Author: Ryan Ball

Sony’s animated Monster House put up a good fight but couldn’t manage to sink Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest at the box office. Pirates raked in an estimated $35 million over the weekend to claim the top spot for the third consecutive week. The movie set a new record Saturday as it became the fastest pic to hit the $300 million domestic b.o. target [in its 16th day of release]. Meanwhile, Monster House performed best of all the newcomers, finishing in second place with around $23 million.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water stayed below the surface, placing third with an estimated $18.3 million. The director’s four previous films, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village, collectively earned more than $1.5 billion for Disney before creative differences caused a falling-out. Now it appears that Warner Bros. may have inherited the auteur’s least successful trip to the Twilight Zone.

Second-week comedy holdovers You, Me and Dupree from Universal and Little Man from Sony/Revolution Studios tickled more funny bones than newcomers Clerks II from MGM and My Super Ex-Girlfriend from 20th Century Fox. Dupree hung at No. 4 with around $12.7 million while Little Man finished out the top five with approximately $11 million. Budgeted at around $5 million, Kevin Smith’s Clerks sequel made a tidy profit with $9.6 million. Meanwhile, Ex-Girlfriend proved not so super with approximately $8.7 million for it’s debut.

Disney/Pixar’s Cars is still racing in the top-ten, picking up around $4.9 million over the weekend to bring its seven-week total close to $230 million. Warner Independent Pictures’ A Scanner Darkly, which last week managed to crack the top ten in limited release, dropped down to No. 13 this week with $661,000. Since opening three weeks ago, the rotoscoped Philip K. Dick adaptation has earned around $3.2 million, which is more than director Richard Linklater’s previous animated effort, 2001’s Waking Life, earned worldwide. Though mainstream success doesn’t appear to be in the cards, the star power of Keanu Reeves should yield decent overseas box office and a respectable run on home video.

During the annual Comic-Con Simpsons panel, creator/exec producer Matt Groening and fellow exec producers James L. Brooks and Al Jean thrilled the crowd with some first glimpses at the eagerly awaited The Simpsons Movie. Groening also announced that next year’s panel will feature clips from the 13 all-new episodes of Futurama, which Comedy Central will air sometime in 2008.

When asked about the process of expanding The Simpsons from a half-hour to 90 minutes, Brooks quipped, ‘It’s been rough. We worked at it for a long time and then found out that Snakes on a Plane was doing the same story.’ Groening then introduced a couple of black & white animatics from the movie. In the first piece, the good people of Springfield have formed an angry mob and are after Homer for some reason. When the mob manages to bust into the Simpsons home, Maggie has to fend off sea captain Horatio McCallister’s pet monkey with a broken milk bottle. In the second clip, Homer is driving a dog sled across a snowy terrain. His incessant whipping is avenged when he stops to set up camp and the dogs start ripping him to shreds. As the dogs are running away, Homer sighs and whines, ‘Oh, why does everything I whip leave me?’

Much has been made of the mutual spoofing between The Simpsons and FOX’s other hit animated series, Family Guy. Fans at Comic-Con fishing for negative comments about Seth McFarlane and his show were disappointed when Groening stated that he is happy about the Family Guy comeback. ‘It’s shown me and FOX that there is life after cancellation,’ he said, making reference to Futurama. ‘I’m tiptoeing in Seth McFarlane’s footsteps.’

Groening also announced that he is working on another Life in Hell book and is still trying to find a way to make the original Simpsons shorts from The Tracey Ulman show available to fans. ‘I think cell phones is the only format crumby enough to show them on,’ he said, commenting on the primitive nature of the animation.

Groening and company assured fans that they are still dedicated to keeping The Simpsons series going strong as long as they possibly can. Special guest voices lined for the next season include Kiefer Sutherland, Natalie Portman, Dr. Phil and recording artists The White Stripes and Metallica. The Simpsons Movie is slated to hit theaters on July 27. 2007.

Having made a name for himself in feature films and video games, action star Vin Diesel is out to conquer television with an animated series about storied African military leader Hannibal of Carthage. Diesel’s One Race Prods. and BET Networks’ freshly formed animation unit will jointly produce Hannibal the Conqueror.

Hannibal is perhaps best known for scaling the Alps with an army of Elephants to challenge the Roman Empire, but the series aims to highlight other aspects of the general’s extraordinary life and career. The show will delve into his tutelage as a warrior under his father, the king of Carthage, as well as his history-making invasions of Spain and England.

“From my first week at BET, I have been pursuing this project,” says Reginald Hudlin, BET’s president of entertainment and former Boondocks producer. “Vin Diesel brings great thought and passion to both character development and storylines, and we are pleased to be the first to be in the animation production business with Vin and One Race Prods. Hannibal will be epic storytelling.”

“It only took Reginald Hudlin becoming president of entertainment for me to know that BET would be the perfect network to launch a Hannibal franchise, the story of the great African general who fought an empire,” adds Diesel. “Having worked passionately for ten years to develop a film property on Hannibal, this animated series will offer audiences a chance to begin to understand the larger-than-life mythology of this classic figure.”

The partnership between Diesel and BET was announced over the weekend at Comic-Con Int’l in San Diego. Hannibal the Conqueror will be exec produced by Diesel and One Race VP Samantha Vincent. Under the management of Denys Cowan, BET Animation will continue to seek out toon properties with African-American appeal.

Hannibal will hardly be Diesel’s first foray into animation. In addition to voicing the title character in director Brad Bird’s 1999 effort, The Iron Giant, he lent his voice and likeness to Peter Chung’s 2004 direct-to-video featurette, The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury, and will be heard in Blur Studio’s 2007 feature-length treatment of Rockfish, its award-winning CG-animated short. The film will be directed by Blur principal Tim Miller, who also helmed the short. Diesel also has his own video game company, Tigon Studios, which co-produced The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay with Starbreeze Studios and Vivendi Universal Games.

The reign of Disney’s pirates may come to an end this weekend as competing studios release a quartet of new competitors, led by Sony’s animated Monster House. Also hitting the big screen are Warner Bros.’ Lady in the Water from director M. Night Shyamalan, 20th Century Fox’s Ivan Reitman action-comedy My Super Ex-Girlfriend and MGM’s Clerks II from filmmaker Kevin Smith.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest still holds the highest theater count with 4133, but Monster House isn’t far behind with 3,553 venues, more than 200 of which are exhibiting the film in stereoscopic 3D. The 3D effect is provided by Real D, which last added a third dimension to Disney’s animated Chicken Little. Like that film, Monster House may have what it takes to be a break-out hit, especially as positive reviews continue to roll in.

Created with Sony Pictures Imageworks’ Performance Capture technology, Monster House is the feature directorial debut of UCLA Spotlight Award winner Gil Kenan. The spooky comedy-adventure centers on three kids who venture across the street to a mysterious house that they believe to be alive. The movie has drawn comparisons to such fun ’80s adolescent fantasies as The Goonies, which is no coincidence since one of the producers is Steven Spielberg. Robert Zemeckis, the creative force behind Warner Bros.’ The Polar Express, also produced along with Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke.

Critics have been less kind to Lady in the Water, the latest supernatural thriller from the director of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village. Described as a bedtime story, the film stars Paul Giamatti as a building superintendent who finds a strange woman in the pool of his apartment complex and is soon introduced to menacing creatures of the night. The visual effects work was provided by ILM.

More visual effects come to the rescue in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, in which Uma Thurman plays a superheroine who unleashes her fury when she gets dumped by her boyfriend, played by Luke Wilson. This time the lion’s share of the vfx shots were produced by Digital Domain, with Lola visual Effects Lending a helping hand.

The animated fun continues next weekend when Warner Bros. brings us The Ant Bully, which is having its premiere this Sunday at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Among the many comic-related developments announced in conjunction with this week’s San Diego Comic-Con Int’l is Warner Bros. plan to make a feature film based on the 40-year-old DC Comics property Doom Patrol. Daily Variety reports that Academy Award-winning scribe Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) is producing the superhero pic through his Weed Road Pictures shingle at Warner Bros. The screenplay will be written by Adam Turner.

Throughout the years, DC and competitor Marvel have at times come up with similar characters and franchises like DC’s Swamp Thing and Marvel’s Man-Thing, for instance. Likewise, Doom Patrol has drawn comparisons to Marvel’s X-Men series, since it also chronicles the exploits of a team of super-powered misfits who fight evil forces while trying to find their place in the world. And like the X-Men, the members of the Doom Patrol are led by a brilliant scientist who is confined to a wheelchair. To differentiate its potential tentpole, Warner Bros. will have to find a way to put a fresh twist on the concept.

Created by writers Bob Haney and Arnold Drake, and artist Bruno Premiani, Doom Patrol debuted in 1963 in DC’s My Greatest Adventure #80. When it failed to develop a significant following, the series was discontinued in 1968 but has since been dusted off a number of times by different writers. The Doom Patrol team members have changed with the various incarnations of the comic, but the original lineup includes Negative Man, Elasti-Girl, Robotman, Mento and Beast Boy.

Marvel Studios is moving forward with plans to make a new movie based on its classic comic book series about a scientist who transforms into a massive, green candidate for anger management. The studio has hired Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2, Unleashed) to direct The Incredible Hulk. The appointment will be formally announced during a Marvel Studios panel at San Diego Comic-Con Int’l on Saturday, July 22.

Scripted by Zak Penn, (X-Men: The Last Stand), the new film will ignore director Ang Lee’s 2004 effort, Hulk, which featured a CG-animated green giant created by Industrial Light & Magic. That film earned more than $245 million worldwide, but its $62 million opening was a disappointment to Universal execs after the boffo debuts of Sony’s Spider-Man and 20th Century Fox’s X2: X-Men United.

The Incredible Hulk will follow Ghost Rider as the second project independently financed and produced by Marvel through the company’s $525 million revolving film financing facility. Avi Arad, Kevin Feige and Gale Ann Hurd are producing with Michael Helfant and Ari Arad exec producing. The pic will be released by Universal at a yet-to-be-determined date. Casting is slated to begin immediately.

Ghost Rider, starring Nicholas Cage, will be open Feb. 16, 2007. You can view the CG-laden trailer at www.sonypictures.com/movies/ghostrider.

Independent production entity Exodus Film Group confirmed that Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi and John Cleese will head up the voice cast of its first animated feature, Igor. The actors were previously tapped to voice a pilot short titled Igor: Unholy Frijoles, but it was unclear whether or not all three would return for the feature, which The Weinstein Co. will distribute in North America and various international territories.

Written by Chris McKenna (American Dad), Igor is described as a playfully irreverent comedy about a mad scientist’s hunchbacked lab assistant who has big dreams of becoming a scientist in his own right and winning first place at the annual Evil Science Fair. Slater will voice the title role while Buscemi comes fresh off his creepy turn in Monster House to play Scamper, a super intelligent and ill-tempered lab rabbit. Cleese, who’s also working on Shrek 3, is voicing the character of Dr. Glickenstein, Igor’s evil master.

Igor is being produced by Exodus president John D. Eraklis and veteran animation executive Max Howard, who has collaborated on such animated blockbusters such as Disney’s The Lion King, and Aladdin and Warner Bros.’ Space Jam and The Iron Giant. No release date for Igor has been set yet.