More Avatar on the Way

According to Deadline, a deal has been struck and three screenwriters hired to start working on not just two, but three sequels to the $2 billion hit, all to be filmed at the same time and released annually. The first sequel is coming out in Dec 2016, the next in 2017, and the last in 2018.  

I can't imagine how much it's going to cost to make three Avatar movies at once, but I guess their faith is justified by the massive success of the first one. Do you think the novelty will have worn off by now, though? James Cameron is still at the helm of all this, of course, set to direct and co-write all of them, so I'll guess we'll be seeing what he's got left in his bag of tricks.

Hollywood's Highest Paid Actresses

I don't know how Angelina Jolie tops the Forbes list when she hasn't had a movie out since The Tourist, but somehow she's number one. The rest of the women are more understandable, but most of them are making a lot of that money off of endorsement deals. And the combined total is still nearly three times less than what the men make. Hard to believe, isn't it?

TOP TEN

  1. Angelina Jolie- $33 million
  2. Jennifer Lawrence- $26 million
  3. Kristen Stewart- $22 million
  4. Jennifer Aniston- $20 million
  5. Emma Stone- $16 million
  6. Charlize Theron- $15 million
  7. Sandra Bullock- $14 million
  8. Natalie Portman- $14 million
  9. Mila Kunis- $11 million
  10. Julia Roberts- $11 million

FIRST LOOK: "American Hustle"

USA Today has the first set pictures from David O'Russell's latest Oscar hopeful, American Hustle, out on Christmas Day. Here he combines the casts from The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook (Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence) to tell the story of an FBI sting operation against Congress in the 1970's. Bale, as usual, is pretty unrecognizable from these pics. 

Frick Gallery
Scam

BOX OFFICE 7/26-7/28: "The Wolverine" Claws to the Top

There was no real competition this weekend for Fox's The Wolverine, which pulled in $55 million and earned an A- Cinemascore from audiences. It's a pretty respectable haul, but studio estimates had been projecting as high as $80 million, so it may be seen as a slight disappointment, although it's right in line with the opening of the last X-Men movie, First Class from two years ago. The film also opened to $86 million overseas, which is actually a franchise record, for a worldwide total of $141 million, so really the movie is a success any way you look at it.

Last week's The Conjuring held well for $22 million this week, amassing $83 million and passing Saw's $72 million total from director James Wan. In third place, Despicable Me scored another $16 million and has now passed $300 million in its fourth week- on track to become the second biggest movie of the year, after Iron Man 3. The rest of the top 5 rounds out with Turbo and Grown Ups 2, the latter passing $100 million to become yet another Adam Sandler vehicle to pass that mark.

Top 5: 

  1. The Wolverine- $55 million
  2. The Conjuring- $22 million
  3. Despicable Me 2- $16 million
  4. Turbo- $13 million
  5. Grown Ups 2- $11.5 million

In limited release news, Fruitvale Station expanded to 1000 theaters this week and cracked the top ten, with $4.7 million. This is possibly due to the recent topicality surrounding the film's subject matter, which has heightened interest in the material and given it a higher profile. And Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine opened in NY and LA this weekend to a scorching per theater average of $102K. The movie's set to expand further in coming weeks, so be on the lookout for it. Next week August kicks off with Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg in 2 Guns vs. The Smurfs 2.

REVIEW: The Wolverine (2013) Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto. Dir. James Mangold

James Mangold's The Wolverine marks the sixth time out as the clawed bad boy mutant for Hugh Jackman, and is something of a welcome return to form after the disaster that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine back in 2009. This one works as an isolated, self -contained story, or to put it another way, it could have also been called Wolverine's Adventures in Japan.

Based on an early 1980's comic book storyline from Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, this is not a prequel to the X-Men films like the last solo Wolverine movie, but appears to take place sometime after X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Logan remains haunted by dreams of a recurring Jean Grey (once again Famke Janssen), his lost love, who pleads with him to join her in the afterlife. Jackman again plays Logan as a brooding lost soul, but with the same gruffness and occasionally humorous twinkle we've grown so used to over the past 13 years.

In this "episode" as it were, we see that Logan once saved a man named Ichiro Yashida's life in Japan right after the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. In present day, Yashida is now dying and sends his adopted daughter Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to find his savior and bring him to him before he dies. While in Japan, Logan gets caught up in a plot by the Japanese mob and the mutant Viper to kidnap Yashida's granddaughter Mariko (Tao Okamoto) and he must step in to help out, falling for Mariko (who is his great love in the comics) in the process.

Theirs is something of a melancholy affair, and the film itself is refreshing in that it's mostly a character driven exploration of Logan's haunted soul. The Japanese setting and cast of characters gives this adventure an exotic feel, setting it apart from other X-Men movies and action films this summer. There are some good action scenes involving a horde of Japanese ninjas and a thrilling fight atop a speeding bullet train that leaves you with the bang for your buck, and the three key female performances in the film are all meaty and effective; from Yukio, who's also a mutant with psychic powers, to Mariko, vulnerable and appealing as the possible antidote to Logan's damaged psyche, and Viper, a villain with a toxic tongue, played with great scenery chewing heft by Russian actress Svetlana Khodochenkova.

After the terrible X3 and Origins films, the franchise took a big step in the right direction with First Class a couple years ago, and it continues that way here, with a satisfying, low key and character driven film, that only devolves into the typical action movie climax in the last 15 minutes or so. It's a far worthier solo outing for the Wolverine this time around, and be sure to stay tuned for the credits, which include a stinger that brings back some old favorites and sets up the much anticipated Days of Future Past next May- which promises to be the colossal and epic X-Men film featuring past and present ensembles that fans have been awaiting for a long, long time. To be continued..

* * 1/2

Trailer: