Last weekend, Skyfall had yet to open in America, and had already pulled in around $287 million. This weekend, while cruising past the $300 million mark internationally, the latest Bond flick finally dropped into Stateside theaters, where it also did large, large numbers: $87.8 million, to be exact, good for the biggest Bond opening. Ever!
John Mayer & Katy Perry & Adam Levine: Katy Perry went to Adam Levine's annual Halloween party and the two were flirting nonstop. "Adam was touching and hugging Katy affectionately while they did shots together for a half hour, even though his girlfriend model Behati Prinsloo was at the party too. It was kind of uncomfortable." Perry is show-business buddies with Levine, who is also BFF with Katy's rumored beau, John Mayer. Mayer once dated Jessica Simpson, whom Levine was once said to have tooted and booted.
"Adam texted Jess that he 'needed space.'" WHAT? "Then he avoided her calls. She phoned him several times, but he didn't answer." While Katy and Adam's flirtation is probably innocent, there's no doubt that she knows a potential fling with Levine is her ace in the hole should John Mayer's wandering eye and life-ruining dick get the best of John and Katy's relationship.
It’s too bad that entire generations of people had to die without ever hearing James Bond compare a woman to “a big bowl of butt soup with extra nipples” in a Triborough Bridge accent. Thankfully, Saturday Night Live took care of that for the rest of us, and now we — or our children — might live to see a day when Nipples Galore shows up to Bond’s suite all covered with clam chowder and cozied up in a crusty butt bowl. I hope. Unfortunately, the Daniel Craig–hosted show was peppered with less successful sketches, including a cold open that was a lot less funny than the cover of The New Yorker. As Kenan might once have asked, what’s up with that? This season’s political satire sketches are off to a rocky start, and even a guest appearance by Chris Parnell as Jim Lehrer couldn’t liven up the debate parody, during which Jay Pharoah’s Obama VO’d his dismay at feeling woozy from the altitude and worried over the fact that he’d forgotten to get Michelle an anniversary gift between cutaways to footage of the real First Lady looking glum. It seemed bizarre that a debate that caused such a stir would be dealt with so gently by SNL in the opener; most of the goods (read: Big Bird) were saved for "Weekend Update." Wasn’t there enough to go around?
Blake Lively & Ryan Reynolds: "With its 300-year-old moss-draped oak trees and stately, columned mansion, the Boone Hall Plantation & Gardens in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, is a favorite venue for couples tying the knot. But it wasn't just the charming post-and-rail fences and lush lawns that appealed to the couple saying 'I do' there September 9th."
Was it the historic slave quarters then? Boone Hall's website seriously boasts about the "eight original slave cabins" and the road in front of the plantation property is quaintly named "Slave Street." I personally find the whole idea of getting married at a Southern plantation totally tacky and repulsive on a soul level, but hey, I'm not Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
It's kind of hard to remember now — what with 50 Shades of Grey having bombed through and nip-slipped the world into submission — but there was a time when The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was the hot lit-blockbuster adaptation of the moment. We had the renewed invincibility of David Fincher, coming smoking hot off The Social Network, and we had Karen O going "ahhhahhhaAHHHah" on that goose-bump-inducing trailer, and we had ascendant starlet Rooney Mara, making herself over as one who clearly is not fucking around. And then the movie dropped and — it was OK? It was pretty cool? Yeah. Yeah. Totally not bad.
When last we saw James Bond, uh, well, we have literally no recollection of where the franchise left him after Quantum of Solace, because we had to erase that installment from our memories before it tainted the greatness of Casino Royale. But this new international trailer for Skyfall, MGM's upcoming attempt to atone for the Quantum debacle, informs us that everyone's favorite Double-O has been chilling out somewhere off the grid, his presumed death — ordered by M because the Mi6 Geek Squad lost a hard drive? — providing all the cover he needs to spend his evenings at the local blown-expat-superspy pub, throwing down shots of Scorpionschläger while waiting for a crisis big enough to require a tuxedo fitting.
You should maybe go see Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to Clash of the Titans, this weekend. Why?, you ask? It looks really dumb, you say? It’s not even clear that any Krakens will be released, you astutely point out? Listen: I have it on good authority that it is, at least, better than the awful first movie. None other than its star, heroically candid Australian-Na’vi Sam Worthington, said so!
James Bond franchise producer Michael G. Wilson says he’s hoping to sign Daniel Craig up for five more movies as 007. Craig is currently shooting the next Bond flick, Skyfall, with director Sam Mendes. Says Wilson, “Filming has gone very well, and I'd love Daniel to surpass Roger's [Moore] record and do eight pictures.” If Craig balks at such a long-term commitment, though, Wilson and the other producers have a plan to goad him into it: Threaten to hire George Lazenby instead. Grade: A- [HR]
Oh hiiiiiii! It's your weekly frenemy, the tabloids, back to humblebrag about how hard it is to have the perfect husband, children, and job. You've been looking kind of tired lately! Maybe you ought to take it easy on the cocktails during holiday parties this month, especially since you're trying to meet someone. Oh, you're seeing somebody? Huh, that guy. Yeah I don't know about that. Anyway, I'm sooooo busy making tiny coral wreaths for my daughter Gingerbeer's fish-tank nativity and poaching a brie-stuffed boar sous-vide for dinner. I better go. Luv yaaaaaaa!
It only took the wordless ninety seconds of the movie’s first trailer — and a big assist from Trent Reznor and Karen O’s massive “Immigrant Song” cover — to eliminate any lingering mass-market-paperback stigma from David Fincher’s prestige makeover of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. (The Muppets liked it too: according to their none-too-shabby Dragon Tattoo parody.) And with that out of the way, here comes Trailer No. 2, complete with actual dialogue and plot points. We see Daniel Craig’s Mikael Blomkvist being hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate “the most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet — my family.” There’s Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander, just as unrecognizable from her Social Network days as she was in the advance stills, reluctantly teaming up with Blomkvist to crack open the central murder mystery. And there’s the sepia flashbacks, ominous gravelly voiceovers, explosions, dead bodies, dramatic typing, grisly photos, clues being pointed at, and inevitable heart-pumping fast-cut finale segment. Even if the movie ends up being a disappointment, we at least have this trailer, one of the greatest-ever book commercials.
Despite a premise that fused two once-reliable genres and a cast featuring both Indiana Jones and James Bond, Jon Favreau’s $163 million Cowboys & Aliens got smurfing smurfed at the box office over the weekend, opening to a measly $36.2 million — well below even the modest $45 million its makers had predicted. As Harrison Ford scrambles into the nearest refrigerator, we at Grantland are left to wonder just what happened. We asked an agent, a producer, and a publicist for insight on why C&A bombed so badly — and what the fallout might be for its makers and Hollywood at large.
