So much for our terrible Les Miserables review . The big screen version of this world famous musical banked $18.2 million yesterday, according to The Hollywood Reporter, setting a new benchmark for weekday Christmas Day openings. Sherlock Holmes owns the overall Christmas record when it opened on a Friday and earned $24.6 million. Les Miserables Movie Trailer Django Unchained Trailer Django Unchained , meanwhile, didn’t exactly disappoint, either. Despite Spike Lee’s protest. The Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio-driven drama shot past Ali to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie to open on December 25. It brought in a cool $15 million. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey raked in $11.3 million, with Parental Guidance and Jack Reacher rounding out the top five.
Let’s give Kim Kardashian points for honesty. And hilarity. The giant-breasted reality star has openly taken issue with Instagram because the company’s new Terms of Service agreement can be interpreted as giving it permission to sell client photos without compensating the user. What is Kim’s main issue with this controversial addendum? “I just don’t think they should have the right to sell [our photos] to advertising companies on our behalf,” Kardashian told TMZ yesterday. “What if we don’t want to advertise what they want? HA! That’s a good one, Kim Kardashian. When was the last time you didn’t want to advertise with a company? Oh, right. When you weren’t paid for it. In reality, this is an understandable point of contention for Kim and any Instagram client, although the company’s CEO says the wording has been misunderstood and Instagram cannot actually sell your likeness to the highest bidder. Still, will Kim take her nearly six million followers to another photo-sharing site? “I just hope they revise it,” she said ominously of the Instagram policy.
We the People of the United States…are some weird dudes. A clever but clearly tongue-in-cheek petition to build a Star Wars -style Death Star isn’t the only petition that’s been started on the Obama administration’s much-debated We The People website. That’s the place where ordinary citizens can log in and lobby for change. When a petition registered on the site gets 25,000 signatures, the administration issues an official response to it, which, you might guess, means that there are quite a few wackadoo proposals on the site. In addition to the Death Star proposal, which needs more than 21,000 signatures before its Dec. 14 deadline, there is also a petition started by “Sean M” of San Francisco that seeks to establish a “new legal system of motorcycle riding ‘Judges’ who serve as police, judge, jury, and executioner all in one.” If you saw Dredd 3D or are a fan of Judge Dredd comics, you’ll get the reference. If you’re like me, you’ll also start thinking of Karl Urban riding in formation with leather-clad Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg who also know how to scowl effectively. And for you gamer fans, nathan p of Columbus, Ohio has petitioned the administration to build a statue of Halo hero Master Chief on the White House lawn, noting: “He deserves more praise for what he has done.” Compared to those last two petitions, the Death Star proposal at least has some satirical bite, nothing that its construction will “spur job creation…and strengthen our national defense.” It could also boost Disney’s stock. It will be interesting to see if any of these petitions makes their 25,000-signature deadlines, which all fall at the end of next week. As of this posting, the Master Chief statute proposal is in the lead with more than 4,700 signatures, and Halo fans are a passionate breed. This could get interesting. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Skyfall has overtaken the likes of Avatar in Britain at the box office. Also in Wednesday’s round-up of news, Matt Damon is a possible addition to a George Clooney -directed period drama; Les Misérables is set for Xmas Imax bow; the Academy will honor Pedro Almodovar ; and the Dubai International Film Festival is removing pro-Syrian ruler filmmakers films from its roster. Skyfall is U.K.’s Highest Grossing Film of All Time In 40 days of release, the 23rd James Bond movie has grossed $151,795,059 to become the highest grossing film in Great Britain ever, overtaking previous records set by Avatar . Directed by Sam Mendes, Skyfall opened in 587 U.K. theaters on October 26th, Deadline reports . Matt Damon Eyes George Clooney’s Monuments Damon is in negotiations to join period drama The Monuments Men , which will be directed by George Clooney in January in Europe. Along with the two, the film will star Daniel Craig, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville and Bob Balaban. The story “confronts the final chapter of Germany’s rule, which came down to the absolute destruction of everything that makes a culture keep its standing, including the lives that are lost and the sacrifices that are made,” Deadline reports . Les Misérables to Bow in Select Imax Theaters The film will open in select Imax theaters in New York, L.A., Toronto and Montreal the same day as its nationwide Christmas-day release. It will have an extensive Imax roll out internationally in January, Variety reports . Academy to Honor Pedro Almodovar in London Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodovar will be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the British capital. Special guests will include his brother Agustin Almodovar, filmmaker Stephen Frears, fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, singer Alberto Iglesias and scriptwriter Peter Morgan, THR reports . Dubai and Cairo Film Fests Remove Pro-Syrian Ruler Films The Dubai International Film Festival dropped Basil al-Khatib’s historical drama Mariam , Abdul Latif Abdul Hamid’s The Lover and Joud Said’s My Last Friend from its official selection this year after protests from the Arab film community due to the directors’ support for Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. Dubai takes place December 9 – 16. Screen reports .
The numbers are in and, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Taylor Swift sold many albums over the past seven days. “Red” moved 1.2 million copies in its first week of release, the highest total for any CD since Eminem’s “The Eminem Show” in 2002. The album is also the first one to break the one-million mark since Lady Gaga and “Born This Way” in 2011, according to Billboard, and is the second-largest debut for a female artist ever, following the sale of 1.319 million copies of Britney Spears’ “Oops! …I Did It Again” in 2000. In other words: peeps love themselves some Taylor Swift! Swift, meanwhile, continues to promote the heck out of “Red.” She sang her breakout hit about never getting back together with a certain someone on Dancing with the Stars last night.
Mom. Reality star. Coupon Cabin blogger. Runway model?! Kate Gosselin raised eyebrows this week for reasons much different than usual, strutting down the runway at New York’s Fashion Week … yes, seriously. Wednesday night, the always-controversial 37-year-old mother of eight strutted her stuff during Derek Warburton’s Real Fashion, Real Runway show. Here’s a toned, tanned Kate a one-shoulder white dress … think she’s got what it takes to be a runway model? Think Jon is kicking himself right now? Despite the fact that all proceeds benefited Bottomless Closet, an organization that helps lower-income New York women become self-sufficient and provides them with business attire, many people took issue with Kate Gosselin modeling in the show. “We have all been in Twitter wars about Kate,” Warburton said. “They were attacking us for having her in the show. I responded saying, ‘Listen, we are not paying her. She is doing this out of the goodness of her heart.'” “What’s remarkable is every time we get a nasty tweet about Kate, she writes and apologizes. She doesn’t care about haters, she cares about the charity.” “She must have apologized to me five times for the things people say about her. Kate is so nice, sweet and accommodating and cool,” Warburton gushed . The real question … Kate Gosselin: Would you hit it?
After initially refusing to go along with Evelyn Lozada’s efforts to divorce him, former NFL star Chad Johnson is finally accepting that his marriage is over. He, too, has filed paperwork, citing the union as “irretrievably broken.” Johnson filed the papers in a Florida court yesterday, in response to Evelyn Lozada’s filing back on August 14, days after he allegedly head-butted her . In Chad’s divorce filing , he notes the the couple has a prenup that he believes should be enforced, especially the part about who pays for the lawyers. Evelyn has requested that Chad foot the bill for her legal fees, but the prenup states that both of them will pay their own if they were to split, Ocho claims. The divorce has not been finalized yet, but Evelyn, who gave every indication that she was never going to reconcile and is ready to move on, is thrilled. Well, as thrilled as one can be after a condom receipt from your cheating spouse results in the end of a 41-day marriage and stitches in your head. Johnson was charged with battery yesterday in Broward County, Fla. He entered a plea of not guilty this morning, and is currently unemployed. [Photo: WENN.com]
Poor Mitt Romney. First, it comes out that Nicki Minaj is actually not voting for him in November. Now, in the track “To the World” (off the compilation album “Cruel Summer”), Kanye West takes a shot at the Republican nominee for President by hitting him where it counts: In Romney’s tax returns. “Mitt Romney don’t pay no tax,” West decrees in a line from the single, following that quip with: “Mitt Romney don’t pay no tax.” Yes, again. We think he has a point he wants to make. Listen for yourself:
Singer Dev made a sex tape apparently. According to TMZ, the video shows the “Dancing in the Dark” singer doing the horizontal mambo night vision style. The Dev sex tape was shot last year with an ex-boyfriend and is being shopped to the highest bidder by a third party. It’s unclear how the tape was acquired. Ooh LA LA! According to TMZ, which luckily (or unluckily) seems to get a screening of these videos, it’s fairly vanilla as far as sex tapes go. Conventional boning. Dev (real name Devin Tailes) is clearly recognizable based on her tattoos – a diamond on her front left shoulder and two sparrows on her lower back. No word yet on whether there’s been any interest in seeing Dev – also the female voice in Far East Movement’s “Like a G6” – fornicate on film. [Photo: WENN.com]
Hollywood’s Highest Paid Women Of Color It’s hard for Black women out there . Especially in a male-dominated world like Hollywood. Yet and still these ladies have managed to make it monsoon on Hollyweird by raking in millions upon millions. Let’s look at the highest grossing Black women in Hollywood.
