-Sony has removed a horse from the big summer race. With the likely painful combo “Angels And Demons” and “The Taking Of Pelham 1, 2, 3” likely hitting big, and the recent push of “The Ugly Truth” into a counterprogramming June slot, they’ve opted to move their Roland Emmerich disaster pic “2012” to November 13th. This places the disaster movie in direct competition with Dwayne Johnson’s kidpic “The Tooth Fairy” and the likely four-quadrant target “Sherlock Holmes.” A winter slot might be best for Emmerich, as many have claimed that the movie, which deals with the Earth’s destruction, leans heavily on the process of plotting out who would end up in the earth’s many Noah’s Ark-type salvation chambers (are you registered?), not exactly the stuff that Emmerich’s summer spectacles (“Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow”) have leaned on. This is only the beginning of massive schedule shifts- July 10th is now occupied by only Chris Columbus’ romantic comedy “I Love You, Beth Cooper,” while “Sherlock,” which previously moved to avoid “New Moon,” may have to reconsider it’s slot. [Empire]
-“Watchmen” star Jeffrey Dean Morgan recently disclosed to MTV that a much-vaunted rape scene with costar Carla Gugino was “three of the hardest days of filming I have ever had to do.” Apparently it’s pretty hardcore stuff, yet another reason for naysayers to bemoan the increasingly literal-minded Zack Snyder’s slavish relationship to the original text, especially considering the hysterically ridiculous rape portion of “300.” [MTV]
-Tobey Maguire’s Maguire Entertainment has just nabbed the rights to a crime thriller called “Good People” by Marcus Sakey. The concept revolves around a struggling couple who find $400,000 in a deceased tenant’s apartment, only to discover several colorful crime figures interested in finding the cash. The script is being written by Kelly Masterson (“Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead”), but if Maguire stars, the production would be post-“Spider-Man 4,” which allegedly starts shooting in 2010. Maguire’s been stockpiling interesting projects for years now (Richard LaGravenese’s “The Quiet Type” and Gary Ross’s “Tokyo Suckerpunch” come to mind) but since “Spider-Man”, his only non-superhero projects have been “Seabiscuit” and the upcoming “Brother.” Since “Spider-Man 4” and “Spider-Man 5” are rumored to shoot back-to-back, it’s likely we won’t be seeing Tobey out of tights for a long time. [MTV]
