'Titanic' Is a Hit!
Today: Jimmy Cameron's done it again, Bravo unveils even more new shows, and Ryan Seacrest's announcement is kinda boring.
.The Call Sheet sifts through the day's glut of Hollywood news to find the stories even non-industry types care about. Today: Jimmy Cameron's done it again, Bravo unveils even more new shows, and Ryan Seacrest's announcement is kinda boring.
Well, how about that. No one was really sure it could do it, but James Cameron's disaster film Titanic is on track to do quite well at the box office this weekend. Matinees of the 3D film sold surprisingly well today, so it's looking like the movie, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, could gross up to $30 million by Sunday. We might have a hit on our hands here, folks. Not a Lorax-sized hit, but a hit nonetheless. [Deadline]
You wanted new Bravo shows? You got new Bravo shows. But what's that? You insatiable monsters want more new Bravo shows? What do you think Bravo is, some kind of new show-making factory? Hm, what's that? Oh, it is? As a television network, that's what it does, make new shows? Oh, OK, my b. And hey, look, there are more new Bravo shows, recently unveiled during up fronts! These are all legit, and all have greenlights. There is a Top Chef spin-off which follows the chefs home and looks at their post-show lives. Mean Jen will be on that one, and Mean Jen is great! There's a show called Miss Advised featuring former New York blog gadabout Julia Allison, which is crazy that it's actually happening considering how long we've been hearing about it. There's a show about Real housewife Lisa Vanderpump's restaurant. Gallery Girls is about young gallery employees in New York City and actually sounds pretty interesting. Plus there are two scripted shows in the works, one of which is described as "a group of parents at an exclusive private school, with each episode centered around an extravagant and lavish birthday party." Which sounds very fun. So basically well done, Bravo! Bravo, Bravo! Haha. If loving Bravo shows is wrong, then just call us complete monster people. What can you do. [Entertainment Weekly]
Yuh yoh. Actress Brittany Snow has been fired from the buzzed-about new White House sitcom 1600 Penn after the table read and replaced with Greek's Martha MacIsaac, because apparently Snow just didn't fit in with the rest of the cast. That's gotta suck, huh? "Hey guys, this'll be fun, let's do the table read. Yay that was a blast! Whee! What's that? I'm fired? Oh. OK. I guess... I guess I'll go now." Yiiikes. Sorry, Snow. But yay for you, Dana from Greek. Watch your back... [Deadline]
Oh, right. Forgot to mention this. Remember Ryan Seacrest's big NBC announcement that we were all so excited about? Maybe he'd tell the world that he was replacing Matt Lauer as host of the Today show. Maybe he'd be announcing a new singing show that he'd be hosting for the network. Maybe he'd say "My name is Ryan Seacrest and I have been living in a committed relationship with one Timothy Joseph Urban for the past two years and I would like the world to know that. Timmy baby, I love you." Maybe he would say that! It might have happened. But instead there was some lame joking about Ryan replacing Matt but nothing serious and then Ryan was like "Oh yeah, I'm 'joining the NBC family' and I'm gonna do some Olympics stuff for you guys, whatever," and everyone at home was like "Whatever," and everyone who wasn't watching at home was like "Whatever," and the seagulls out in Hullygully Bay were like "Whatever," and the wind, proud god Aeolus, huffed a little breath and said "Whatever," and the stars beamed "Whatever," and a faraway nebula pulsated "Whatever," and the thing outside the universe, perhaps a giant alien playing with marbles, he too croaked out "Whatever." Basically this is letdown, a bummer, a disappointment. Whatever. [The Hollywood Reporter]
Who would ever have thought Christopher Mintz-Plasse, aka McLovin, would have a career that's lasted this long? Not many people, but lasted it has, and continues to. The little dweeb just booked a lead role on a TV pilot called Friend Me. It's about two dorks who leave Indiana and move to L.A. to work for Groupon. Oh. It's that Groupon show. OK. Well, good enough, McLovin. Still more than anyone thought you capable of, at least. [Deadline]
Apparently there are some Twilight-style hardball negotiations going on between Lionsgate and Hunger Games director Gary Ross over his fee for the next film. He didn't get paid that much to adapt and direct the first film ($3 million is more money than most of us could ever dream of, but that's all relative, it's Hollywood vs. almost everyone else in this relative comparison), so now that it's a big fat brutal hit he wants big bones for the second one. Butttt Lionsgate isn't that eager to give him a boatload of cash, so it might be possible that Lionsgate would pull a Kitty Hardwicke on him and replace him with someone else, someone cheaper. Which, well... Change-ups worked well for the Harry Potter franchise, didn't they? Maybe they could find someone really dark and ambitious to direct the next film, Catching Fire, stranger and even more violent as it is. Ross did a fine job, but might someone else do better? (I.E. get Fincher.) [The Hollywood Reporter]
Here's a trailer for the new Katy Perry concert film/backstage documentary Katy Perry: Part of Me. ("Which part?" joked a friend, appropriately.) It's all about how dramatic Katy Perry's life as a manufactured pop act who tries to act all revolutionary can be ("Thanks for putting up with my weirdness!" she yells to her audience at one point and it's like, what "weirdness"? You mean this sad Lady Gaga shtick that you started doing only after Lady Gaga got popular? That's not "weirdness," that's marketing nonsense) and then the music gets all sad when they talk about Russell Brand and ick. How far into the trailer can you make it?