'Mere Brother Ki Dulhan' earns Rs 26.5 crores

The Imran Khan-Katrina Kaif-Ali Zafar starrer 'Mere Brother Ki Dulhan' has not got a bumper opening like 'Bodyguard' but the film is doing good business - it earned Rs.25.6 crore over the weekend.

Made at a budget of Rs.30 crore, which includes cost of production, print publicity and marketing, the Yash Raj Films' venture opened to 80-90 percent occupancy.

"'Mere Brother Ki Dulhan' has had a good start. It opened with 90 percent occupancy and the content is quite appealing to youngsters. Even Monday has seen a good occupancy," a source from PVR said.

Directed by debutant Ali Abbas Zafar, the romantic comedy is set in an urban middle class family and deals with two brothers - Luv Agnihotri (Ali Zafar) and Kush Agnihotri (Imran).

"People are liking the movie as it is a very light-hearted film and has a different concept. Not only our weekend shows got good response, even Monday, which is a general a working day had houseful shows. Both Imran and Katrina have done a good job. Even Ali Zafar is good," said Puneet Sahay, senior manager for programming and operations at Spice Cinemas.

Yogesh Raizada of Waves Cinemas says it's a well-packaged drama.

"The response to the film is very good. It has opened up with 80 to 90 percent occupancy. All the actors Imran, Katrina and Ali have justified their characters. It is a family entertainer and has a mix of emotion, drama and comedy. Overall its a good product," said Raizada.

Cinema owners say the film is likely to be affected by Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor starrer "Mausam" that releases Friday.

"With the release of 'Mausam', the film is likely to get affected as the shows will be less but we still expect "Mere Brother Ki Dulhan" to do well in the second week," said Sahay.

Raizada said: "The occupancy is likely to fall to to 40 percent to 50 percent."(Masala.com)

Carey Mulligan Lived With Refn During Filming

Carey Mulligan has revealed that she lived with director Nicolas Winding Refn whilst they were filming new movie Drive.

Drive is the latest project for the Oscar nominated actress and the movie sees her join forces with Ryan Gosling.

Speaking to The Sunday Times the actress said: "I had nowhere to live in LA, and it was actually pretty awesome.

"I'd hang out with his wife and play with their babies, and when I wasn't filming, I'd make carrot cakes and bring them on set."

We haven't seen Mulligan on the big screen since Never Let Me Go at the beginning of the year - a movie that you really should check out if you get the chance.

But Drive isn't the only project on the horizon for the actress as Shame, which also stars Michael Fassbender, played at the Venice Film Festival last week.

She is currently filming The Great Gatsby in which she takes on the role of Daisy Buchanan alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.

Drive is released 23rd September.(Female First Uk)

Ashley Greene Is Olivia Twisted

Charles Dickens is one of those authors whose work is seemingly always getting adapted in various forms. While it’s rare to come across a version that takes the original tale – this time it's Oliver Twist – and gives it a real makeover, that’s the case with Olivia Twisted, which will find Twilight’s Ashley Greene playing the title character.

First-time screenwriter Michael Roberts penned the script, which finds the 19-year-old heroine running a crew of well-trained, orphan street urchins. But when they take on what seems at face value to be a simple kidnapping job, they’re suddenly plunged into the middle of a nasty turf war between two criminal gangs.

The Social Network’s co-producer Michael De Luca is spearheading the project, which doesn’t yet have a director. According to Variety, the film will “combine classic Dickensian elements with a unique gothic backdrop.” Right then…

While there’s no word on when it’ll shoot yet, chances are it’ll be aimed for release next year, which just so happens to be the bicentennial of Dickens’ birth. There’s already one film (from Mike Newell) and one TV version of Great Expectations underway, and we’re now just waiting for someone to announce that A Christmas Carol On Mars is joining them. Read More at Empire Online

Gerald McRaney On For Django Unchained

Given that his planned November start date for shooting on Django Unchained is creeping ever closer, it’s no surprise to learn that Quentin Tarantino is continuing to fill out the cast. The latest name added to the roster is character actor Gerald McRaney.

A veteran of the superb and much-missed HBO Western series Deadwood, McRaney is joining a cast that includes Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz, Kevin Costner and Samuel L Jackson.

Django finds Foxx as the titular former slave, a man who heads out on a quest to free his wife Broomhilda from the clutches of nasty plantation owner Calvin Candie (DiCaprio). He’s helped on his mission by bounty hunter Dr King Schultz (Waltz).

There’s no word yet on who McRaney will play, though he can certainly do mean if called upon, so chances are he’s a villain. The actor was last seen in The A-Team and has a role in the upcoming Red Tails.

Tarantino’s latest pic will be out on December 26, 2012.(Empire Online)

New ‘Breaking Dawn’ Trailer Released…And It Gets Dark

Kelly Reilly Takes Flight

With Robert Zemeckis sitting in the director’s chair and Denzel Washington confirmed as the lead, drama thriller Flight is now getting set to head down the runaway ready for take off. And now the film has a female lead in the shape of Sherlock Holmes’ Kelly Reilly.

She’s in negotiations to play Nicole Devlin, a young woman battling drug addiction, who meets an airline pilot named Whip (Washington). He’s being hailed as a hero for saving 106 people by safely landing a damaged plane. But his actions are clouded by an investigation into whether he was drinking at the time. As the pair tries to confront their demons, they become friends.

Reilly won the job over the likes of Olivia Wilde and Moon’s Dominique McElligott. Aside from playing Mary Morstan in Holmes (and its sequel, A Game of Shadows, which is due in cinemas on December 16), Reilly won acclaim for her work in horror thriller Eden Lake.

Zemeckis, working from a script by Real Steel writer John Gatins, is preparing to pull the chocks away and start cranking the cameras on Flight next month.(Empire Online)

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau Joins Mama

While Game of Thrones ensemble member Nikolaj Coster-Waldau has been seen more on the small screen than the big one of late, he’s just scored a job acting alongside Jessica Chastain in a new Universal horror movie, Mama.

The Tree of Life actress Chastain became attached in July and now Jaime Lannister Coster-Waldau will play her husband. The film finds a couple – named Annabel and Lucas – facing real problem children when they take in Lucas’ young nephews. The girls were abandoned in a forest for five years and it would seem that they’ve brought something back with them from the dark depths of the trees: something decidedly supernatural and dangerous…

Director Andres Muschietti is making his full-length feature debut with the movie, operating under the careful guidance of executive producer Guillermo del Toro. But it’s not his first time telling the story – Mama’s script is an expanded version of a short Muschietti created back in 2008, and which you can see here.

In related news, when Coster-Waldau reports back to the Thrones set to play the scheming Jaime Lannister for season 2, he’ll end up working with another director who made his name with horror, as Neil Marshall will tackle one of the series’ episodes. It’s the first time he’s directed a TV show, and we’re excited to see what he brings to the fantasy drama Read more at Empire Online

Colin Firth Will Be The Railway Man

Period dramas have served Colin Firth rather well recently, what with an Oscar for The King’s Speech and plenty of festival acclaim for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He’ll be hoping that trend continues as he’s joined World War II POW pic The Railway Man.

Jonathan Teplitzky is directing the film, which Millions writer Frank Cottrell Bryce and Andy Paterson have adapted from former army officer Eric Lomax’s book about his time spent captured by the Japanese and working on the construction of the “death railway” between Thailand and Burma. But it’s not all focused on his POW experiences – he also set out decades later to track down his tormentors and exact some revenge.

"The Railway Man is an amazing story and to have the chance to make it with Colin Firth as Eric is really the best gift any director could hope for,” Teplitzky said in a statement picked up by The Hollywood Reporter. He made the announcement at the Toronto Film Festival, where he’s premiering his latest film, Burning Man.

Lionsgate is looking to lock down some buyers at the Festival and Lionsgate UK will handle the film over here. Once all the deals are in place, Teplitzky will kick off shooting in February with filming set for the UK, Thailand and Australia.(Empire Online)

'Hysteria': A Female Sex Comedy Dressed in Victorian Garb

How three women producers joined forces to put together a daring period movie about romance, the stirrings of feminism and the invention of the modern vibrator.

On The Luxembourg set of Hysteria, Maggie Gyllenhaal is panting. But it's not from a close encounter with the world's first 'electro mechanical vibrator,' the invention of which is at the center of the new movie. No, it's simply because the character she plays, a proto-feminist trapped in Victorian London, 'talks really fast. Much faster than I do,' says the actress. 'I am panting by the end of my scenes.'

Whether audiences will find themselves equally breathless will be decided when Hysteria has its world premiere in Toronto on Sept. 15.

It promises bawdy comedy: Based on historical fact, the film is set in the offices of doctors who cured women diagnosed with 'hysteria' by treating them to orgasms. The original screenplay, by the American husband-and-wife team of Stephen Dyer and Jonah Lisa Dyer, also examines female repression and a blossoming romance. British producer Sarah Curtis (Mansfield Park), one-third of the female producing team, admits she was skeptical when she first read the script, doubting two Americans could master such a British comedy of manners. 'But after reading it, I thought they had captured the wit and voice of the era well,' she says. Keep Reading at Hollywood Reporter

Schwarzenegger Could Be A Captive

Though it looked for a while as though his career might have been dealt a real blow by his personal scandal, Arnold Schwarzenegger is lining up film after film at the moment. Hot on the heels of him signing a deal to have more screen time in old mate Sly Stallone’s Expendables sequel comes word that he’s in talks to star in indie action thriller Captive.

Featuring a script by Benjamin van der Veen and Kario Salem, Captive would find the Austrian Oak as an American real estate tycoon living in Brazil who is kidnapped and held for ransom. While he tries to escape from the armoured truck he’s being kept in, the film will also follow a parallel story of a detective on a quest to find him.

Nicolai Fuglsig birthed the original idea and had planned to direct the film, but he’s now bowed out for unspecified reasons, according to Deadline.

Once the movie has a director in place, production company Emmett/Furla Films wants it shooting some time next year.

Arnie, meanwhile, is hard at work on his first film since finishing his run as California’s governor – Kim Jee-Woon’s Last Stand.(Empire Online)

New Mission Impossible Poster Online

Trailer:

Jack Goes Boating Trailer

'Contagion' Sweeping Into the Top Spot for the Weekend

"The Help" settles into second place as "Warrior" battles its way into the pack.

As the weekend gets underway, moviegoers appear to be coming down with a case of Contagion. The early returns suggest that the Warner Bros. release -- in which director Steven Soderbergh orchestrates an all-star cast battling a worldwide viral epidemic -- is on track to claim the top spot for the weekend.

The movie, which stars Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cottilard, Jude Law, Laurence Fisburne and Kate Winslet, appears headed to an opening day of about $8 million, which should put it on a trajectory for a debut weekend north of $20 million.


After three weekends as the number one movie in North America, The Help, from Disney and Dreamworks, is settling into a solid, second-place ranking. This weekend, it is expected to add about $10 million to its domestic tally, which currently stands at $128 million.

Warrior, the mixed martial arts drama pitting two brothers, played by Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy, against each other, isn’t showing quite as much punch as some had predicted. Depending on how it catches on the Southwest and West on Friday evening, the Lionsgate release is looking to take in about $2 million for the day, which would add up to a $6-7 million opening weekend. However, Warrior can boast a positive score of 84% on rottentomatoes.com -- two points higher than that of Contagion as of Friday evening – and so Lionsgate is betting that word of mouth will ultimately carry the day for the movie.

The weekend’s other new wide openers, which will have to compete with a number of holdovers before their box office rankings can be determined, are Sony’s comedy Bucky Lar
son: Born to Be a Star and the Bubble Factory’s self-distributed horror movie Creature. Read more at Hollywood Reporter

Check Out Two New Posters for 'The Twilight Saga

Now that summer is over -- and Harry Potter is but a distant memory -- YA fans of all ages can focus on what really matters during the highfalutin fall movie season: 'Twilight!' Two new posters from 'Breaking Dawn - Part 1' have debuted over at Yahoo! and they've got enough smoldering glances to keep fans hot and bothered until the next new posters. Don't worry: Teams Edward and Jacob are well represented. Check them out ahead.

'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1' arrives in theaters on Nov. 18.Read more

New Johnny English Reborn Clip

Poster: Emprie Online

Arnie & Bruce Locked For Expendables 2

If, when the lights came up at the end of The Expendables you sat there and thought to yourself, ‘That was all well and good, but why wasn’t there more of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis*?’ then prepare to get happy: confirming earlier rumours, the Austrian Oak and the man forever known as John McClane have locked in deals to return for the sequel, this time in “substantial roles.”

How “substantial”? Nobody’s saying just yet, but given that they showed up for a scant couple of minutes in the first movie, anything more than the length of your average ad break would probably be considered more “substantial.”

This time around, Simon West will be in the director’s chair, working from a script by David Agosto and Ken Kaufman (with input from Sly Stallone of course) and wrangling the returning likes of Sly himself, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and, assuming the rumours about him dropping out prove to be unfounded, Jet Li.

And talking of rumours about the movie, chatter persists that Jean-Claude Van Damme, Scott Adkins and the man, the legend Chuck Norris will all be joining in the fun this time around. Those three have yet to be officially announced, however. Things will start blowing up on the Expendables 2 set in October.

In related Arnie news, he's also attached to another action pic, The Last Stand, starring as a small-town sheriff who has to deal with some nasty villains headed for the Mexican border. Now Peter Stormare has signed on to play one of the bad guys.

One For The Money Poster Online

Eddie Murphy Confirmed As Oscar Host

It was but a rumour over the weekend, but on Tuesday it became true: Eddie Murphy has been officially hired to host the 84th Academy Awards, going solo on stage next February.

The 2012 show’s producers, Brett Ratner and Don Mischer, announced the decision via the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Naturally, there was backslappery all round…

"Eddie is a comedic genius, one of the greatest and most influential live performers ever," says Ratner in the press release. "With his love of movies, history of crafting unforgettable characters and his iconic performances – especially on stage – I know he will bring excitement, spontaneity and tremendous heart to the show Don and I want to produce in February."

Murphy seems delighted with the idea too: "I am enormously honoured to join the great list of past Academy Award hosts from Hope and Carson to Crystal, Martin and Goldberg, among others," said Murphy. "I'm looking forward to working with Brett and Don on creating a show that is enjoyable for both the fans at home and for the audience at the Kodak Theatre as we all come together to celebrate and recognize the great film contributions and collaborations from the past year."

The choice, of course, is less of a shocker given his past stand-up experience and the fact that he just worked with Ratner on crime comedy drama Tower Heist. But if you’re wondering what to expect from Murphy during his stint, look no further than what we were able to discern about his plans.

The Oscar ceremony goes down on February 26. What say you lot? Now he's all official and such, do you love the idea? Hate it? Speak your brains!(Empire Online)

The Help Still Atop The US Box Office

The Labor Day holiday across the pond seems like the perfect time for a film about workers struggling for more rights, and so it was: The Help stayed atop the charts, and is now the first three-peat since Inception last year, and added $19 million for an impressive running total of $123.3 million.

And the returning champ thrashed a trio of wide-release new arrivals jockeying for position this weekend, with thesp-heavy drama thriller The Debt winning out with $12.5 million in second place. The film, which features the likes of Helen Mirren and Tom Wilkinson, beat out Astro-horror Apollo 18 (third with $10.7 million) and toothy terror Shark Night 3D (fourth and $10.3 million). Rise of the Planet of the Apes finally began to sink down the charts, rounding out the top five with $10.2 million.

In sixth place, revenge action thriller Colombiana made $9.4 million, while Our Idiot Brother sank to seventh with $7 million. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World was eighth with $6.6 million and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark scared up $6.1 million in ninth. At 10th we find The Smurfs, with $5.6 million this weekend and $133.5 million in total.(EMPIRE ONLINE)

Telluride 2011: Sex and Psychoanalysis in 'Shame' and 'A Dangerous Method'

Well, this is Michael Fassbender’s year. First the mainstream punch of X-Men: First Class, then Shame and A Dangerous Method, which both played the Venice and Telluride film festivals this weekend. (He also played Rochester in Jane Eyre in March.) I saw Shame and Method one after the other Sunday at Telluride, and even more striking than the skillful range of Fassbender’s performances was the confluence of ideas explored in them.

In Shame, Fassbender goes to the darkest of edges (and barest of bodies) in his portrayal of a sex addict struggling with the shame that drives his self-destructive behavior. In Method, he plays Carl Jung as a young man who develops his early theories of psychoanalysis by taking on a female patient tortured as an adult by the young childhood connection she made between humiliation and sexuality. As a filmgoer, the experience was a one-two punch of forceful acting and thoughtful provocation.

Director Steve McQueen introduced Shame via a sober pre-recorded video, describing the work as "indicative of how we communicate and discommunicate” in the 21st century. After watching it, I started referring to it in my head as There Will Be Come, so relentless was its focus on one tortured soul struggling with his worst impulses (in the case of Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant film, There Will Be Blood, that would be misanthropy tilting into psychosis.) Read more on Hollywood Reporter


Images: Hollywood Reporter