Doomsday for Watchmen?
Who will watch Watchmen? Nobody, if 20th Century Fox gets its way.
After a major court victory, the studio has announced a bid to block the release of Warner Bros.' anticipated adaptation of the seminal graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Fox originally tried to develop the project more than a decade ago, but didn't manage to get the film off the drawing board. The studio claims Warners never properly acquired the rights to Watchmen, and, in a major twist, instead of seeking a share of the would-be blockbuster's box-office gross, Fox is seeking to kill the flick entirely before it unspools in theaters March 6.
Cue the agonized cries of fanboys everywhere.
Casting Couch: Battlestar Fraks Out TV Movie, Streep Readies Rom-Com, Office Star Gets Tarantino'd
Get ready for a Battlestar Galactica of frakkin' supersized proportions.
Fresh off the announcement that the upcoming 10-episode swan-song season of Battlestar Galactica will include even longer episodes than usual, the Sci Fi Channel has announced that the cult fave will live on a tiny bit longer in the form of a two-hour movie set to air on the cable channel after the series concludes.
The stand-alone special, set in the time period immediately before the Cylons' catastrophic attack on Caprica, will be directed by Edward James Olmos and star series regulars Michael Trucco, Aaron Douglas and Dean Stockwell.
The Dark Knight Speeds to $400 Million
Eighteen days.
That's all it took for The Dark Knight to break $400 million.
The Batman movie grossed another $6.3 million on Monday, per final numbers from Exhibitor Relations, bringing its overall domestic total to $400,038,494 and setting yet another land-speed record.
The fastest film to $100 million, $200 million and $300 million is now the fastest film to $400 million. By a lot.
Batman, the Unbeaten
The Dark Knight isn't king of the world, but it's getting closer.
The fastest-grossing blockbuster in Hollywood history took in another $43.8 million at the weekend box office, per studio estimates, staying on course for a potential run of $500 million—or more.
The latest Mummy movie, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon, did about what was expected, if a little less than the most outsized predictions, coming up with $42.5 million. If estimates hold, it'll finish second behind The Dark Knight.
For The Dark Knight now, it's not so much about where it places—although it's the first movie since 2007's Disturbia to top the box office three straight weekends—but how fast it movie descends the mountain of money it made in its opening days.
Studio Concocting Venomous Spider-Man Spinoff
Could Venom be the antidote to Spider-Man withdrawal?
Inspired by The Dark Knight's Joker-driven success and without another Spidey film on its slate until 2011, Sony is setting the ball rolling on a spinoff centered on the web-slinger's parasitic nemesis Venom, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Topher Grace played the unhinged shutterbug turned symbiotic monster in 2007's Spider-Man 3.
Not sure that the 30-year-old actor can carry his own franchise, however—like Hugh Jackman, who will be going it alone in next year's X-Men Origins: Wolverine—Sony is supposedly open to the idea of pinning Venom's sticky-tipped appendages on another leading man.
Détente Imposed in Lucas' Stormtrooper War
George Lucas got a split decision in his personal clone war.
The Jedi mastermind had dispatched his underlings to London to shut down Andrew Ainsworth, a designer of the original Imperial Stormtrooper helmet who was offering unauthorized versions of the classic headgear on the Web to fanboys.
For his part, Ainsworth claimed he dreamed up the concept and should be allowed to sell his wares.
With an array of Stormtrooper helmets lined up along the front bench in the London courtroom, High Court Justice Anthony Mann ruled in both parties' favor Thursday.
Star Trek Scoop: New Kirk Still Gets Hot Alien Action
Don't worry: Chris Pine, who plays a young James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' new Star Trek movie, won't be pulling a Shatner. As in, he won't be imitating the famous...dramatic....pauses...of his '60s predecessor.
"Really what [William] Shatner did was very specific and very unique to him," Pine told E! News this week, while promoting Bottle Shock, an indie about Napa Valley vintners. "I think if I went to mimic-ville, I went to try to do Shatner, it would not have been smart."
It looks like Pine will, however, take Shatner's example when it comes to getting it on with alien ladies. Keep reading for scoop on interplanetary love, Trek technology and more:
Rate-a-Trailer: Harry Potter vs. Li'l Voldemort
We have one word for this Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince teaser that just went online: Creepy. Here, we see Harry's nemesis Voldemort as blossoming evildoer Tom Riddle, played by 10-year-old Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (nephew of Ralph Fiennes, the all-growed-up Voldemort). And wow, that kid's spookier than his uncle in a bald cap eating unicorns. Or doing whatever it is Old Vold's doing here, which looks like busting out jazz hands under strobe lights? On the bright side, seems like Dumbledore fans will have plenty to love.
So what do you think? Is our favorite aging wizard getting better at the Dark Arts, or is his bag of tricks almost empty? Sound off in the comments.
The Joker's on Him
Heath Ledger might get an Oscar nod for his agent of chaos in The Dark Knight.
Spencer Taylor might get five to seven.
The 20-year-old Michigan weirdo was busted for trying to swipe Batman posters and stand-ups from the lobby of a movie theater, all while in his homemade Joker getup.
The freaky fanboy was rung up on charges of larceny, malicious destruction of property and a bad mascara job.
Comic-Con: Terminator's McG Talks Bale, 'Bots
McG doesn't give a lot of interviews, so listen up. Over the weekend, the Terminator Salvation director talked to me about the four minutes of man vs. machine action he previewed for thousands of fans at San Diego Comic-Con. He also spilled about how he got Terminator maestro James Cameron's blessing, whether star Christian Bale can pull off being both Batman and John Connor, and the deal with the rumored Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo. Check the clip to get the full story.
Another Titanic Weekend for Dark Knight
Next up: $400 million.
The Dark Knight was primed to enter a stratosphere reached by only seven films in Hollywood history after grossing an estimated $75.6 million this weekend, and surpassing $300 million domestically in record time.
Among the box office also-rans, Will Ferrell got his mojo back, while Scully and Mulder had theirs abducted.
More than anyone, Batman was again the man. Where once a $400 million overall take for the latest Caped Crusader adventure was considered a possibility, now it's considered a lock.
"Certainly, $400 million, boom, that's going to happen," Media by Numbers box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said today.
"The trajectory it's on has never before been seen. This is absolutely unprecedented."
Comic-Con: Star Wars Scoop & Will Ferrell Poop
That "Star Wars Kid" from YouTube may have been ahead of his time. Soon, many American kids will look just as dorky as they play a brand new lightsaber fighting game for the Wii. This was but one of several revelations—nah, actually, not many revelations at all—at the Comic-Con "Star Wars Spectacular."
If you were hoping to know more about the live-action TV show coming in a couple years, you're out of luck.
But hey, do you like The Clone Wars?

















