The Twilight Saga: New Moon

It was speculated something such and the makers of the vampire saga were not let down. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” wolfed $140.7 million in its opening weekend. On the first three days the movie minted total $258.8 million worldwide as per reports of studio estimates on Sunday.

A year back “Twilight”, the first installment of Stephenie Meyer’s popular vampire series, grossed $69.6 million haul over the same weekend. A year after the picture was completely changed. The No. 1 domestic debut for Summit Entertainment’s “New Moon” was more than twice.

“Obviously, with the success of ‘Twilight’ itself, sequels being what they are will generate X-number of dollars more, particularly if it’s a satisfying sequel”, Richie Fay, head of distribution for Summit, was quoted as saying.

“New Moon” ranked third on the all-time domestic chart, with Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight” ranking 1st with a gross of $158.4 million opening weekend and “Spider-Man 3″ ranking 2nd with a gross of $151.1 million. On the opening day itself, “New Moon” earned $72.7 million, which is an all time domestic high for opening day. This surpassed the previous record of $67.2 million by last year’s “The Dark Knight”. “New Moon” is also the second-biggest non-holiday weekend ever in Hollywood, the top being none other than the July 18, 2008 release of “The Dark Knight”.

Outside “New Moon” debuted in 25 countries and took in $118.1 million over the first weekend. There was no doubt that “New Moon” would emerge this big.

The third installment of Meyer’s next “Twilight” chapter, “Eclipse,” arrives in the heart of summer, next June 30 and is expected to do as big as this.

Twilight had showcased the supernatural teen romance between a school girl and a vampire (Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson) and New Moon adds a love triangle with a werewolf (Taylor Lautner) to the plot. Both the films have been hot favorite among female fans resulting to around 80% of the audience for “New Moon” being female. The “Twilight” franchise “taps into something primal and visceral that drives women crazy, and they’re willing to pay for the privilege” commented Dergarabedian. The viewers for the film were mostly young who apparently left to chance to fall in love with vampire and werewolf heartthrobs.

The five films that grossed highest during last weekend are:

1. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” ($140.7 million)
2. “The Blind Side” ($34.5 million)
3. “2012″ ($26.5 million)
4. “Planet 51″ ($12.6 million)
5. “A Christmas Carol” ($12.2 million)

Heath Ledger

Late actor Heath Ledger will always be remembered through his work. Recently a music video named, “King Rat”, directed by Ledger himself was released online. The music video that premiered online today was made for US rock band Modest Mouse.

“King Rat” is a 6 minute long animated video that showed whales and dolphins on board a ship, fishing for humans in the water. It constituted of whimsical and dark comedy. The video was appreciated by many. The concluding shot of the music video is a black screen on which a message in white is written, which says, “This began with our friend, a great defender of life, and was completed in his spirit”.

The Dark Knight actor died of overdose of prescribed drugs at the age of 28 last year. Earlier this year in March it was announced by the rock band, Modest Mouse that they would release the music video “in honor of Heath’s last piece of work as a director”, revealed their spokeswoman Lisa Markowitz. Ledger has also directed a video for one of Ben Harper’s songs.

Ledger began work on the music video in 2007, but he left it in progress when he died in January 2008. The video was finally taken over and completed by “Enter the Masses”, which is a film and video company where the late actor was a partner.

Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen

Tickets for Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen will be available from  June 10th, 2009. Two weeks after, on  June 24th, 2009 Revenge of The Fallen will hit the theaters. The makers of the film, Michael Bay and Paramount are anticipating a big box office rush for the film.

The teaser and trailer have already been receiving raving acclamation. Anticipation have already begun that the IMAX theaters will be packed come June 24th all over the country. The  Transformers Revenge of the Fallen is shot at  Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and various other locations with IMAX cameras. The scenes are  action-packed and supposedly will be the best experience of the summer. The film is not all set to hit the  Airbus IMAX Theater in Chantilly, VA on Wednesday, June 24th two weeks after the tickets go on sale.

Just like  IMAX cameras were used to film several action shots of Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, it was also used to shoot The Dark Knight. The giant screen of the IMAX theaters will be an added advantage for those who would watch the film there. They will go through a similar experience as they did last summer when Dark Knight had hit the theaters. It will surely give you some goosebumps.

The Dark Knight

‘The Dark Knight’ has won many accolades along the way.  The film has accumulated/grossed more than a $1 billion. This is rated to be a historical achievement for the film. The sole reason being the stellar performance given by Heath Ledger. The role of the ‘Joker’ played by Ledger won acclaim and the much coveted Posthumous Oscar Award for Best Actor in Supporting Role. The film has passed the $1 billion mark at the box office making it only the fourth film in history to do so.

Dark Knight now joins an exclusive and prestigious club alongside ‘Titian’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Return of the King’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’.

Christian Bale’s return as Batman and Christopher Nolan’s return as director was bolstered with the movie. It has now grossed $1,001,082,160 at the global box office.

Warner Brothers’ domestic distribution president Dan Fellman said :”From our initial record-shattering opening weekend to the unprecedented momentum of the film’s box office run, we could not be more proud of The Dark Knight. We salute our filmmakers, cast and crew on making cinematic history.”

The film instead of placing Batman’s cause, up in the film was made all famous only because of Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker. Heath’s role grabbed all the headlines over recent weeks as he dominated the awards circuit winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Golden Globe, Bafta and Screen Actors Guild for his performance.

There are recent reports of a third film which has been circulating since The Dark Knight was released with the likes of Eddie Murphy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Johnny Depp all linked to the project.

Dark Knight

There could be a trend breaking surprise for all the fans when the nominations for the 81st Annual Academy Awards will be announced on early Thursday morning. The Dark Knight, which was the biggest blockbuster and box office hit of the decade could be the first superhero movie to be nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for an Oscar in the best film category.

The squeal of the Batman movie have received raving critical acclamation  and has been springing up a lot of momentum lately particularly with its nominations for the Producers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America Award, the Writers Guild of America Award and several other crafts honors.

Even if the movie cant make it to the Best Picture category it will certainly bag one in the best supporting actor category. All credit to the late Heath Ledger, who died a year ago of an overdose of prescription pills.

Among the other films that might bag a nomination in the best picture category could be the critics favorite “Slumdog Millionaire”. The film has swept 4 golden globes early this month. “Frost/Nixon,” “Milk” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” will give neck to neck fight in this category.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale reportedly told the director of ‘Terminator: Salvation’ , McG to literally “f**k off” when the ‘Dark Knight’ star was approached by the director to star in the new ‘Terminator’ movie.

Director McG is the ‘Charlie’s Angels’ director. It was revealed that although in the initial stages Christian Bale had refused to portray John Connor ‘Terminator: Salvation’ but after going through the scropt Christian Bale was superbly fascinated and won over by the script.

McG revealed: “I met Christian when he was shooting ‘The Dark Knight’. He told me to f**k right off, he didn’t want to do it. He said, ‘Write it so that it could be read cold on stage and I’ll think about doing it.’ ”

The ‘Charlie’s Angels’ director had hinted on Arnie’s cameo role. But the present political status of Arnold Schwarzenegger who was the original star, can at the moment offer his cameo and nothing more than that. Though insiders believed that Arnold was to deliver more than just a cameo but the governor of California is all but being present on the sets of ‘Terminator: Salvation’, sparking speculation he was set to film a cameo in the movie but it is now believed he was there to be motion captured for the computer-generated character.

Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear in the film – as a CGI character. This is what the director of the film had hinted on. McG added to Total Film: “We’re trying to synthesise a human character with a CGI character and that may or may not have something to do with the T800.”

Conway Wickliffe, New Zealand special effects specialist, died while shooting scenes for “ The Dark Knight”, the  latest Batman movie, reported by an English inquest. Guardian newspaper reported that Mr. Wickliffe was filming in a stunt car that was traveling parallel to another car when the Nissan hit a tree at only 32kmh. The Te Kuiti, a 41-year-old stunt man, was inclining out from the window of a 4WD. He was facing backwards while filming a test run for blowing up the Batmobile, when he was badly injured after the vehicle hit a tree in September last year.

He suffered dangerous wounds and fractures from the impact, and was declared dead at the scene near Chertsey, in Surrey.The case was taken up at the Woking Coroner’s Court, where a panel of jury watched the video footage of the stunt shot by Mr Wickliffe a few seconds before he was killed. The driver of  Nissan,  Bruce Monroe-Armstrong, anticipated that the stunt man might have gone a bit wide towards the bend. “We clipped the bank and the tree brushed the wing mirror. Then we came to a stop and I got out of the car. I saw Conway and shouted for a medic”, he added in his statement.

Although the driver of the vehicle claims to have maintained a control over the speed and angle, his fellow crew, Ian Mitchell said that he saw the  4WD carrying on into the grass even after reaching the end of the run. “Instead of turning on to the service road it carried on and I saw it impact the tree. It appeared to be a glancing blow. He ran over and found Mr Wickliffe in a bad way”, he added.

Mr Wickliffe, grew up in Paeroa, NZ, was buried in his own country, New Zealand. Derryn (Dee) Chase, his wife,  brought their daughter Eden, 4, and son Sabian, 12, back to New Zealand for his funeral.  Wickliffe was known for loving his job. He took part in several extreme sports, his favorite ones being snowboarding and parachute jumping. Batman Begins, Children of Men and the James Bond films Casino Royale and Die Another Day are a few hit films that he has worked in.

The closing credits of “The Dark Knight” commemorated his contribution to the film industry and his career : “In memory of our friends Heath Ledger and Conway Wickliffe”.

Morgan Freeman

The Dark Knight has claimed another one of its actor’s again.The line up includes Heath Ledger who died of a drug overdose and Christian Bale who got involved with his own family members. The brawl cost the actor a few hours in jail and a whole lot of social embarrassment. The latest to join the ranks of misfortune is Morgan Freeman. The 71 year old actor has sustained injuries after getting involved in a deadly car accident late Sunday night. The injuries he sustained includes a broken arm, a broken elbow and minor shoulder damage.

Even after he had to go through so much Freeman is said to be in good spirits while he is being kept under medical supervision.Morgan was driving the car with another female passenger being identified as Demaris Meyer late Monday Night.The Dark Knight actor was in “serious” condition after the accident happened at about 11:30 p.m. Freeman was driving in Tallahatchie County when the accident occurred according to Mississippi Highway Patrol. He was taken away from the accident wreckage using the jaws of life. He was then airlifted from the scene to the Regional Medical Center located in Memphis. The Oscar winning actor has acted in movies like Street Smart, Driving Miss Daisy, Million Dollar Baby, and the others.

The Dark Knight poster

There are a lot of things that have been said about The Dark Knight. Many records have been broken and a lot of statistics have been redone. Last week the Christian Bale and Heath Ledger starer had yet again achieved another landmark in its successful box office run.

The Hollywood biggie that opened to audiences some weeks ago has created history in numerous fronts. Last week it earned yet another feather in its cap when the total earnings went up way beyond the $10 million mark. The movie has broken the previous record held by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest that had grossed $300 million in 16 days. The Dark Knights second weekend earnings are also without precedent even though there has been the expected 50 percent drop in sales that is usual in second week earnings. The Dark Knight will also break the previous record held by Shrek 2 that had reached $400 million in a week’s time. The movie is all set to grab the best statistics that has only been acheived by Titanic in Hollywood history. In related news Chritian Bale has been given a thumbs up by his Terminator Salvation director. The 34 year old actor has been called a passionate actor and a good family man. Bale is suppoed to attend the Tokyo premiere today.

After being away from the promotion of his film The Dark Knight for sometime, Christian Bale was back doing his job. Christian was spotted attending the Barcelona premiere of his latest film The Dark Knight on Thursday evening after charges of assualt were leveled against him by his mother. The police however chose not to press charges against the actor and released him on Tuesday.

Christian was accompanied by his wife Sandra Blazic at the Barcelona premiere. He did pose for the photographs however avoided any questions that were directed towards him. As rumors have it the brawl between mother and son was because of the wife. It was because of certain things that were said about Sandra by mother Jenny that kicked off the fight on Sunday evening. This blew the lid and the actor went ballistic and lashed out at his mother and sister. The actor is currently filming for his new movie Terminator 4. This is the first movie in the franchise that would not feature Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead. The actor has been reported to have lost his temper on the sets of the film too.