The CLOG - A Clevver Blog

You saw the first look of Russell Crowe as Robin Hood last month, and today you can check out the sets he’ll presumably soon be destroying with thousands of fine-tipped arrows.

The Ridley Scott production is filming in Bourne Wood in England, where they’ve built a couple of villages and a neat-looking fort.  Here are some choice photos; click each one for a bigger look:

James Cameron’s rumored-to-be-revolutionary 3D sci-fi flick Avatar is finally getting a release late this year.  Set mostly on a distant planet and starring Terminator Salvation newcomer Sam Worthington, Cameron has been talking up Avatar as bringing us the first CGI characters (the alien “Na’vi” race) that are truly photo-realistic.  That sounds pretty awesome, especially for folks like me who still think Spider-Man looks too cartoonish.

MarketSaw just landed a spy photo of some heavy equipment from the set.  What you’re seeing is a mech that humans can climb inside and operate — at least, I think.  The script has been leaked here and there, but in general they’ve done a great job keeping plot details under wraps.

Three pics from The Twilight Saga: New Moon were just released via Entertainment Weekly.  The above shot features the director, Chris Weitz, while the other two are a typical shot of Bella and Edward (Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson) and a creepy shot of Bella and Laurent (Edi Gathegi).  Click on each one for a bigger look:

Never, ever underestimate the power of movies that appeal to every single type of audience.  Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is on track to score $70 million over the long Friday to Monday Memorial Day weekend.  Terminator Salvation, meanwhile, will likely make $52 million over the same period and $65 million over five days (it opened on Thursday).

That’s somewhat better than Fox was expecting for Night at the Museum and a lot worse than Warner Bros. was hoping for Terminator Salvation, which some box office watchers had predicted would make upwards of $80 million over five days.

The reviews didn’t help: though buzz had actually been very good heading up to the film’s release, top critics and the Internet community both trashed Terminator Salvation.  The director of the film, McG, has got to be feeling queasy right now: he’s spent the past six months talking up the movie as though it would be his breakthrough film on the level of James Cameron’s original Terminator in 1984.

For Fox and Warner Bros., it’s quite a reversal over last summer, when Fox couldn’t get anything to hit — its lineup included D.O.A. flicks like The Rocker, Space Chimps, and The X-Files: I Want to Believe — and Warner Bros., which was riding high with The Dark Knight and Sex in the City.

At least Warner Bros. has the surefire Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince coming up.

The full trailer for Surrogates, an intriguing sci-fi film starring Bruce Willis, just came out.  It takes place in a future where everyone interacts with the outside world via a robot surrogate that allows you to experience everything you normally would, just without any of the consequences.

Gives off a very Matrix/eXistenz/I, Robot vibe.  Which is to say, it looks pretty cool.  Check it out:

M. Night Shyamalan’s big break from twist-heavy dramatic thrillers is The Last Airbender, a live-action adaptation of the acclaimed anime-influenced toon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, and filming is well underway.  The first two stills have been released, of stars Dev Patel (from Slumdog Millionaire) and Noah Ringer, and it looks like Shyamalan is sticking very close to the look of the toon.

Unlike the recent Dragonball Evolution, though, it actually seems here that the look is working.  Check out the two stills, plus a photo from the set:

Quentin Tarantino’s newest movie, the World War II “men on a mission” film Inglourious Basterds, screened at the Cannes Film Festival for the first time last week to mixed reviews — some folks loved it, others said it was long and talky.  (A Quentin Tarantino film, talky? No!)

Universal, which split the costs of the film with the Weinstein Company, is apparently asking Tarantino to do another edit of the film before it’s released in theaters this August.

Conventional wisdom says we’ll be getting a shorter version than the two hours and twenty-seven minute cut that just premiered.  But according to Variety, Tarantino himself said he might add a scene, since his contract guarantees that he can deliver a film up to twenty minutes longer.

So, more of Brad Pitt talking in a ridiculously cartoonish accent: good or bad?

We’ve heard a lot about Guy Ritchie’s adaptation of Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law as Homes and Watson, but beyond a few brief seconds of footage played after the Oscars, we haven’t gotten a really good idea of how the film will play.  Now the full trailer’s come out, and it looks like a winner.  I’m not sure about Downey’s British accent, but his rapport with Law looks excellent.

As you’ll see, the movie also stars Rachel McAdams as apparently the only non-maid woman in the movie, and Body of Lies‘ Mark Strong as the bad guy.  It opens this Christmas.

There will only be one winner at the box office this weekend, and it ain’t gonna be Dance Flick.

Terminator Salvation — made by Warner Bros. — comes onto the scene with a lot of good buzz and some great trailers.  Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian — made by Fox — is the sequel to a wildly ultra-successful family adventure extravaganza.

Warner Bros. and Fox are mortal enemies this year thanks to that whole Watchmen lawsuit.  And since Watchmen underperformed, both of them are still pretty sore about it.  So “a fight to the death” is not necessarily an overexaggeration of the stakes this weekend.

Salvation has gotten a lot of surprisingly negative reviews, but at last night’s debut midnight showings it scored an estimated three million bucks.  Battle of the Smithsonian’s title still is way too much of a mouthful — I had to look it up to make sure Night of the Museum, Battle at the Smithsonian, and Battle for the Smithsonian were all incorrect — and it might have fared better if it was released next month, when kids are safely out of school.

The box office predictors who are far smarter than I am are predicting a $90 million-ish five-day opening (today through Memorial Day) for Salvation and a $60 million-ish four-day weekend (tomorrow through Memorial Day) for Museum.  So in other words, they both win big, but Salvation gets the bragging rights.  Next week, we’ll see if that holds up.

Make sure to watch TEN clips of Terminator Salvation and one from Battle of the Smithsonian, hosted right here at Clevver.

So just a couple days ago, Alec Baldwin was making some offhanded cracks about Filipino mail order brides on the Late Show with David Letterman.  Kind of jokes we’ve all heard before, really, but needless to say, folks in the Philippines did not take it lightly.  Especially not a former action movie star and current senator, who responded similarly to this:

“…dared Baldwin to step foot in his country so that the actor could ’see mayhem,’”

Baldwin, of course, is way too old and out of shape for any real mayhem, and thus dashed to his Huffington Post blog with this response:

“While on the David Letterman program, I joked that I might need a ‘mail-order bride’ to achieve the goal of having more children in my life. I believe that most people understood that this was a joke and took it as such. (A dated reference, no doubt, and another sign of my advancing age.) However, I do apologize to anyone who took offense.”

He then made some offhanded noises about raising money for anti-human trafficking charities, which made the whole thing just that much sadder.

The first real poster for The Twilight Saga: New Moon (not counting those teaser-y posters of Edward and Bella that came out a ways back) was just released this week:

I see someone finally figured out that Jacob might be more of a viable love interest if he cuts his hair.  With all you Team Edward crazies out there, though, he still never stood a chance, did he?

Zach Braff is joining the upcoming comedy Swingles as director and co-star.  He’s also re-writing the screenplay.

It’ll be his first writing/directing job on a full-length movie since Garden State.

The movie, in which Cameron Diaz is already set to star, follows a guy who loses his wingman and instead teams up with the “sharp-tongued woman he can’t stand,” played by Diaz, in order to (somehow) meet singles.

I wonder if they fall in love?

Diaz also has the thriller The Box, directed by Richard Kelly, coming up later this year.

Well, folks, the lesson of the day here is that celebrity unused is no solution for grinding poverty.

Oh, and Danny Boyle?  Where were you, buddy?

Seems that the houses of both Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Rubina Ali (whom you’ll remember as having been almost sold to foreign journalists) were torn down recently to make room for pedestrian overpasses.  Ismail is kind of a lesser story on this one, but Ali’s sort of the big deal right now as her stepmother is currently ten weeks pregnant and, just prior to the demolition, her father was beaten by ten, count ‘em, TEN police officers.

Bet Rubina’s wondering if she can tap that trust fund money yet and get her and her family a PLACE TO LIVE.

What a lucky guy.

The Zookeeper, Kevin James’ follow-up to his surprise smash hit Paul Blart: Mall Cop, just added Rosario Dawson and Iron Man’s Leslie Bibb to its cast.

The Happy Madison production follows James as a schlubby zookeeper who gets dating advice from the animals he works with.

Yes, that plot description does sound just as stupid as Rob Schneider’s The Stapler, but on the plus side, it gives me a really good excuse to post pictures of Dawson and Bibb.

…for handing me more ammunition than an entire warehouse of Remington 12-gauge.  Let’s go to the Twitter tape!  The following has been consolidated for ease of use.

Let’s hammer this out today. Long before ‘douches’ and ‘famewhores’ there were these people called ’showbiz types. ”Showbiz types’ are people who grew up talking to themselves alone in a room for hours until they found some sort of outlet.  Once they found that outlet, everything fell into place, except for the fact that they still never worked out why they still talk so much. So you see, though filled with deep emotional voids that can never be filled, Showbiz Types are an important part of our Nation’s tapestry.I’m a Showbiz Type. (cue penny whistle and marching drums) But I am not a douche!! (of 1,090,466, seventeen stand and applaud wildly).”

Wow, John–I may not be a trained medical personnel, but from what you’ve just said there it sure sounds like you’re:

1. Mildly schizophrenic, as evidenced by a whole lot of talking to yourself.  Did you ever respond, John?

2. An emotional basketcase, as evidenced by “deep emotional voids”.

3. Egomaniacal, as evidenced by your assertion that you’re “an important part of this Nation’s tapestry”.

4. Not necessarily a douche or a famewhore but the precursor of both.

Sometimes, folks, the best thing you can do is sit back and let a celebrity talk.  Or tweet.