Typecasting Strikes Again – Larry David Playing Nun in 3 Stooges

Like many of you good readers, I too immediately think of middle-age Jewish comedians when I think of nuns.

It's not like there's that much invested in the Farrelly brothers' Three Stooges movie at the moment. I say, "What the Hell!" and go for it.

"TOLDJA" says in addition to Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso as the title characters and Jane Lynch as Mother Superior, Larry David has joined the cast as Mother Mengele, the nun responsible for running the orphanage the characters grew up at.

As long as you keep your expectation less to Curb Your Enthusiasm and more towards The Paul Raiser Show, then you should be fine. Even my father (a lifelong fan of the Stooges short-films) doesn't even care about this.

We Won’t be Calling Him "Commander!" Anymore

Since they neutered the original cast down to three, this news isn't surprising in the least especially considering how his career has taken off after the fact (Once you go Nolan, baby...). But still it hadn't been made officially official until now.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt confirms to Collider he won't be returning as Cobra Commander for G.I. Joe 2: Cobra Strikes. He's pre-occupied with his time on The Dark Knight Rises, and you just know the moment he and his agent worked their asses off to get outta that G.I. Joe contract when the opportunity arose to do the third Batman movie with Christopher Nolan.

Besides, it's not like they can't find someone else to hide their face and warp his voice.

Chris Hemsworth is the Latest Snow White & the Huntsman Contender

It'll only be a few more days 'till Thor hits stateside and we see if Chris Hemsworth can gain from the good-will he's already earned from his Star Trek performance. While there's still the matter of The Avengers for next May, beyond that is a question-mark for the Australian actor. It's rather on the soon-ish side of things to discuss Thor or Avengers follow-ups.

But while we wait to see how Thor does this weekend (I personally think it's going to do OK, but nowhere near spectacular numbers), Hemsworth is already on Universal's radar for Snow White & the Huntsman, reports Variety. The trades say he's the front-runner for the title role next to Kristen Stewart and the part is reportedly his if he so chooses.

I'm guessing Hemsworth and his representation are waiting for the afore-mentioned opening weekend for Thor before making further commitments (i.e. his pay-bump would go up if Kenneth Branagh's Marvel epic clicks) assuming the shooting schedule for The Avengers doesn’t intervene with Snow White. This would also make him the fourth actor linked to the part starting with Viggo Mortensen, Hugh Jackman and most recently fellow Aussie Joel Edgerton.

Quentin Tarantino's Latest Film is Django Unchained

No, this isn't just endless talk that amounts to nothing (The Vega Brothers, Kill Bill Volume III, that untitled Mandarin-language/English-subtitled kung-fu epic, etc.) Quentin Tarantino is making another movie following his, in my opinion, masterpiece Inglorious Basterds and the tragic death of his long-time editor Sally Menke which many feared killed his momentum to continue making movies from here on end.

Twitter user AgentTrainee (whose specific tweet on the matter was subsequently yanked) posted the front page to Tarantino's latest unveiling its title Django Unchained.

There'd been rumblings a few months back about the spaghetti-Western project, including a cast featuring Keith Carradine, Franco Nero (who'd played the character of Django in several Italian productions back in the day), Christoph Waltz and Treat Williams. Had to be cautious because, again, God love him, the man talks a lot, and many times it amounts to nothing.

Not the case here, as Indie Wire further elaborates on the subject speaking to a source who's read the script and provides this plot synopsis (read ahead, at your own apparel):

"Django is a freed slave, who, under the tutelage of a German bounty hunter (played by Christopher Waltz the evil Nazi officer in Inglorious Basterds) becomes a bad-ass bounty hunter himself, and after assisting Waltz in taking down some bad guys for profit, is helped by Waltz in tracking down his slave wife and liberating her from an evil plantation owner. And that doesn’t even half begin to cover it! This film deals with racism as I've rarely seen it handled in a Hollywood film. While it’s 100 percent pure popcorn and revenge flick, it is pure genius in the way it takes on the evil slave owning south. Think of what he did with the Nazis in Inglorious and you’ll get a sense of what he’s doing with slave owners and slave overseers in this one."

Tarantino is now gearing up to have production rolling later this year. So it looks like we'll have a new film from him by next year. Which automatically shoots it to the top of my personal "Must See" list.

Oscorp Will Be in 'The Amazing Spider-Man'

Well even though there's been absolutely no mention of Harry or Norman Osborn appearing in next summer's reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man, pictures surfaced over the weekend from the film's set in New York all but confirming Oscorp (Norman Osborn's company) will at least appear in the film.

I expect this to be similar to the tease of S.H.I.E.L.D in Iron Man.  It's mentioned, somewhat prominent, but really doesn't have much affect on the story.  Just build up for the ever impending sequel.

Take a look below:

Thanks to JustJared and SuperHeroHype.

Starring Garfield, Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans, The Amazing Spider-Man is slated for a July 3^rd, 2012 release.

Robert Zemeckis Possibly Returning to Time-Travel for Replay

I'd really hate for after all this talk about getting back into the live-action straddle, at the end of the day, Robert Zemeckis says, "Nah! I'm gonna do another motion-capture movie!"

Knock on wood that isn't the case because, as we all know, Zemeckis needs to drop that crap. He tried for a decade, wasted a lot of time and money (including his own) and now it's time to move on. Judging by the last development, perhaps he realizes that too? We shall see.

In addition to the drama Flight, Vulture reports he's in "serious talks" to helm Replay, a time-travel related project set up at Paramount. The story, based on the '87 novel from Ken Grimwood, centers on a man in his early 40s dropping dead of a heart-attack in 1988. But he somehow finds himself back in 1963 in his 18 year-old self with the memories of his life intact and he thereby goes about reliving his life, and eventual death...over and over again.

Based on their Intel with Flight's development (the participation of Denzel Washington remains in the "hazy" stage), Replay could wind up being Zemeckis' latest endeavor. Just based on their descriptions (although they both sound great) I'd prefer Flight, but I'm fine with Replay as long as Zemeckis isn't bullshitting us with his attempt to work with real-live actors again.

Weekend Box Office: April 29 - May 1

Courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1.  Fast Five - $83.6 million

2.  Rio - $14.4 million

3.  Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family - $10 million

4.  Water for Elephants - $9.1 million

5.  Prom - $5 million

6.  Hoodwinked Too!  Hood vs. Evil - $4.1 million

7.  Soul Surfer - $3.3 million

8.  Insidious - $2.6 million

9.  Hop - $2.55 million

10.  Source Code - $2.53

And....cue summer!  Wow.  Fast Five, the fifth in the seemingly never-ending Fast and the Furious series finally kicked open the doors of the 2011 box office, opening with a staggering $83.6 million.  That's the highest opening for the entire franchise so far, as well as Universal's biggest opening weekend since 1997's The Lost World: Jurassic Park.  Overseas, where the film opened last week, Fast Five has grossed an additional $81 million, bringing its worldwide total to $165 million already.  So, if we didn't already learn this with the last film, we know now:  April + Fast and the Furious = great big hit.

It was not such a great weekend for the other new releases, with audiences choosing the animated hit Rio over the who-asked-for-this-in-the-first-place sequel Hoodwinked Too!.  In its third weekend, Rio crossed the $100 million mark with a $14.4 million finish, while Hoodwinked sputtered with $4.1 million.  Disney's Prom didn't fare much better, opening quietly with $5 million, while that film's target audience was still enjoying their Robert Pattinson fix, as Water for Elephants finished the weekend with a decent $9.1 million.

Tyler Perry's latest Madea adventure had its typical big drop in its second weekend, but has so far grossed $41 million (and, like Fast Five, we'll probably see another sequel soon).  With Easter over and done with, Hop has almost totally lost its audience with an 80% drop this weekend.  Insidious continues to play well - the $1.5 million budgeted horror film has grossed $48 million so far.

Well, that's it for the warmup act...summer movie season kicks off officially next week with the release of Thor.  So far, it looks like we're off to a good start.

Back to the Future: Episode 4 (the game!) Has Arrived

New time-travel awesomeness has arrived courtesy of Telltale Games, with the release of the fourth chapter of Back to the Future: The Game.  Entitled Double Visions, this latest disruption to the space-time continuum has Marty McFly escaping a dystopian version of 1986 run by an evil version of Doc Brown, and travelling back to the 1930s to stop the younger Doc from hooking up with Edna Strickland (the sister of Marty's future high school principal nemesis, Mr. Strickland).  By doing so, he will stop Doc from marrying the woman who convinced poor Doc to turn 1986 into something out of 1984.

I love the idea that unlike his original time-travel adventure, Marty's mission is now to prevent a couple from falling in love and getting married.  Even more so, I love that this chapter also has guitars and skateboards. 

Double Visions is now available for the PC and Mac.  PSN and iPad releases are scheduled for June. 

Praise Be to Thor! Cabin in the Woods Finally Getting Released!

Depending on how Thor does, this is either a stroke of genius or a bad call that won't cost them much anyway.

"TOLDJA" says Cabin in the Woods, the Drew Goddard-directed, Joss Whedon-written/produced effort starring Chris Hemsworth that’s been collecting dust on the shelf forever now (I hear the canisters still have those "Obama/Biden '08" bumper-stickers on them!) will soon see the light of day.

Lionsgate, fresh outta milking the Saw udder dry and distributing whatever man-in-drag comedy crossed with "Praise Jesus!" overtones Tyler Perry is making this week, is taking the horror flick outta MGM's hands and into cinema-houses, hopefully for this October.

No word on where the Red Dawn remake (also at MGM and also starring Hemsworth) stands. But again the Norse God does considerable bank and Hemsworth becomes a house-hold name, you can bet your first-born someone will get that puppy out ASAP.

Terminator 5 is a Getting the Gang Back Together

The thought of Arnold Schwarzenegger returning for a fifth Terminator reeked of desperation both on the part of man himself and filmmakers. But this new angle as supplied via Latino Review could be one Hell of a hook to getting people interested in the series again:

"Why bring this up? Because I have news. That's right, I'm going to bury the news almost 500 words into a rant about how much I like Terminator. Why? Because you deserve better than one-line of new information about a project that doesn't have a script yet. You deserve to know the context and why this little bit of information suddenly has me pro-Terminator 5.

Or should I say 'Terminator 2012' which is the title the pitch is going under right now. It involves time travel back to the present day, and - the exciting and mind-bending part of it all - is that it has the 'entire original cast' attached to it, not just Arnie.

Disclaimer time: This is from a real source, I'm not bullshitting you. I don't know what 'entire original cast' means, but it's safe to assume that AT LEAST means Linda Hamilton is coming back to re-establish herself as the face of Sarah Connor. At best, we somehow get Michael Biehn as some sort of old Kyle Reese...

...which is AMAZING."

So the argument made by producers and director Justin Lin will this would be the "true" sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and that's why everyone should care this time. It also explains to the hiring of Lin, who successfully took the same approach to Fast & Furious and this weekend's Fast Five. Like Terminator, that series suffered from a couple of installment without the core actors and the audience attendance dropped considerably.

This is an ingenious plan, truth be told, if they're able to secure everyone to return.