Lindsay,

Good for you! I have been sober since Nov. 12 1981.  I have never been happier since I got clean.

Doug4566

By Todd Cunningham
TheWrap

“Lee Daniels’ The Butler” surged on Saturday, while “One Direction: This Is Us” faded and suddenly it’s a horse race for the Labor Day weekend box office crown.

The Weinstein Company’s civil rights saga has topped the domestic box office for the past two weeks. It took in $5.5 million Saturday, a more than 50 percent rise over its $3.6 million Friday total. At the same time, the concert documentary about the boy band was falling off by more than half from its $8.9 million debut, with just over $4 million Saturday.

Sony’s “One Direction: This Is Us” was projected to win the weekend and should finish with around $20.5 million for the four days. It was playing just as expected — young (65 percent under 17) and 87 percent female. But the Saturday slip is surprising given the “A” CinemaScore, which typically translates to a word-of-mouth boost.

“The Butler,” which stars Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker, is in that same range and TWC believes it can pull off the upset. If “The Butler” does win, it would be the first film of 2013 to claim three consecutive weekends. Even if it doesn’t, it’s an impressive showing by the Oscar hopeful, which is up to $75 million domestically.

Sony rolled out “One Direction: This is Us” in 53 foreign markets this weekend and it took in $12.6 million. It was huge in the lads’ home country the U.K., where it rung up $5.7 million from 650 screens. That’s 16 percent bigger than the opening of the “Hannah Montana” concert movie tops the total gross of “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” by three percent.

See photos: The Anti-Labor Day Movie Guide: 10 Workplace Comedies

The rest of the leaders were largely unchanged from Friday. Warner Bros’ Jennifer Aniston pot comedy “We’re the Millers” was running third and will likely wind up north of $15 million for the four days. It passed the $100 million mark on Friday. Disney’s animated family film “Planes” was next, and may hit $11 million for the long weekend.

Lionsgate and Pantelion’s Spanish-language family comedy “Instructions Not Included” – which opened on just 347 screens Friday — was battling Sony’s Matt Damon sci-fi thriller “Elysium” for fifth. Mexican comic Eugenio Derbez wrote, produced, directed and stars in “Instructions.” It brought $2.7 million Friday and is on track to wind up north of $9 million, with “Elysium” looking at around $8 million at this point.

Thing were still looking bleak for the weekend’s other two wide openers.

Warner Bros.’ Selena Gomez-Ethan Hawke thriller “Getaway” added $1.5 million Saturday, up 11 percent from Friday, and looks like it will finish with around $6 million for the long weekend.

Focus Features’ Eric Bana spy tale “Closed Circuit” took in less than $1 million from 870 theaters and should finish the holiday at around $3.5 million.
 

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Oscar-winning director Hayao Miyazaki‘s animation studio says “The Wind Rises,” in competition at the Venice Film Festival, will be his last film.

Find: More on Hayao Miyazaki’s career

Koju Hoshino announced Miyazaki’s intention to retire Sunday, but declined to take questions, deferring to a news conference next week in Tokyo. “He wants to say goodbye to all of you, ” the Studio Ghibli president said.

Miyazaki was not in Venice for the international premiere. His Italian distributor said he stayed in Japan for the domestic release.

Miyazaki, 72, is one of animation’s most-admired and successful directors. He won an Oscar for “Spirited Away” in 2003, and a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 2005.

“The Wind Rises,” Miyazaki’s 11th feature film, is a fantasy-filled look at the man who designed Japan’s World War II fighter planes.

WENN

Rooney Mara will romance Cate Blanchett in director Todd Haynes’ new movie “Carol” after stepping in to replace Mia Wasikowska.

Search: Rooney Mara talks piercings  | Week in Quotes

The “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” star will portray a lesbian who falls for a frustrated wife in the adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s love story, which she published in 1952 under the name Claire Morgan.

Announcing the casting switch, Haynes says, “We’re over the moon to have Rooney on board. I’ve been a tremendous admirer of her work from the beginning, so the thought of bringing her together with Cate onscreen is thrilling to say the least.”

Filming will begin early next year.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Director Stephen Frears is “very keen” for Pope Francis to see his latest film, “Philomena,” the true story of a shamed Irish woman forced by nuns to give her son up for adoption in the 1950s.

Frears repeated the desire to reporters three times before the film’s world premiere in competition Saturday at the Venice Film Festival.

Asked to explain, he said: “He seems like a rather good bloke, the pope.”

A 2009 book by the journalist who helped the real-life Philomena, played by Judi Dench in the film, locate her son has been a catalyst for thousands of Irish mothers who similarly lost their children to come forward.

Screenwriter Jeff Pope says the film is trying to say that “openness … is really the way forward.”

WENN

Former “Dukes of Hazzard” star John Schneider has teamed up with the actors behind the horror genre’s creepiest characters to make a movie under his new film company banner.

The actor realized his dream of running a movie company after starting up John Schneider’s Fairlight Films in Baton Rouge last year, and now he’s ready to roll out the venture’s first project, horror comedy “Smothered.”

He tells BlogTalkRadio.com, “It stars Kane Hodder, who was Jason Vorhees (in the “Friday The 13th” movies), Don Shanks, who was Michael Myers (in “Halloween 5”), R.A. Mihailoff, who was Leatherface (in “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III”), William Moseley, who was Otis from “House of A Thousand Corpses” and “The Devil’s Rejects,” and Brea Grant, who is from Rob Zombie’s “Halloween” and “Dexter.”

“I kind of feel like the champion of the disenfranchised because these are all the guys in the mask… None of these guys have ever starred in a movie without a mask or some weird disguise, so this is all those serial killers unveiled in this movie. I have a cameo.

“We’re hoping for a release date of December 13, 2014, which happens to be a Friday.”

Schneider admits his dream of running a movie production company has been a long time coming, adding, “I decided to start a film company when I was eight; it’s just taken me this long to get it going! I was one of those kids who sat in my living room and cut together Super 8 films… that I’d shot with my friends.

“This has been my goal forever and once all my kids got out and to college I told (my wife) Elly (Castle), ‘Tax breaks are great in Louisiana and it’s possible to make a film here’. So I moved here a year ago and I’ve been here ever since.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The “Avengers” sequel has its villain.

Marvel announced Thursday that James Spader will play Ultron in its “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” In the comics, the character is a robot with artificial intelligence.

“Age of Ultron” is the sequel to the 2012 box office hit “The Avengers.” Disney will release it in May 2015. The film will be directed by Joss Whedon and will star Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo and Scarlett Johansson.

The 53-year-old Spader is well known for this TV work including roles on “The Practice,” ”Boston Legal” and the upcoming NBC drama “The Blacklist.” His films include 1989’s “Sex, Lies and Videotape” and last year’s “Lincoln.”

Entertainment Tonight.

After almost 17 years of marriage, actor Clint Eastwood and his wife Dina have separated.

Us Weekly cites Dina as having confirmed the news and revealing that “she and Eastwood remain close but have been living separately for some time.”

PICS: They Dated?! Surprising Celebrity Hookups

Eastwood and his reporter wife (née Dina Ruiz), who is 35 years his junior, married in March 1996 after dating for a few years. The two met during an interview in 1993.

The two have one child together, their 16-year-old daughter Morgan.

Related stories on ETonline.com:
Jamie-Lynn Sigler is a Mom!

A Look Back at Douglas Zeta-Jones’ Marriage

NEW YORK (AP) — It was Jon Voight’s portrayal of male prostitute Joe Buck in the 1969 film “Midnight Cowboy” that put him on the path to becoming an acting legend. Now he says he was paid a pittance for the part.

Voight says that he wanted the role so badly he told his agent, “I said, ‘Tell them I’ll do this part for nothing.'” The actor says to his surprise, “they took me at my word and they gave me minimum for ‘Midnight Cowboy.'”

Voight spoke Wednesday as he was promoting his film “Getaway” co-starring Ethan Hawke and Selena Gomez that opens Aug. 30 and “Ray Donovan,” the Showtime series he appears in opposite Liev Schreiber.

The Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor says the studio United Artists “even sent me a $14.73 coffee shop charge,” for meals his last day of shooting for the film in Texas. Voight also says he persuaded co-star Dustin Hoffman to try out for the role of Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo after the two became friends doing an off-Broadway show and that they auditioned for the movie together.

Looking back, Voight says, “It was the worst.” But Voight says he had no regrets. “I knew what it meant. It was going to give me a career and I was right.”

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Online:

http://www.getawaymovie.com/

http://www.sho.com/sho/ray-donovan/home

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Follow Lauri Neff on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/lneffist

WENN

Novelist Kate Snell has defended her portrayal of Diana, Princess Of Wales’ romance with Dr. Hasnat Khan.

Earlier this week, Khan dismissed the examination of their romance in upcoming biopic “Diana” as “completely wrong.” The surgeon insisted the story was based on gossip after watching a trailer for the movie, starring Naomi Watts as the iconic British royal.

But Snell has hit back, telling the London Evening Standard, “I met with Hasnat. … He said, ‘If you want to know the story, you’ve got to go and speak to my family’ … That’s what I did. I got to know the family. … They had their own relationship with Diana.”

The writer also praised the performances put on by Watts and Naveen Andrews, who plays Khan in the film.

She adds, “At one point, I just closed my eyes and listened, and it was incredible, that feeling that she was actually there. … She’s really distilled and embodied Diana. The same with Naveen. He’s really got to the heart of Khan.”

The film focuses on the final two years of the princess’ life leading up to her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997.