim Henson foretold the coming of 24-hour cable news nonsense before any of us did.

It also appears these geniuses took a few swipes at Sesame Street as well (no Elmo, you're not getting out of this unscathed), since that show had the audacity to acknowledge the current economic crisis by introducing a poverty-stricken Muppet in a prime-time special. 

The nerve!  Sesame Street doing something that...it's been doing for years, whether it was when they were explaining the death of Mr. Hooper to Big Bird in 1983, or helping Elmo getting over being scared after a fire (which aired in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks), and done beautifully so.  That's what Sesame Street does.  Yes, it's about numbers and letters of the day, and how to play and share your toys (and that cookies are awesome).  But it's also always been about how people who come from different backgrounds and are of different shapes and sizes can live together.  And how things can still be ok in a world where sometimes things are confusing and sad.

It's no different than how the Muppets handled the sudden death of Jim Henson in a tribute special that aired in 1990:

That was always the beauty of the Muppets.  They taught that you can take what life throws at you and find a way to move on, find a way to laugh, and make sure you do it surrounded by the people you love.

The Fox story claims that the Occupy Wall Street protests are made up of children raised with a sense of entitlement because the Muppets and Sesame Street taught them that businesses are evil.  I don't think that's true.  I'm certainly not going to get into the politics of that whole thing, but I do believe that one truly great thing we did get from the Muppets and Sesame Street generation was the awesomeness that was The Muppets. 

Nearly everyone who worked on the new Muppet film grew up on those shows (includng Fraggle Rock), and they brought to this movie just about everything that made the original Muppets great.  The Muppets was funny as hell, it was silly, it was even poignant when it dealt with how to embrace a world that had moved on without them.  They realized that they were a family no matter what, and like the movie's catchy new song says, The Muppets reminded everyone that "life's a happy song when there's someone by your side to sing along."

Leave it to a branch of Fox News to try to screw that up and find something sinister about it.

Thankfully, it looks like it backfired...bloggers have been in a downright hilarious rage over this all day, and the Twitterverse has been holding the Muppets in a mock congressional trial under the hashtag #GOPMuppetHearings.  My favorite so far:  "Mr. Grover, can you tell me WHICH one of these things is not like the other and why? Please remember you're under oath.#GOPMuppetHearings"

So...manufactured controversy or not, it certainly seems like some news pundits could have used a little more Muppets in their own childhoods.  I'm certainly glad the Muppets were part of mine. 

Del Toro is GOOOOOONE as KHAAAAAAN!

Just burns me up the more I think about it.

Why in God's name go out of your way with such a complex (and in the final product, plot-holey) approach to rebooting the Star Trek franchise creating a brand new continuity where the character dynamics are different (i.e. Spock & Uhura), they're working together as a team 10 years early and major events going down as a result (i.e. the death of Kirk's father, the obliteration of Vulcan, etc.) and have the sky be the limit with wherever you go next just so you can say, "Fuck it...let's just reboot Khan?"

Needless to say, introducing him as the villain for the first post-reboot installment hasn't sat well with me.

Vulture is here to tell us two things this afternoon. One, yep, it's Khan Noonien Singh as the chief bad-guy and, two, surprisingly it won't be Benicio del Toro leading his following of genetically engineered supermen to take over the Enterprise and woo any female cadets into mutiny. A deal couldn't be reach over money, it seems.

So Abrams will have to find someone else for Star Trek II: Whatever the Hell They’re Going to Call It of Khan. Of course if you remember back two years ago with Coming Soon's scoop about Abrams wanting Nestor Caronell for Khan in the (then) hypothetical event he'd be in the next film. Considering Star Trek had a cast full of lesser-to-complete unknowns in the leads, I get the impression Paramount are the ones pushing hard for a "name" to face off against Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto.

Either way, cameras roll next month so prepare for another month of rumors and another two years of my bitching.

You Won't Like Frost When He's Scary

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, humor of the holiday kind filling my inbox. Somebody at work forwarded me this gem in via email. People being frightened out of their shorts by seemingly inanimate objects are my jam. Watch as this evil as hell looking snowman pretends to be a statue then jumps out at unsuspecting victims. Hot blonde joggers and hug heavy elderly women watch the hell out. Courtesy of The Chive. Tis the season.

The Cabin in the Woods Trailer is Intriguing, in a Good Way!

First things first, check out the trailer for The Cabin in the Woods as supplied by Yahoo! Movies:

Funny how we play up bigger than our heads in they actually are.

Case in point, yesterday evening, I began listening to the infamously, banned Criterion commentary tracks for the first three James Bond pictures Dr. No, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger. As a fan of that franchise, I knew of how after the initial run of laserdiscs were printed, Eon Productions balked at remarks made by commentary participants directors Terrence Young and Guy Hamilton, screenwriter Richard Maibaum and film editor Peter Hunt and had Criterion pull them from the market.

As a result, we the fans began building up in our minds just what they said that was so objectionable to Cubby Broccoli back in 1991. Having now heard the entirety of From Russia with Love while it was a good, brisk commentary there wasn't an instant where my jaw hit the floor as a result of an off-the-cuff quip. It would appear Eon are the thin-skinned type.

Fortunately, our first look at The Cabin in the Wood isn't a victim of heightened expectations courtesy of director Drew Goddard and writer/producer Joss Whedon. The duo kept quiet on exactly how their production played against the "young people out in the woods" sub-genre in the horror realm even as it sat on the shelf a victim of the financial struggles with original studio MGM (Lionsgate is now its distributor) and even this trailer keeps details closely vested to the chest, for the time being.

Consider me intrigued. I want to see what the deal is with that force field, if that's a big, bad corporation keeping a watchful on these college kids (including a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth) or our government at work and the creatures hinted at. Well done, gentlemen.

Bradley Cooper Confirms Second Hangover Remake

The Hangover Part II was just a remake of The Hangover, you say? They changed the location, the subject of the bachelor party, substituted a baby with a monkey and amped up the dick factor?

Sorry, but Warner Brothers can't hear any of your complaints. All they hear is cash-registers opening to the tune of near $600 million. That also means a Hangover Part III is a sure-thing. Only thing is doubt is how long it would take to negotiate a deal for Todd Phillips, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis to return.

A deal that would appear to be done or near completion since Cooper has confirmed The Hangover Part III moving forward as he tells the National Ledger (via Movie Hole):

"I hope we'll start shooting next September. I know (director) Todd Phillips is working on the script. We stuck to the formula in the second one but the third would need to close the trilogy. I think it'll take place in L.A. and not adhere to the structure."

I speak for everyone when I ask how will Mike Tyson be integrated this time and will Galifianakis once again deprive the world of a Mel Gibson cameo?

Peter Weller Joins Star Trek Sequel

While fandom holds its collective breath on "Is he or isn't he Khan?" question on Benicio del Toro, there remain other roles to be cast for the Star Trek sequel.

Variety reports J.J. Abrams has recruited Peter Weller (genre favorite for Robocop, of course, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^th Dimension and in a case of small-world syndrome, as I call it, guest-starred on the last iteration of the Trek brand-name before Team J.J. made it cool the prequel series Enterprise – cue speculation he's reprising that role) to join fellow newbies del Toro and Alice Eve.

Way to lure back good will with us nerds after that Khan bullshit, Abrams.

Funny thing is Weller would fit perfectly in the role of the sequel's secondary villain, from the plot details we'd heard, as a figure who helps supply the Klingons with advanced technology (read: warp-drive) to fuck the Federation. But everything's up in the air (although I trust our sources immensely) after that Khan development Friday night.

The Top 10 Most Important Characters In The Star Wars Saga

It's the biggest and most popular franchise in history, and since it's a slow (no) news period and I am still on a Star Wars high from the Blu Ray release and ongoing Cloine Wars toon, I thought I'd do an article on what I feel are the top 10 most important figures in the saga based on their impact to the overall story and key parts of the saga.

10. R2D2

The little guy is a bit of an unsung hero, he gets the heroes out of tight situations more often than any other character in the saga, and more importantly without his heroics on Tatooine, getting the plans to Obi Wan, Luke's journey would never begin.

9. Boba Fett

He tracks Han Solo to Bespin thus allowing Vader to lure in Luke and attempt to capture him. He then leaves with his bounty, Han Solo, and sets up the first real test of Luke as a Jedi, as the son of Anakin Skywalker takes on the powerful crime lord Jabba the Hutt to rescue Han.

8. Princess Leia

A strong force in leading the rebellion against The Empire and the one that gets the origjnal Death Star plans away from Vader setting the whole fight back in motion. Also kills Jabba the Hutt.

7. Han Solo

The scoundrel captain of the Millenium Falcon is the man that gets Luke and Obi Wan to the Death Star and helps rescue Leia, he also prevents Vader from killing Luke in the Death Star trench before blowing up the shield generator housed on Endor, allowing the rebel alliance to finally finish off The Empire.

6. Jango Fett

Lures Obi Wan Kenobi away from Anakin; allowing Palpatine to place Anakin in the role of protecting Padme and putting them alone together thus twisting Anakin further from his path. However most important due to the fact he provided the DNA that created the Clone army that would eventually wipe out the majority of the Jedi and allow The Sith to take controlof the Galaxy.

5. Yoda

The greatest Jedi of them all, saved Obi Wan and Anakin from Count Dooku, led the Jedi council through the Clone Wars and completed Luke's training, enabling him to defeat Vader and end the Empire.

4. Luke Skywalker

The true hero of the saga, the one that restores order to the Galaxy and turns his father back from the dark side, to a degree it was too little too late for the chosen one, but it allowed his soul to rest in peace.

3. Emperor Palpatine

The master manipulator, trainer of Darth Maul, corrupter of Count Dooku and the man that took out the Jedi after turning the chosen one Anakin Skywalker. He engineered an entire war to reach his endgame and ruled the Galaxy for 20 years.

2. Obi Wan Kenobi

Defeated Darth Maul, General Grievous and Anakin Skywalker, but his reluctance to finish off a man he trained and saw as his borther allowed his former Padawan to become Darth Vader and carry out the purge of the Jedi. 20 years later he started the training of Anakin's son Luke and sacrificed himself to become his mentor.

1. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

He is the central figure of the entire saga, from Pod racing slave boy believed to be the chosen one, to cocky young Jedi dealing with anger and darkness within, all the way to his turn to the dark side, leading the Jedi purge and in the end finding a degree of redemption through his son Luke by killing The Emperor Palptine, something he should have done 20 years earlier.

Weekend Box Office: December 2 - 4

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  The Twilight Saga:  Breaking Dawn Part 1 - $16.9 million

2.  The Muppets - $11.2 million

3.  Hugo - $7.6 million

4.  Arthur Christmas - $7.3 million

5.  Happy Feet Two - $6 million

6.  Jack and Jill - $5.5 million

7.  The Descendants - $5.2 million

8.  Immortals - $4.23 million

9.  Tower Heist - $4.1 million

10.  Puss in Boots - $3 million

Seriously, America?  Twilight is #1 again? 

While the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend is usually one of the slowest box office weekends of the year, this one was paticularly embarrassing as Breaking Dawn emerged as the winner, making it the first of the Twilight films to hold the top spot for three weekends in a row.  Ugh, enough already with this crappy franchise.

Adding to the humiliation was watching The Muppets, which is currently one the best-reviewed films of the year on Rotten Tomatoes and the best thing to happen to the Muppets in decades, mysteriously plummet 62% to earn just $11.2 million for the weekend.  Analysts had this one making about $20 million this weekend, which I didn't see happening, but this drop was just ugly.  Maybe everyone who took their kids to see this last weekend made time for Arthur Christmas this weekend, since that only dropped only 39% to earn $7.3 million, a decent rebound from it's mediocre opening last week, but still...The Muppets is too good to just fade away so quickly.

Martin Scorsese's excellent Hugo, which was just named best picture of the year by the National Board of Review, did nicely after adding 563 more theaters and earning an estimated $7.6 million this weekend.  Fellow Oscar contender The Descendants also added theaters had another great weekend, earning $5.2 million, while The Artist earned another $206,000 from the whopping six theaters it's currently playing in.  Also opening in just 10 theaters this weekend was Shame, starring Michael Fassbender, which earned an excellent $361,000 - especially excellent since it opened with an NC-17 rating.

Next weekend, the annoyingly-advertisted New Year's Eve arrives to hopefully snatch away Twilight's main audience, as well as Jonah Hill's Adventures In Babysitting-clone, The Sitter.  Gary Oldman takes another shot as an Oscar hopeful as Tinker, Tailor, Solider Spy opens in theaters.

Plus...The Muppets is still playing, so go see it if you haven't yet.  Or see it again, if you have.  How about we let Fozzie Bear explain why it's imperative that we don't let the Muppets fade away again?

How can you argue with that?

Star Trek Sequel: The Search For Khan

When it got out General Zod was the heavy in The Man of Steel, Zack Snyder issued strong denials saying, "It's just wrong" and "The Internet has no idea what’s going on." Remind me again, folks, who's that Kryptonian warmonger Michael Shannon is playing opposite Henry Cavill?

When stuff like this gets out, you can't believe the filmmakers at face value when they run to the microphone assuring everyone there is no fire. Not that they want to be assholes lying to your face and playing you for a schmuck. But nobody wants these things getting out before everything is finalized taking away from their chance of making a big splash announcement themselves on their own terms.

So when Latino Review reported the villain role of Benicio del Toro's in the highly-anticipated sequel to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is Khan earlier this evening, guess what happened next? Abrams himself publicly denied it to Hit Fix stating with two simple words, "Not true."

I want to believe Abrams. From a pure ego stand-point, no Khan backs the info we received. More importantly, I want to believe Abrams knows how Goddamn lazy it is to throw that character into the equation this soon after the 2009 reboot brought the franchise back from the dead and, for the first time in its history, made it cool to like Star Trek.

The best commentary I've seen, so far, came from Scott Mendelson:

"New STAR TREK 2 news would be like Sony/MGM following up CASINO ROYALE (rebooted, restarted 007 franchise) by loosely remaking GOLDFINGER."

Yeah, I'd like to believe Abrams...but sadly this looks more like he's covering his ass.