Alien grasshoppers, Nazis and Death have saved Hollywood's summer. Thanks to the last-minute surge of District 9, Inglourious Basterds and The Final Destination -- and despite a lagging July -- the industry has set a new box office record.
While there won't be a final tally until after this Labour Day weekend, industry watchers expect the summer box office to wind up about 3% ahead of 2007's summer, which previously held the record with $4.16 billion in ticket sales.
What makes it especially welcome news for studios is that there was no single phenomenon (i.e.: last summer's $533 million-grossing The Dark Knight) fuelling business. Instead, it's just a lot of people going to a lot of different movies.
The summer's top-grosser was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($400 million) followed by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($295 million), Up ($290 million), The Hangover ($270 million) and Star Trek ($257 million).
ZANY LIKE A FOXX: With the Saturday Night Live vaults seemingly strip-mined of all value -- how else do you explain a MacGruber movie being made? -- what are the odds Hollywood might try to bring other sketch-comedy creations to the big screen?
Possibly better than you think. Even Jamie Foxx tells Sun Media he's open to reprising Wanda, the character he played on TV's In Living Color.
"I would love to do that character I did on In Living Color. But you have to do something smart ... If you just do a comedy that's zany and whacky, you're in danger of destroying what you built."
Translation: He'd rather avoid Norbit syndrome.
In the meantime, he will be seen next month opposite Gerard Butler in Law-Abiding Citizen. Foxx stars as a district attorney who runs afoul of Butler's avenging vigilante. "He is that guy, the real Hollywood action guy," Foxx says of the 300 actor. "Women go crazy for him, absolutely. That's not my calling, but it's great to be part of that."
JASON RETURNS!: Jason Bateman's career is looking like one of the most successful leaps from TV to big screen in decades.
He debuted his first lead role this week in Mike Judge's Extract, and has just completed his first romantic comedy lead in The Baster with that other TV jumper Jennifer Aniston (yes, we're talking turkey baster, and "there's some sperm swapping going on there," Bateman says.) It's due for release early next year.
He's on board for the movie adaptation of Arrested Development, along with the rest of the cast, apparently. "Although Mitch (creator Mitch Hurwitz) is still writing the script, and then we go to the scheduling part, which is problematic with the size of our cast. Until then, he's asked us not to go into specifics."
There's even talk about a sequel to Hancock, the critically-reviled box office hit in which he co-starred with problematic superhero Will Smith.
"They were talking sequel while we were in the middle of shooting that. When Will Smith does anything, it lends itself to a franchise," he says. "Although we're still waiting for some movement on that."
But when we declare him "ridiculously busy," he says "check back next week.
"You never know the way the economy's going. Look at the top people in our business. I can think of three at the top of the list who don't have their next job and are still sweating their next gig. A position of relevance is a slippery thing in this business. And no, I'm not naming any names."
Okay, we'll guess. John Travolta, Mike Myers and Jim Carrey?
