The CLOG - A Clevver Blog

Columbia Pictures is moving forward on a third film to follow up The Da Vinci Code and this summer’s Angels and Demons — even though the book upon which it will be based has yet to come out.

Author Dan Brown announced that the book will be called The Lost Symbol (could that be a blander title?), and it will be published in the U.S. on September 15th of this year, at which point screenwriter Akiva Goldsman will take his first crack at a screenplay version.

Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are currently still on board for the potential trilogy-capper.

Christian Bale has signed onto The Fighter, a period boxing drama that’s set to star Mark Wahlberg as “Irish” Mickey Ward.

The project has been in the pipeline for a few years under the direction of Darren Aronofsky, and was originally set to star Brad Pitt in Bale’s role of Ward’s half-brother, Dicky Eklund.  After Pitt dropped out, Aronofsky went off to make The Wrestler, and somewhere in the meantime the project was picked up by director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees).

The question is, who is the title referring to?  On screen, it’s Mark Wahlberg.  But behind the scenes could be a very different story, given the histories of the talent involved: Bale was recently the target of Internet ridicule after an audiotape of him ranting at a director of photography on the set of Terminator Salvation was leaked online.  But two years ago, the same thing happened to Russell: a video was leaked online of him throwing a hissy fit at Lily Tomlin on the set of Huckabees.

Wahlberg has worked with Russell twice already, on Huckabees and Three Kings, and he’s not known as someone to cause trouble on sets.  But as for the other two, internet rumor-mongers are no doubt hoping an epic showdown finds its way online during filming.

…and then, there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Remember how I was feeling all down about missing out on The Great Celebrity Twitter War?  I was hoping for something big and stupid from perennial faves Miley Cyrus or Rob Pattinson, but man, did I find something BETTER!

The father of Slumdog Millionaire star Rubina Ali apparently attempted to SELL HIS DAUGHTER.  To an undercover reporter…for just over a quarter million dollars US.  Of course, we’re not calling a spade a spade on this–he tried to “set up an adoption” and apparently this required massive amounts of geetus to successfully pull off.

News of the World reporters posed as a wealthy couple from Dubai who saw Rubina and “fell in love with her”, trying to set up the adoption.  To which papa Slumdog replied:

“We’ve got nothing out of this film.”

And:

“I have to consider what’s best for me, my family and Rubina’s future.”

Now, of course, papa Slumdog IMMEDIATELY began tapdancing like Gene Kelly on crystal meth (you have no idea how long I’ve waited to use THAT simile!), saying that he was just being POLITE, and in Indian culture you never actually say “no”, especially to guests.

Apparently they’re so polite in India that even when they ask to BUY YOUR OWN DAUGHTER, you never just say no….

And for those of you who were wondering who’d come out ahead, no, Anonymous did NOT manage to put Josef Fritzl to the top of the Twitter heap.  To be fair, they really started too late to do that much good.

But no, it was Ashton Kutcher who emerged triumphant, fully first to one million fans.  Oprah managed to get in the race, and carried her own cult of popularity up to around the hundred and fifty thousand mark just about the same time that Kutcher took his millionth follower, and CNN conceded defeat in the wee hours of Friday morning.

Kinda sad that it ended already–I was polishing my Edward R. Murrow-esque commentary to watch the Twitter War in full swing, but it ended faster than the first Iraqi war.  So many good lines lost.

I breathe a sigh and go on to the next dose of gossip.  Hopefully Miley did something stupid over the weekend or Rob Pattinson got caught with a hooker.

In a move that may well actually explain pretty much everything about Gwyneth Paltrow, including the existence of her GOOP mag that no one really cares about, Gwyneth related a story through said useless rag that just really takes the taco.  Dig the word:

“This person really did what they could to hurt me. I was deeply upset, I was angry, I was all of those things you feel when you find out that someone you thought you liked was venomous and dangerous. I restrained myself from fighting back. I tried to take the high road. But one day I heard that something unfortunate and humiliating had happened to this person. My reaction was deep relief and…happiness. There went the high road.”

So there it is.  Just a smidge of sadism.  Sure, we’ve all been there at least a little bit before, but it does shine a bit of light on everything else Gwyneth’s been up to lately.  Maybe that’s what’s got her running that ridiculous magazine that purports to be useful for all but really just contains a plethora of things that regular people will never see, own, taste or do.  It’s a really TIMELY explanation, too, so I’m inclined to run with it.  Just makes so much SENSE.

So I’m really actually genuinely feeling BAD for Lindsay Lohan now–dumped by her lesbian girlfriend, left high and dry by her friends, her family using her for a meal ticket…apparently now she’s back on the drugs like no tomorrow.

Bright one Easter morning, when most families are thinking church and brunch out, or possibly a ham dinner with the trimmings (my own family favors Mongolian barbecue after the morning at church), Lindsay and Dina got into a nice screaming row that even the neighbors could hear and quote snippets from (like “Mom, stop it!” and “Quit it!”) over getting Lindsay back on the rehab train again.

This is, of course, a smidge on the fishy side as Dina hasn’t exactly been a stalwart champion of getting Lindsay clean of late, but any move in that direction is a move well taken.

I’m genuinely hoping that Lindsay will get clean and stay there, because frankly, this girl’s been a train wreck for entirely too long, and if she keeps it up she’s going to wind up dead.  If you’re a Clog reader, Lindsay, and I KNOW you people read this–go and get the help.  I’m not even going to use my “Crack ho” or “sniff-a-licious” pics today, because I’m that serious.  Get the help.

Oh Jackie…we expected so much more from you.  We really did.  But when you came out over the weekend spouting ridiculous lines like:

“With too much freedom … it can get very chaotic, could end up like in Taiwan.”

Then he tasted a little MORE shoe leather with:

“I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled.  If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.”

And let’s not forget this wonder, from when he found out that his own film, Shinjuku Incident, was going to be banned in China for being “too violent”:

“If you want to make a film in China, you have to follow our rules.”

Of course, Chan’s representatives have been working overtime on damage control, stating that his words were, not surprisingly, “taken out of context” and meant only to apply to the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY, frantically trying to make it NOT look like Jackie Chan would be a lot happier if we were all faceless automatons meant specifically to serve a state gone mad.

Nice work, Jackie. And we were all starting to like you, too.

Tonights episode of 24 is going to be interesting. I’m going to miss it, due to a prior commitment. Thanks to DVR, It’s not a big deal…but of everything coming on tonight, this is the one I’m most lookin forward to seeing…Agent Moss is barbque!

See…Everyone is ridiculing this beautiful American woman this morning, but I want to send an Encore to this fearless down to earth human being!  Great job Miss USA California! For not just saying what they want you to say!

I wouldn’t care about a crown either if they had asked me a question that the world is so divided on. Perez Hilton should get punched in the face for asking her that question….it just wasn’t fair! But, it’s in his face! Because she didn’t give him the answer we all know he wanted!!

As harsh as this will eventually end up sounding, young ladies can learn from the example of Mindy and Taya on “Rock of Love: Bus.” These two beauties were Bret Michaels’ final 2 choices of all the the crazy bitches on the tour.

When it came down to the end, I’m sure many of you thought that Bret was going to pick Mindy, but a pro like myself knew that Taya was going to be his Rock of Love…..How did I know you ask??

It’s all too obvious….Bret Michaels got to get deeply intimate with Mindy, on probably more occasions than they showed us. After a guy gets to enter, into a female, what height is left for that guy to reach? Bret already had Mindy in the way all guys want a woman.

Taya on the other hand, refused to go there with him before knowing that she would be the one he chose. The end result, she stayed on Bret’s mind longer, which caused him to desire her more. People desire what they can’t have.

So all of you young women can learn from this situation and make him wait!! Trust me, he will cherish it, and his relationship with you a lot more!!!!!

Chardonnay!!!!!

This “For The Love of Ray J” contestant showed that she had tricks and gifts on the very first day. So it wasn’t so much a suprise that Chardonnay would hit the stripper pole the way she did. It was what she did when she got up there, that made my ass jump up off of the couch like I was in the strip club with them that night!

I don’t care who you are, if you saw this and it didn’t make you want to jump out of your seat, you are a boring, lame soul with no sense of humor and respect for people with talent!

Sorry for the bootleg clip….

Zac Efron, welcome to true moviestardom.

Despite featuring a plot that didn’t involve large choreographed dance numbers or anyone breaking into song, 17 Again easily topped the box office with $24 million.  (As I predicted last week, that’s just about exactly what another surprise teen hit, Mean Girls, also made.)

Coming in at a distant second was the journalism thriller State of Play, which despite a solid cast made a mediocre $14 million.  That’s roughly what the last mature-adult-skewing drama, Duplicity, also made.  These types of dramas typically have better staying power than average, so with solid reviews, expect State of Play to climb slightly past $40 million.

Both of last week’s films, Hannah Montana: The Movie and Observe and Report fell by over 60% (largely thanks to inflated grosses from last week’s Good Friday holiday).  That’s fine for Hannah but bad news for Report, which got off to a weak start to begin with.

I don’t have a love/hate relationship with Russell Crowe so much as I loved him in Gladiator and hated him in pretty much everything else.  So my gut is not helping me as I examine this photo of Crowe in character as Robin Hood in Ridley Scott’s new movie.

On the one hand, he’s back to his Gladiator haircut and he’s in reasonably good shape (neither of which could be said for him in State of Play).

But on the other hand…this project seemed so much cooler when it was called Nottingham and was about a sympathetic Sheriff and a slimy Robin Hood.  Now it’s a straightforward Robin Hood story — only in this case, Robin Hood is way too old.

But I sound like a broken record.  Why don’t you decide for yourself by checking out the photo below?

In the land of Bizarreality TV, Ray J’s contestants can sure make for some weird TV moments. There have been a slew of “Love” reality shows over the past year or so, but none of them have been quite as weird as “For The Love of Ray J”

From day one, It seemed as though he might have found some pretty decent women to choose from….then one by one, the normal girls began to get sent home, and voluntarily go home…though none of them actually were 100% normal. At any rate, the final 3 girls Ray J has left, all have something terribly wrong with them. One is needy, one is a manipulative liar, and the other is just off her rocker a bit too much. I couldn’t say what I would do if I was in this position, but I think it would be a repeat of Real Chance of Love….send every single one of their asses packing!!!

I doubt that is going to happen tonight, but you never know…..

Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones is ever so slowly creeping up on us — it comes out December of this year — and the first still photos are beginning to pop up online.

The eye-catcher features main character Susie Salmon (Atonement’s Saoirse Ronan) in Heaven — or, more accurately as it turns out, somewhere in between Heaven and Earth.

The second features an obscured look at Stanley Tucci’s George Harvey: the man who murdered 14-year-old Susie.  (Jackson swears the movie is uplifting.)  Check them both out below.