Posts Tagged ‘Owen Wilson’

The folks at Variety are no dummies. They have decided to park their extensive, short shelf-life coverage of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival beyond the website’s paywall, making it freely available to one and all.

So, much like Owen Wilson‘s 1920s time traveling character in Woody Allen‘s opening night gala Midnight in Paris, it’s December 2009 all over again at Variety.com, the point at which the barrier was erected. The trade’s contingent at the festival includes long-time editor Pat Saperstein, reviewers Justin Chang and Peter Debruge, Variety.com news editor Stuart Oldham, and veteran reporter David McNary.

Read more

“Marley and Me,” starring a very-much-alive Owen Wilson, proved that the movie business, to renew an awful pun, is truly going to the dogs, box office analyst Steve Mason confirmed to FBLA.

The film, which took in $14.5 million on Christmas day, beat out Paramount’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” Sony’s Tom Cruise affair “Valkyrie” and Disney’s Adam Sandler film, “Bedtime Stories,” to capture the Christmas crown.

The performance was a bit of an X-mas present for Fox, which grabbed the second-highest Christmas day performance, more than $5 million behind the Ben Stiller hit “Meet the Fockers.”

My guess is that “Marley and Me” needed to cast Barbra Streisand, or at least use a song of hers.

Owen Wilson, who was hospitalized last month for an apparent attempted suicide, has done his first interview, gabbing with Wes Anderson, according to, well, everybody.

The interview is being recorded today and will be posted online at midnight as part of MySpace.com’s Artist on Artist series. According to the press material:

Anderson and Wilson have worked together on all of Anderson’s movies — Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It’s unclear how far the interview, recorded today, will delve into Wilson’s recent personal struggles — if at all.

How much you wanna bet the word “suicide” never even comes up?

MTV offers a new reality series–Pageant Place–Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA will room together for a year in an NYC apartment. Donald Trump will stop by, hoping to catch the girls in their underwear.

HGTV has The Fixer, with contractor Peter Marr in charge, will help homeowners who’ve had sloppy work done by their old contractors, their brothers-in-law or some guy with a truck.

NBC gives us Criss Angel and Uri Geller searching for the next great fake, er, mentalist. FBLA thinks this would be a really great road-trip movie, with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.

CMT’s new makeover reality series, I Want to Look Like a High School Cheerleader Again fails to answer the question:

Good God, why?

In the wake of Owen Wilson‘s hospitalization and recovery, Variety does its best to diagnose his slate of upcoming films. New Variety staffer Tatiana Siegel writes that first up, the actor was due to begin shooting a role in “Tropic Thunder” opposite Ben Stiller followed by the January start of “Marley & Me” opposite Jennifer Aniston. He’s also scheduled for promotional activities to support Wes Anderson‘s “The Dareeling Limited,” set for release Sept. 28 from Fox Searchlight.

Variety‘s Michael Fleming writes that Oliver Stone has set his sights on yet another Vietnam project by closing a deal with United Artists to finance “Pinkville.” Pic is a drama about the investigation of the 1968 My Lai massacre. He’ll direct and Bruce Willis and Channing Tatum will star. Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” star Tom Cruise now runs UA with partner Paula Wagner.

Jennifer Lopez is also hustling with a new project for the small-screen, teaming up with Jane Startz Prods. to develop “The Amigas Sweet 15 Club,” a half-hour comedy about five Miami teens who run their own Quinceanera party-planning biz.

Innovative Artists has been ripe with a lot of work-related gossip this year from assistant drama to a brand new lawsuit. THR reports that Innovative agents Michael McConnell and Ben Press filed suit Monday in LA demanding that they be allowed to leave the tenpercentery along with their clients due to unfair one-sided employment contracts.

Scott Baio‘s reality run on VH1 with his self-titled TV show has been extended but the new season won’t just find him “45…and Single” but instead a year older and expecting his first child. THR says the new plotline will focus on impending fatherhood following a season finale engagement with girlfriend Renee.

– CHRIS GARDNER