Given The Greenlight

Fox Searchlight's Hollywoodteur presidents Stephen Gilula and Nancy Utley walked away from Cannes with the Palme d'Or award for Terrence Malick's visionary The Tree of Life, in theaters this coming Friday, they also gave the greenlight to the first film by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris since Little Miss Sunshine.

The new film, He Loves Me, is a reunion of sorts. Besides being back in the Searchlight camp, He Loves Me stars Paul Dano, whose career was launched by Sunshine. Dano will be paired alongside his girlfriend, Zoe Kazan, who wrote the script. The film also reunites Dayton and Faris with Sunshine producers Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. Casting news reveals Jeff Bridges is being courted to join the production, currently set for July.

After Little Miss Sunshine won two Oscars and was a Best Picture nominee, Dayton and Faris were courted like crazy by studios and became attached to a number of projects, none of which pan out. After five years since the release of that Sunshine, the team is ready to go.

Repped by CAA and Anonymous Content, Dano, recently completed, Looper, sold in a big Cannes acquisition deal to FilmDistrict and he just wrapped the Paul Weitz directed adaptation of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City for Focus Films opposite Robert De Niro. Dano will be seen this summer in Cowboys & Aliens.

True Fan of Independent Film, Donald Krim Succumbs

Donald Krim, president of Kino International and co-president of Kino Lorber Inc., died on Friday in his New York home after a one-year battle with cancer. He was 65.

As president of Kino International, Krim helped introduce now influential film directors including Wong Kar-Wai, Michael Haneke, Amos Gitai, Aki Kaurismäki, Julie Dash and Andrei Zvyagintsev. During his career, he received the Mel Novikoff Award from the San Francisco Film Festival in 2000 for his work to “enhance the filmgoing public’s knowledge and appreciation of world cinema.” Six years later, Krim received the William K. Everson Award for Film History by the National Board of Review. He also was honored with the Film Preservation Honors Award by the Anthology Film Archives that same year. Most recently, Krim received the Visionary Award at the 24th annual Israel Film Festival.

After graduating from Columbia University, Krim worked at United Artists, where he met Bill Pence, who founded Kino International. In 1977, Krim bought the company and began to expand by releasing new films. In 1987, Kino International opened up a home entertainment section, Kino on Video, which then became the most respected independent labels in the field.

Over the years, Kino International has released many influential films, including Shôhei Imamura's Vengeance is Mine and The Ballad of Narayama; Percy Adlon's Sugarbaby; André Techiné's Scene of the Crime; Michel Khleifi's Wedding in Galilee; Volker Schlöndorff's The Legend of Rita; Amos Gitai's Alila and Kedma; Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild; Kelly Reichardt's Old Joy; Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani's Ajami; Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth and Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust - a film the Library of Congress deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

In place of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Fresh Air Fund, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society and Red Hook Rise. They do not make them like Donald Krim any more. R.I.P.

Jerry Bruckheimer: A Short Comedic Biography

It seems like there is more truth in this short biospoofography of legendary Hollywoodteur Jerry Bruckheimer. Directed by aspiring filmmaker Nathan Gotsch, it showcases Bruckheimer's lack of originality and so much more. Gotsch cleverly timed his cinematic calling call with the opening of Pirates Of The Caribbean 4 and spoofs Jerry Bruckheimer's recent Hollywoodteur tentpoles, celebrity collabs and franchise genres.

Apparently, Gotsch's short is an exclusive viral hit around Hollywoodteur offices, where being spoofs by unknown however soon-to-be franchised filmmakers with potential original ideas provide billionaire Hollywoodteurs like Bruckheimer feel a little more human rather than machine.Yesterday afternoon, Gotsch saw this email sent to the Director of Development at Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures: "That shit is funny as fuck," the executive's message said. "We’ve all watched. It went around the studio. Nicely done, team awesome."

Stop and think about it. Really, it is just more of the same. What is smart or original about Gotsch's piece? And mere fact he able to get his short film to the Director of Development at Walt Disney Motion Pictures says it all. He's probably Bruckheimer's Hollywoodteur nephew posing as a Gotsch.

Cannes' Sleeping Beauty

FROM CANNES - Independents take note as Sundance Selects, a sister division to IFC Films and IFC Midnight, acquires the U.S. rights to fresh directing talent Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty.

Beauty features an emerging cast of actors including Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie, Peter Carroll and Chris Haywood; with Jessica Brentnall producing from Leigh's screenplay.

A haunting portrait of Lucy (Browning), a university student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of unspoken desires, Sleeping Beauty premiered in competition this week at the Cannes. Hollywoodteur Jonathan Sehring, president of Sundance Selects, said, "For the last 5 days, people throughout Cannes have been discussing Sleeping Beauty. We are thrilled to introduce Julia Leigh and her arresting debut to American audiences."

"Along with the entire Sleeping Beauty team, I'm extremely pleased that the film will be getting a release in the U.S. through such a fine distributor as Sundance Selects, especially under a label that has featured films from so many directors we admire," Leigh said sounding very much like a Hollywoodteur puppet. Leigh and Browning are repped by UTA, who sold their Beauty.

Weekend Pix: Children of God

Film producer Trevite Willis and TLA Releasing bring Children of God to the movie theater this weekend. Directed by emerging Bahamian filmmaker Kareem Mortimer and based upon his groundbreaking short film Float, Children of God premieres in New York City on Friday, May 20th at the Quad Theater.

The year is 2004 when the Caribbean world is rocked by the emergence of Rosie O'Donnell's gay family cruise ship. Real documentary footage unveils the mass homophobic hysteria rampant throughout the some parts of the Caribbean. Jonny (Johnny Ferro), a young obsessive compulsive Bahamian artist, faces losing his scholarship at a local University escapes from his gritty life in Nassau to the serene Bahamian island of Eleuthera where he re-encounters the sexy and charming Romeo (Stephen Tyrone Williams). Also heading to the island is Lena Mackey (Margaret Laurena Kemp), an extremely conservative forty year old anti-gay activist, who believes the only way to fix her problems is to limit the rights of homosexuals. Jonny and Lena paths cross inspiring Jonny to paint and give himself a new zest for life.

Children of God is the first gay themed feature film from the Caribbean and has screened at film festivals throughout the world. God showcases the talented Stephen Tyrone Williams, who shows great signs of being a future Hollywoodteur.

See Children of God this weekend.

Rock This!

FROM CANNES -- Summit Entertainment has secured the U.S. rights to Snitch, a drama based on a true story starring Hollywoodteur by way of Canada Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson with direction from Ric Roman Waugh.

Inspired by the PBS series, Frontline, Snitch, unfolds and follows a suburban dad (Johnson) whose teenage son is sentenced to 10 years under mandatory minimum drug laws. To reduce the sentence, the father goes undercover to catch a senior drug dealer. The screenplay was penned by Justin Haythe and Waugh.

Exclusive Media is producing with Johnson and his producing partner Dany Garcia, as well as with Frontline's David Fanning. Snitch is being co-financed by Exclusive, Participant Media and Imagenation Abu Dhabi. Exclusive Film International is handing global sales at the Cannes market. Rights in Canada, the UK and Spain to the property have already been taken by Alliance Films.

This is newsworthy, Hollywoodteurs watch PBS programming and now they are turning thoughtful "real" real life stories into Hollywoodteur styled movies. Oh Hollywood - you are so very creative and imaginative.

Angelina Jolie Directs

Angelina Jolie adds director to her Hollywoodteur resume. The much chattered Angelina Jolie feature directing debut now has a title and a distributor.

Graham King and his GK Films partner Tim Headington, who financed it, have placed it with their FilmDistrict arm. FilmDistrict CEO Peter Schlessel have slot In The Land Of Blood And Honey, the Bosnia-set drama that Jolie scripted, for a December 2011 release in the US.

Set against the backdrop of the Bosnian War in the 1990s, Blood and Honey "illustrates the consequences of the lack of political will to intervene in a society stricken with conflict. The film is specific to the Bosnian War, but it's also universal," Jolie said. King offered, "The filmmaking is impeccable, and signals the arrival of a visceral and compelling storyteller.”

Jolie doesn't appear in the film. Zana Marjanovic, Goran Kostic and Rade Serbedzija star with a cast comprised of locals, many of whom were children of the war. Jolie shot the film simultaneously in English and their native language, which was called Serbo-Croatian and is now referred to as BHS.

Bridesmaids Takes Millions to Alter

Bridesmaids from Universal Pictures elopes from the box-office with a very impressive $24.6M weekend opening -- well above prejudice testosterone driven Hollywoodteur expectations. Lady filmmakers grab your moviemaker prenupts!

Bridesmaids stars former Saturday Night Live alums, Kristen Wiig, as Annie, as a maid of honor whose life is unraveling while preps for best friend, Lillian's (Maya Rudolph) upcoming wedding alongside a host of energetic bridesmaids including Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper. Produced by Judd Apatow and directed by Apatow mentoree Paul Feig from a screenplay written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo.

After last weekend's Jumping the Broom success and now Bridesmaids, Hollywoodteurs might consider one less luncheon at the Ivy and spent more time devising innovative marketing and PR plans, not to mention producing and financing decent scripts and projects rather than simply relying on formulaic cash-cow Hollywoodteur A-listers strategies which have all proven themselves lackluster box-office ROI.

Congratulations to Bridesmaids.

Ryan Gosling Cannes

FROM CANNES -- Indie darling, latent hot-boy and Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling is set to star and make his directorial debut with a remake of the 1980 Taylor Hackford movie The Idolmaker. The original Idolmaker, starred Ray Sharkey in a story about the life of rock music promoter and producer Bob Marcucci, who discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian.

Gosling who is in Cannes for the premiere of the competition film Drive, co-starring Carey Mulligan and directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, has been showing hollywoodteur personality traits with a focused shift from indies to more mainstream - if cool flicks. In Warner Bros' Crazy, Stupid, Love he co-stars with Steve Carell opening on July 29th, he is starring in another re-make, the 1970's glam-tech sci-fy Logan's Run, and joins A-listers Sean Penn and Josh Brolin in Warner Bros' Gangster Squad, scripted by Will Beall.

Let's pray to the Hollywoodteur deities that Gosling can successfully infuse vision, quality and ROI to his now trending selection of upcoming mainstream movies pursuits.

Meryl Streep Prepares for Another Oscar

Bonjour de Cannes -- The brothers Weinstein are making their hollywoodteur status known. This time closing a deal with Pathe for U.S. rights to the next Meryl Streep Oscar nomination - the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady.

The Weinstein Company is partnering with Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies on the acquistion. It’s their third joint venture this year, following pick-ups of Our Idiot Brothers and The Details. Iron Lady will be completed by September in time for a 4th quarter launch.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein can hardly focus on the gigantic Cannes red carpet on the croisette as they formula plans for their Oscar generating machine and plot mansion and mantle slots for another Oscar trophy. The essential plan is to focus on a major awards run singling out Streep's performance and control and finance - finesse rather, the attention and fall-out for tons of notoriety and ROI (rent-on-investment).

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd, who directed Streep in Mamma Mia!. The Lady screenplay was penned was by Abi Morgan. The film was produced by Damian Jones with a $13 million production budget financed and produced by Pathe, Film 4 and the U.K. Film Council.

Cannes Shopping Spree

From Cannes -- Hollywoodteurs Harvey and Bob Weinstein must have received a grand IRS refund check as The Weinstein Company shopping spree commences with its second acquisition of the 2011 Cannes Official Selection films. This time TWC has acquired distribution rights to the film noir Chinese martial arts, Dragon (Wu Xia), directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan for most world distribution rights outside of Asia and French speaking Europe. The Cannes red carpet rolls out on May 14th for the Dragon (Wu Xia) premiere at Cannes. In true hollywoodteur behavior, TWC also optioned remake rights to the film - and that's global.

Set in the late Qing Dynasty, Liu (Donnie Yen) is a papermaker, leading a simple life with his wife Ayu (Tang Wei) and their two sons when Detective Xu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) enters their remote village to investigate the deaths of two bandits during a robbery. Xu quickly realizes that the incident in question was no ordinary botched robbery. Xu's probing threatens to dredge up the dark secrets of Liu’s buried past, threatening not only Liu and his family but the entire village.

Harvey Weinstein offered, “Peter Chan is a true artist and with Wu Xia he has created a dream project, combining two of my favorite genres: film noir and martial arts.” Harvey was surely thinking: Now for the hollywoodteur remake starring Blake Lively.

Leonardo DiCaprio As A Wall Street Wolf

Red Granite chairman/CEO Riza Aziz and vice chairman Joey McFarland have acquired rights to Jordan Belfort's memoir The Wolf of Wall Street. Boyish hollywoodteur Leonardo DiCaprio is set to produce with Jennifer Killoran's Appian Way and Alexandra Milchan's EMJAG Productions.

Having long wanted to play Belfort, DiCaprio has approached directors Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott to direct the film. The project had been set at Warner Bros and nearly got made several years ago, but a tug of war between hollywoodteurs, Warner Bros and Paramount, where Scorsese has his overall deal, led them to collaborate on Shutter Island instead.

The Wolf screenplay was written by Terence Winter, the executive producer of The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire. The drama chronicles Belfort's rise and fall on Wall Street, a run marked by a hard-partying lifestyle, drug addiction, a 1998 indictment for securities fraud and money laundering and a subsequent 22-month federal prison stretch. Today with 14 years of sobriety, Belfort is a motivational speaker.

Red Granite's intention is to produce four to five films each year. Red Granite most recently completed the Jennifer Westfelt-directed Friends with Kids, which stars Jon Hamm, Megan Fox, Westfeldt, Kristin Wiig and Adam Scott.

Weinstein Buys World Rights

From Cannes - The Weinstein Company featuring uber Hollywoodteurs Harvey and Bob Weinstein has won a quiet but fevered bidding battle for worldwide distribution rights to the next and still untitled film from Paul Thomas Anderson. With production set for June 13th, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix - the Weinstein are probably already mapping out their Oscar 2012 strategies. This Anderson's first lensing since Oscar winner There Will Be Blood with {talent rather than red carpets, random twits, fb posts, unauthorized sex tape leaks} Daniel Day Lewis.

The project was auctioned off last week at CAA Hollywoodteur headquarters. While Hoffman and Phoenix are locked in, actresses are holding their tresses as Anderson continues to eye femme leads Madisen Beaty (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), Amy Adams, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Lena Endre and the often overlooked yet phenom Laura Dern.

This is "The Master" project that Anderson has been working on for some time now. Hoffman stars as a man who returns after witnessing the horrors of WWII and tries to rediscover who he is in post-war America. In his new journey he creates a belief system that captures and rallies other lost souls.

The film is fully financed by Megan Ellison's Annapurna banner. Ellison is rapidly emerging as a godsend to Hollywoodteur indie auteur projects, as she enables Anderson to make the movie in the $35 million budget range after Universal stepped away.

F Gary Gray Cannes Deal

From the Cannes Film Festival news is director F. Gary Gray is now attached to direct The Last Days of American Crime, a heist movie in which budding Hollywoodteur Sam Worthington is set to star, for IM Global and Radical Pictures. Gray most recently directed Law Abiding Citizen.

IM Global is offering The Last Days of American Crime at the Cannes Film Market. Last Days is based on the Radical graphic novel written by Rick Remender and illustrated by Greg Tocchini. Karl Gadejsak is penning the screenplay set in the near-future where the government plans to implement a form of legal mind control, making it impossible for its citizens to commit unlawful acts. Worthington, of Avatar and Terminator 3: Salvation fame, will play a career criminal, who must put together the last heist in American history on the last night that crime is possible. The actor’s Full Clip Productions label is also producing alongside Automatik Entertainment.

Stuart Ford (IM Global founder and CEO) and Radical founders Barry Levine and Jesse Berger made the announcement today. Full Clip’s Michael Schwarz will produce with Levine and Berger. “This is such a powerful, iconic piece of material. We really believe this movie can bring something fresh to the noir universe and become an explosive action feature film. We're delighted to be working alongside the super talented Radical team, Gary and Sam,” Ford said. Levine chimed in, “The Last Days of American Crime graphic novel is one of the most coveted titles in the Radical catalog and our most successful international seller."

Jump For Laz - Weekend B.O.

The good news at this weekend's box office is Jumping The Broom from TriStar, which was expected to cash-in $8M - $10 million, will ante up closer to $14M and a #3 weekend finish just behind mega budgeted blockbusters Thor and Fast Five and ahead of the wron-com Something Borrowed, dare I say starring Kate Hudson.

One can only imagine what the expectations were for Kate and the rest of the run-of-the-mill Borrowed cast. Hollywoodteurs seem only to be happy looking at a screen reflecting themselves, friends, high school, college, workplace and families and placing them in familiar Hollywood derived places, and if you can get nearly famous Hollywoodteur offsprings to play - this helps get the greenlight, hereby perpetuating your shallow existence void of any other participants in society, unless they can be the victims of your discriminating taste. These little date-y styled movies were so well made and so fun in the 1930s.

Back to Broom, made for just $6.6M (probably less the Kate Hudson's Something Borrowed salary), in typical fashion Broom had Hollywoodteurs actually working for their oversized and undeserved inflated salaries with atypical marketing tactics to reach an audience treated as a sidebar at best. And guess what Hollywoodteurs? It worked. Now that's something to borrow and implemented: if you create inspired advertising and marketing for your products, you just might receive above your expectations especially from audiences you do not know or invest in.

Jeremy Renner Dominates Hollywood

Jeremy Renner continues his march towards Hollywoodteur status. The two-time Oscar nominee has been on an upward trajectory since starring in Oscar winning best picture The Hurt Locker, has formed his own production company, The Combine, with partner Don Handfield. Hitting the ground running, Renner and Handfield are developing a Steve McQueen biopic that will serve as a starring vehicle for the actor.

James Gray, who wrote and directed We Own the Night, is attached to write the McQueen screenplay based on the two books by Marshall Terrill: Portrait of an American Rebel and The Life and Legend of a Hollywood Icon, while video director Ivan Zacharias makes his directorial debut. Renner and Handfield will produce with Hurt Locker producer Greg Shapiro, Cross Creek Pictures’ Brian Oliver (Black Swan) and Zacharias’ producing partner Nick Landon. Sounds like a budding bunch of Hollywoodteurs vying for top status.

With swagger and attitude, Renner seems like a great fit for the iconic '70s star. However with McQueen in the development stage and Renner has plenty to keep him occupied, including Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol already in the can, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters currently in Berlin shooting for Paramount, after which he segues into Marvel’s The Avengers, now lensing in New Mexico. Renner takes the reigns to the The Bourne Legacy for Universal, which would shoot in the fall, and there's animation, Renner lends his voice for the latest installment of Fox's Ice Age franchise.

With The Combine, Renner and Handfield, an actor-turned-filmmaker, are trying to create entertainment from an artist-based perspective. Sources say, “the company will provide a framework to create, develop and support the vision of actors, writers and directors across all platforms.” Spoken like the future generation of Hollywoodteurs.

Big Twists & Turns for Matt Damon

In a $500,000 against $800,000 deal, Warner Bros has finalized a deal to acquire Father Daughter Time: A Tale of Armed Robbery and Eskimo Kisses, the Matthew Aldrich spec that had multiple bids on the table including one from Hollywoodteur Matt Damon who is eyeing the project as his feature film directorial debut.

In a Hollywoodteur bid out, the spec script auction had many big twists and turns, as Matt Damon and Warner Bros with money from a private financier faced rival bids from Hollywoodteurs including JJ Abrams attached via Paramount, Fox for Peter Chernin, Walter Parkes with Relativity Media and other future Hollwoodteurs also in the mix. However, Damon is the Hollywoodtuer with the midas touch this time around. Damon will produce through his WB-based company Pearl Street, with partner Ben Affleck, Chris Moore and Drew Vinton also attached as producers.

The script focuses on a man who goes on the lam with his daughter, his accomplice on a three-state crime spree. Father Daughter Time is not high concept, it's a smallish, very personal and dark but playful road movie about a father and daughter - sounds a bit like Damon's True Grit. However, this is a strong spec sale at a time when not a lot of money is being paid in the marketplace for scripts that don't come with attachments. "While specs are considered the riskiest form of employment right now," Aldrich continued in finely tuned selfish Hollywoodteur rhetoric, "it has worked well for me."

Additional Hollwoodteur self praise ensued from Aldrich's manager Jewerl Ross, "When one of the biggest movie stars in the world, who also happens to be an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, gets on the phone with your client and offers to protect the writer's vision and opens his hand to be a creative partner, it's hard to say no," Ross said. "The money becomes secondary." Yeah - until there is no money, no Academy Award-winning screenwriter, no Matt Damon, no Warner Bros - no Hollywoodteur stuff.

He's Back! Schwarzenegger Lines Up the Million Dollar Paychecks.

Ultimate Hollywoodteur and former California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has zeroed (salary) in on the film that will mark his return to the big screen: Cry Macho. Enough of the Governor comedy, Cry Macho is the story of a down-on-his-luck horse trainer, Mike, a once well-regarded horse trainer whose wife and son have died. His former boss makes him an offer he just cannot refuse: $400,000 to kidnap the boss' trust fund son, who is living with the man's ex-wife in Mexico. But when Mike locates the boy, trouble ensues with the ex-wife. Now with the Feds hot on their trail, the two form a father-son bond, as they head to the American border.

Schwarzenegger is also attached to a Hollywoodteur sized "Terminator" package. Hollywoodteurs cannot manage and leverage billionaire lifestyles by nearly bankrupting states alone with their benign personal political aspirations. Another noted Hollywoodteur, Al Ruddy, an Oscar winner for both The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, will produce, while Brad Furman, who helmed the recent The Lincoln Lawyer, has been tapped to direct, with filming set for September.

Speaking in true Hollywoodteur rhetoric, "I guarantee that you'll get another look at Arnold Schwarzenegger in this movie," says Ruddy. "Arnold always plays these big muscular guys, but there's a sweetness to Arnold in real life, and we want to bring that sweetness to the screen. Now that Brad's met with Arnold, he's convinced there's an accessibility and vulnerability there that he wants to bring out." As the French say, "bon chance!"

Arnold's reps at CAA hammered out a $12.5 million plus 25% of first-dollar gross. The project, which Ruddy has been nurturing for years, will be financed by Bill Block's QED International, which will begin offering Macho to international buyers in Cannes next week. The film is based on the 1975 novel, Cry Macho, by N. Richard Nash, who also wrote the screenplay.

Prepare To Trance

Multi-Oscar nominate and anti-Hollywoodteur, Danny Boyle, will follow his recent Oscar nom 127 Hours with Trance.

The thriller will shoot in London in September. Trance is the story of an art heist gone wrong. However with Boyle at the heim, Trance is bound to be dark, sexy and hard-edged like the tone of earlier Boyle films Shallow Grave and, my pers fav, Trainspotting. Trance will reunite Boyle with his 127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire producing partner Christian Colson.

Currently talks are underway with Fox Searchlight and Pathe for funding and worldwide distribution. Boyle will shoot Trance in September before turning all of his attention to directing the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Casting talks have begun with top British and American talent. Boyle will shelf Trance upon shooting to devote himself exclusively to the Olympics, then plans to return to Trance in August 2012 with a theatrical distribution in March 2013.

Unlike other Hollywoodteurs who exasperate enormous budgets with no real monetary profits, critical acclaim or Oscar consideration outside of the most technical categories, Boyle's budgets are usually in the mid teen budget range of which he always deliver sizeable return on investment with international praise. Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire cost $15 million and 127 Hours was $18 million. These films have grossed over $450 million between them.

Ridley Scott's Prometheus Casting Continues to Swell

Greenlight has learned that Guy Pearce has joined the cast of Ridley Scott’s epic Prometheus. Last seen in the Oscar winning The King's Speech, Pearce joins an all-star cast which counts Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Idris Elba and Michael Fassbender.

For months, the word has been Prometheus is not an Alien prequel, but elements have leaked out that prove otherwise, including a Fassbender interview with connection claims between the two films. And while the initial script draft was penned by Jon Spaihts (The Darkest Hour) from Scott's idea, Damon Lindelof (Lost, Star Trek) and Scott have since retooled the current version expanding the story into new directions.

"In a world flooded with prequels, sequels and reboots," said Lindelof. "I was incredibly struck by just how original Ridley's vision was for this movie. It's daring, visceral and hopefully, the last thing anyone expects." Currently filming on sound stages in London, principal photography began in Toronto earlier this year. Hollywoodteurs expect Prometheus to arrive in theaters June 2012.

Fast 5 Races to #1 Stimulates US Box-office

Hollywoodteur’s obsession with franchises paid off as Universal’s Fast Five raced to an $83.6 million opening at the domestic box office, brings its international cume to $81.4 million and worldwide receipts to $165 million. Fast bested Paramount and Marvel Studios’ Thor (US May 6th), in several markets where the two both opened. 20th Century Fox's Rio continues to colorize Hollywoodteurs' pockets green ending the weekend with a world total of $366 million.

Fast Five lifts the North American box office, which has endured a long-running slump, up 53% over the same frame a year ago, welcome news for Hollywoodteurs as the summer season gets underway. Fast Five is a huge and much needed victory, for Universal. Fast Five was originally supposed to open in June, but when Paramount’s Super 8 moved onto the same date, Universal took a risk and pushed the film to April 29th.

Directed by Justin Lin, one of Hollywood’s hottest young talents, Fast Five reunites franchise stars Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Tyrese Gibson and introduces Dwayne Johnson to race. Universal says Fast Five cost $125 million to produce after production incentives and tax credits, but others Hollywoodteurs put the price tag as high as $150 million.

Other weekend’ new films stalled, including Disney’s tween-driven Prom and the Weinstein Co.’s Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil; however, holdovers Rio, Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Big Happy Family and Water for Elephants performed respectively.

Hollywoodteurs will have tons of great demographic information from the numbers according to Fast Five to rebuild their current marketing campaigns for their upcoming summer tentpoles, franchises and summer blockbusters.