David Gordon Green’s medieval-stoner-comedy “Your Highness” starring James Franco, Danny McBride, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel has now been given an October 10th, 2010 release. Filming is currently taking place in Ireland. [DarkHorizons]
Were those Bruce Willis rumors true? Looks that way. Willis says he’s set to join fellow ’80s action stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone in Sly’s glorified action B-movie, “The Expendables.” Willis teased his cameo despite admitting that he doesn’t know “anything about [his character] yet, haven’t seen any pages yet.” A version of a script we’ve read sees the three together for a brief ’80s-nostalgic second. [MTV]
Diora Baird has evidently auditioned for a role in Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” described as “pretty, but sturdy with muscle.” Probably the role once linked to Jessica Biel? [Baird’s Twitter]
The free-for-all, first-in-best-dressed release of “Avatar” Day tickets yesterday saw such a large influx of nerds that the site crashed at about 11:55 a.m. allowing only 17,000 of the 68,000 available tickets to be distributed. Things went back to normal hours later and, to the delight of all the geeks who hadn’t moved an inch, tickets were quickly snapped throughout the afternoon. Five tickets were apparently snapped up every second. [THR]
Matthew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass” has been picked up by Lionsgate for what is described as a “competitive number.” The studios must all be kicking themselves that they didn’t jump on board early when the film split over creative differences with Sony and become self-financed. We still think it’ll flop but; just can’t see adults flocking to an R-rated film about ultra-violent kids. [Variety]
Could this be Mickey Rourke’s suit for Whiplash in “Iron Man 2”? Marvel unveiled the pic for an upcoming comic but the illustration certainly does share similarities with Rourke. [Marvel]
Bryan Singer to helm “Wolverine” sequel? While there’s no evidence to support this posit, with Christopher McQuarrie tapped to scribe and Singer’s already-built relationship with Hugh Jackman, MTV writers make the plausible case as to why this could at least be a possibility, “Battlestar Galactica” being the only other project on his slate for the next couple years.
Promising indie director Martin Hynes, was once set to “The Go-Getter,” with a project partially inspired by the name of a Black Keys song, called “4 Am Automatic,” but instead he has been tapped to adapt Kate DiCamillo’s soon-to-be-published children’s novel “The Magician’s Elephant.” The story centers on impossible things that may happen when a fortune teller tells an orphan boy that an elephant will lead him to his long-lost sister. [Variety]
