Twelve years after critics found it to be totally decent (and refreshingly stereotype-free) and audiences made it a solid $34M box office hit, the 1999 Taye Diggs vehicle Best Man will be getting a sequel! So if you’ve been holding your breath to find out what happens after interpersonal secrets and scandals among friends come to a head on one dramarama-filled wedding day, you’re in luck. Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee is set to script and helm Best Man 2 for Universal, and reportedly got the idea after a cast reunion dinner; take that as good indication that the likes of Diggs, Morris Chestnut, Terrence Howard, Sanaa Nathan, and Nia Long might reprise their characters. [ Deadline ]
‘I think that this movie works because of its humanity,’ director Shawn Levy says. By Kara Warner Hugh Jackman in “Real Steel” Photo: DreamWorks Pictures With its impressive TKO into first place at the box office this weekend, it’s no surprise that there is a “Real Steel” sequel already in the works. The cat was out of the bag back in April, when news leaked that the studio had already commissioned the film’s screenwriter/actor John Gatins to begin work on a second installment. So when MTV News caught up with director Shawn Levy at the movie’s premiere recently, we tried to get a few more details from him about the potential franchise. “Well, it has certainly been leaked that the studio would like us to make another one, and that’s based on the way we’ve seen the audience react to the movie — they react really emotionally. So we’ll see, if we’re lucky in the next month, for sure we’ll make another one,” Levy said. But what direction will the sequel go in? Will there be more robots? New characters? “I think that this movie works because of its humanity, so if we made a sequel, the humanity would remain the priority,” he said, only slightly dodging the question. When we tried the same line of questioning with the movie’s star, Hugh Jackman, he didn’t slightly dodge the question, he discarded it almost entirely. “Imagine asking a football player the night before the Super Bowl if he thinks they’ll make the Super Bowl next year,” he said with a smile, meaning that the first film will have to rake in plenty of cash before the studio signals for the go-ahead. “It’s a bit like that.” Levy was a bit more loose-lipped when he spoke about the subject with IndieWire , admitting that the story will continue with all of its major players. “I will produce and direct again, yeah. Hugh [Jackman]’s definitely in and, certainly, I can’t give away too much, but Dakota [Goyo], Evangeline [Lilly] and Hugh are all a big part of the sequel. It is the same characters, the next chapter. It delves into the fallout of the new fame and money that the Kentons are going to have as a result of the Zeus-Atom fight. It also delves into something I thought was a cool aspect of the movie that I didn’t have time to get into, which is the class warfare between the underground unsanctioned world of robot boxing and the monetized corporately funded league. The truth is, it’s not unlike the way boxing saw its popularity contested with the rise of a more violent, less rule-bound MMA.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Real Steel.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: Hugh Jackman
Ides of March is non-nude in theaters, so check out star Marisa Tomei nude in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead instead. Ashlynn Yennie returns in Human Centipede 2, and you can gets your rocks off to naked Rebecca Creskoff in Hung.
He also reveals that Catherine Zeta-Jones just signed on to join him and Russell Crowe in ‘Broken City.’ By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Mark Wahlberg Mark Wahlberg was in the giving spirit at the Emmys this weekend, kicking MTV News a bunch of news about his upcoming projects — everything from a burger-based reality show to who he’ll be sharing the screen with on his next flick to who will be putting pen to paper for his planned “Fighter” sequel. This fall, Wahlberg is headed to New York to shoot “Broken City,” a noir drama in which he’ll play a private detective hired by the mayor (Russell Crowe) to investigate whether his wife is cheating on him. “I think Catherine Zeta-Jones just signed on to be Russell’s wife,” Wahlberg told us. A call to the production company behind the project was not immediately returned. Also on the movie tip, Wahlberg gave us an update about his “Fighter” sequel . Previously, David O. Russell, who helmed the Oscar-winning first film but didn’t pen the script, had told us he was looking to write the sequel. But Wahlberg let us know the original screenwriter will likely get the first crack at drafting the sequel, which will focus on Micky Ward’s three bouts with Arturo Gatti from 2002 to 2003. “We’re hoping that Scott Silver, who really wrote the first one, will come on, write the script,” the actor said. “This one we’d try to make a more commercial movie about the three big fights. Dramatically, there’s a lot more at stake for Micky because [after] he won the title, people automatically thought — he’s still living in Lowell [Massachusetts] — they thought all of a sudden he was rich. He made a couple thousand dollars for that fight when he won the title. And that’s when things got really difficult for him.” And, about those hamburgers, Wahlberg told us that not only is he deadly, deliciously serious about opening a patty joint with his brothers called Wahlburgers , but they’re also planning to shoot an Internet-based reality show about the effort. “Listen, when I told the story that I wanted to do a show about a movie star and his five friends running around Hollywood, everybody said it was the dumbest idea in the world,” Wahlberg said of his “Entourage” success. “My brother is a five-star chef. So it’s a family-run business. You’re going to see us doing a reality show about building the business. This is the real deal. We’ll throw it up there and see if it sticks.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Broken City.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
It’s not like Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star aspires to be Citizen Kane , or Monty Python and the Holy Grail or even Wedding Crashers . All it wants to be is a silly, raunchy comedy about the rise of an extremely unlikely adult film actor. That it fails so spectacularly in this regard makes it almost something special — not only is Bucky Larson incredibly unfunny, it’s also squeamish in a manner that makes you wonder if either writers Adam Sandler (who produced the film via his Happy Madison company), Allen Covert and Nick Swardson (who plays Bucky) have somehow never actually seen porn, or if they subcontracted the script out to a group of eight-year-olds with only the vaguest idea of what it entails. The latter would explain how incidental sex is to what’s theoretically a movie all about it, from an early scene in which we learn that our hero has never masturbated or even heard of the concept, to the porn career he establishes, in which he never actually comes into contact with his costars.
“No, I have no idea about any of it. All I know is that it doesn’t preclude Paul [Greengrass] and me from doing another one of ours,” original Bourne series star Matt Damon teased recently when asked if he’d show up to pass the torch to Jeremy Renner in Tony Gilroy’s 2012 sequel The Bourne Legacy . Cheeky as that answer is, Damon was quick to play nice anyhow. “He’s got a whole other thing that they’re doing and I wish them well,” he added, “and Tony [Gilroy’s] really smart. I’m sure they’re going to be great.” So, no hard feelings. Really . [ MTV ]
The headline above says it all, but the exciting news is worth repeating: Robert Downey Jr. and wife Susan Downey are expecting their first child together! The couple wed in 2005, while the Oscar nominee has a 17-year old son from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer. The baby is due in early 2012. Downey will next be seen in the sequel to Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows . It comes out on December 16 and you can watch the trailer HERE . [Photo: WENN.com]
Oh, lovely: After staging his body-stitching horror pic The Human Centipede (First Sequence) in Germany and getting banned in the U.K. for upping the twisted thrills (and the number of victims) in the Britain-set Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) , director Tom Six plans to finish his trilogy in the good old U.S.A. “We’re going to shoot the third film entirely in America and it’s going to be my favorite,” he said during the Empire Presents… Big Screen event in London, where he promised that the threequel would “make the last one look like a Disney film.” Hold onto your asses, America. [ Empire via Twitch ]
Sherlock Holmes , Guy Ritchie’s 2009 blockbuster take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous 19th century investigator, struck such a chord with its witty bromantic banter and sense for high period adventure, why not repeat the formula for the sequel? After the jump, watch the first trailer for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows , featuring everything you loved about the first film, now with a new villain, a girl with a dragon tattoo, and Robert Downey Jr. in drag!
Today in WTF : Indie darlings Florence + the Machine — whom I lovingly call Tori Amos and the Evanescence — visited the spectacular Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando on Thursday. They’re performing at the Hard Rock at Universal CityWalk tonight, but the important thing is that someone took a picture of the group slurping Butterbeer and touring the premises. It’s all a little too much wizardry for me.
