Financial issues recently halted production on director David O. Russell’s Nailed. It’s the second major hiccup for the film, following James Caan’s decision to quit after he and Russell couldn’t agree on the best way for the actor to choke to death on a cookie. Here’s hoping footage of that argument will join the infamous Lily Tomlin clip on YouTube, but with a different “C” word being thrown around this time.
Steven Spielberg has abandoned his Sacha Baron Cohen vehicle, The Trial of the Chicago Seven, so that further work can be done on the screenplay. The great bearded one plans to focus on his beardless Tintin collaboration with Peter Jackson and his beard-centric Lincoln biography instead. Plus he’s got some sort of archeology adventure movie coming out.
Somehow a Hollywood producer not only thought that a sequel to Donnie Darko was a good idea, but actually decided to make it. S. Darko will see Donnie’s youngest sister suffering from bizarre visions seven years after the events of the first film. The original director, Richard Kelly, will not be involved with the project — and neither will audiences.
MGM has purchased a screenplay entitled Hot Tub Time Machine about a group of friends who discover a hot tub that — you guessed it — travels through time. Apparently a competing studio already owned Toilet Transformers.
Iron Man continued to dominate the North American box office last week, bringing in $51.2 million in its second weekend (yes, a sequel is already in the works). Master thespian Ashton Kutcher’s What Happens In Vegas… finished second with $20.2 million, while the Wachowski Brothers’ critically mauled Speed Racer became the first bomb of the summer with $18.6 million. Made of Honor scored a fourth place finish with $8.1 million while Tina Fey’s Baby Mama brought in $6.2 million to close out the top five.