By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Venom and the Green Goblin should start getting ready for their close-ups because Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal hinted that the studio is planning spin-off adventures for supporting character in its “Spider-Man” franchise.

“We are going to access Marvel’s full world of Spider-Man characters, so be on the lookout for new heroes and villains,” Pascal said during a presentation to investors on Thursday.

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Sony licenses the web-spinner from Marvel, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, but it has the rights to make films from the characters who orbit, aide and do battle with Peter Parker and his alter-ego Spider-Man. These include popular villains like Rhino and Electro, as well as anti-heroines like Black Cat.

Given that the four “Spider-Man” films have made north of $3 billion worldwide, it makes sense that Sony would want to find ways to further exploit the comic books, much the way Fox is doing with “X-Men” and the “Wolverine” films.

The studio has already rebooted the wall-crawler one time, swapping out the original franchise team of Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire for new director and star Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield with 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man.”

The next film in the series, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ hits theaters next May, with Jamie Foxx playing Electro and Paul Giamatti taking on the role of Rhino.

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GLENDALE, Calif. (AP) — President Barack Obama will visit the home of “Shrek” next week to deliver remarks on the economy.

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White House spokesman Josh Earnest says the president will stop next Tuesday at DreamWorks Animation in Glendale, just north of Los Angeles. Earnest won’t provide details but he says the U.S. movie and TV industry is creating thousands of jobs around the country.

The studio’s animated hits include “Shrek,” ”Madagascar,” ”Kung Fu Panda” and their sequels.

DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg is a big supporter of Obama and Democratic Party causes. Last year he gave $2 million to the group supporting Obama’s re-election. During an August trip to California, the president and Katzenberg dined in Obama’s Los Angeles hotel room.

By L.A. Ross
TheWrap

Jason Statham hopes to stoke a growing fire under the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to finally recognize stunt actors with their own Oscar category.

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“All of the stunt men — these are the unsung heroes,” Statham said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “Nobody is giving them any credibility. They’re risking their necks. And then you’ve got poncy actors pretending like they’re doing [the stunts].”

Statham can hardly be counted among those “poncy” actors. The British action star started as a martial artist and diver before landing his first role in Guy Ritchie’s “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” and he regularly performs his own stunts.

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When legendary stuntman and director Hal Needham died in October, the outpouring of grief from Hollywood was enormous. Yet Needham was never eligible for recognition from the Academy for pioneering some of the most famous stunts in cinema history — only receiving an honorary Oscar in 2012.

“For me, it’s a total injustice,” Statham said. “[Stunt actors are] the ones getting busy. Then you have some guy standing in front of a fucking green screen screwing his face up pretending like he’s doing the stunt. To me, it’s like a farce. I have a real frustration with that because I know these coordinators. I train with them all the time and they are incredibly talented.”

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By Todd Cunningham
TheWrap

It’s clear that “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” will be one of the year’s biggest movies. But just how high it will fly in its box-office opening this weekend isn’t so clear.

Pre-release tracking has Lionsgate’s sequel, starring Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, taking in between $160 million and $172 million. The higher tracking numbers go, however, the less reliable they become — and most analysts believe that if it’s off, “Catching Fire” will land above those estimates.

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Part of that is based on the performance of the last two films that tracked this high.

Disney’s Marvel superhero sequel “Iron Man 3” posted the year’s biggest opening with $174 million in May, and “Marvel’s The Avengers” set the all-time mark for a three-day debut with $207 million in 2012. Tracking had both landing between $160 million and $165 million before they opened.

“Catching Fire” will be in more than 4,100 theaters nationwide, with early screenings beginning at 8 p.m. Thursday. More than 300 of those screens will be in Imax, but none will be in 3D, and the lack of the premium price boost could keep “Catching Fire” from those historic heights. Fifty-two percent of “The Avengers” grosses came from 3D, 45 percent for “Iron Man 3.”

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“That will be a factor,” said Exhibitor Relations vice-president and senior analyst Jeff Bock, “and if it winds up anywhere near those films it will be a real achievement, because it will mean it will have sold a lot more tickets.”

He thought its shot at the all-time marks could hinge on a far more low-tech consideration.

“We know the fan base will be there for the opening weekend, but I think whether older moviegoers are willing to brave the hordes of the teenage girls could have a lot do with how high it goes,” he said.

“Catching Fire” seems a lock to break the record for a November opening, which is the $142 million rung up in 2009 by “Twilight: The New Moon,” another young-adult hit from Summit.

Looking to manage expectations, Lionsgate hasn’t publicly addressed its box-office prospects since the first tracking numbers came out last month. At that time it said it was projecting an opening between $140 million and $150 million, citing strong competition.

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That would be Disney’s Marvel superhero sequel “Thor: The Dark World,” which has topped the U.S. box office the past two weekends and is on its way to $500 million worldwide, and the weekend’s only other wide opener, “Delivery Man,” the PG-13-rated Vince Vaughn comedy from DreamWorks and Disney. If “Thor” falls another 57 percent, as it did last week, it will wind up at around $16 million, just above what Disney projects for “Delivery Man.”

Records aside, however, “Catching Fire” should be a huge financial win for Lionsgate.

It was produced for $130 million (the first film cost $78 million) and most analysts believe it has a good shot at ultimately hitting $400 million domestically, since the original film did $408 million last year after opening to $152 million in May of 2012.

Its foreign haul – it opens this weekend in 50 foreign markets including China and Russia as well — is expected to spike from the $283 million “Hunger Games” grossed abroad, and a worldwide total of $900 million is within range, most analysts believe.

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Lionsgate has positioned “Catching Fire” for event-scale debuts in several key foreign markets. Lawrence, co-stars Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth and director Francis Lawrence have barnstormed their way through buzz-building red-carpet premieres in Rome, London, Berlin and Paris over the past few weeks, ahead of Monday’s U.S. premiere in Los Angeles.

“Catching Fire” also will serve as a critical building block for the franchise. The next installments of the series based on author Suzanne Collins’ best-selling trilogy- “Mockingjay Part 1” and “Mockingjay Part 2” – are set for release in November of 2014 and 2015. Looking to cash in, the studio has launched a massive global merchandising campaign around Katniss and Co., and has even talked “Hunger Games” theme parks.

Every indicator is pointing up for “Catching Fire.”

Online ticket broker Fandango said that it is the hottest-selling movie of the year in terms of advance business, accounting for 85 percent of its sales on Wednesday.

“Catching Fire” is sizzling on social media, pacing well ahead of “The Hunger Games.” Three days from its debut, it was ahead of the original on both Twitter (162,000-125,000) and Facebook (11.6 million to 3 million), according to BoxOffice.com.

The early reviews (93 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes, 78 on Metacritic) have been better than the original film’s.

The performance of “Catching Fire” will have a lot to do with whether it will be a record year for the 2013 box office, which is currently running about even with last year. Strong performances from the “Hunger Games” sequel and Warner Bros.’ “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug” could help put the year over the top.

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By Greg Gilman
TheWrap

Yoda — that wise, little green Jedi that captured the hearts of movie fans around the world after making his big screen debut in 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back” — was almost played by an adorable monkey.

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Though this not news to the dedicated community of “Star Wars” fans, but it might be to the casual viewer who did not read author J.W. Rinzler’s 2010 book, “The Making Of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” which first unveiled the monkey to the masses.

Photos of the monkey — carrying Yoda’s cane and wearing a mask — popped up on Twitter this week.  The pictures served as another reminder of what could have been had George Lucas’ talented production team not been brave enough to call out a bad idea when they saw one.

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“Look, the monkey’s just going to pull off the mask over and over again. It’s never going to work,” Rinzler quotes a crew member who worked on the primate scenes in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Fortunately for cinematic history, the production chose to enlist the services of Jim Henson to create the world’s first animatronic muppet, which was voiced by Frank Oz.

Here’s a glimpse of the Yoda who never was:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: Here is the little simian being measured and holding YODA’S cane. pic.twitter.com/XHFYO8qwMd

— will mccrabb (@mccrabb_will) November 18, 2013

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: (No joke) The Empire team initially hired a trainer and a MONKEY to hold a cane play YODA. pic.twitter.com/tQPt5Jebqp

— will mccrabb (@mccrabb_will) November 18, 2013

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Actress Winona Ryder has given “Beetlejuice” fans a reason to celebrate by releasing details about a proposed sequel.

The “Edward Scissorhands” star reveals she is “sworn to secrecy,” but admits she is excited at the prospect of reprising her role as Lydia Deetz in the movie about a young woman harassed by ghosts.

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She tells The Daily Beast, “It’s not a remake. It’s 27 years later. And I have to say, I love Lydia so much. She was such a huge part of me. I would be really interested in what she is doing 27 years later.”

Many fans have voiced concerns about the movie, but Ryder is confident the film will turn out well, especially since director Tim Burton and her co-star Michael Keaton are in talks to return.

She continues, “It’s a very precious movie to people. So there are a lot people like, ‘Don’t’.”

By Tim Molloy
TheWrap

A prominent toxicologist says a lab report speculating that Brittany Murphy was poisoned by no means proves she was murdered. He also said hair treatments could account for heavy metals found in a sample of her hair.

Murphy’s father, Angelo Bertolotti, has shared the test results with news media and sent them to Los Angeles County authorities in hopes of having his daughter’s case reopened. The county coroner confirmed to TheWrap.com Tuesday that it had sent Murphy’s hair to a private company at his behest.

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That business, The Carlson Company, provided Bertolotti with a report saying his daughter may have been poisoned by “a third party perpetrator with likely criminal intent.”

But Dr. Bruce Goldberger, director of forensic medicine at the University of Florida and president of the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, said the Carlson Company was an Internet operation, not an accredited lab. He said it sent its samples out for testing by third parties, and that the report on Murphy appeared to have gone too far.

“Brittany Murphy was a beautiful young lady when she passed away and I’m certain that she had multiple hair treatments,” said Goldberger, who reviewed both the report and Murphy’s initial autopsy report. “The hair treatments themselves can alter the chemistry of the hair sample. Your hair is like a sponge. It is susceptible to external contamination from the environment.”

Denny Seilheimer, the general manager of the Carlson Company, declined to comment to TheWrap Tuesday on whether his business is accredited or has a physical address. In a brief interview with TheWrap on Monday, he said: “It’s a bona fide report. It was our client’s prerogative to release the report. That’s all I can tell you.”

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Goldberger said the actual testing was sent out to Ernest Lykissa, who operates a toxicology testing lab in Deer Park, Texas, called ExperTox. That lab does list several accreditations on its website.

Still, Golberger said, the report should not have said Murphy was likely poisoned without additional evidence beyond the hair sample, including an examination of her Los Angeles home. She died there in December 2009, and husband Simon Monjack was found dead there five months later.

“It is not appropriate to put those sorts of comments on a laboratory report,” Goldberger said of the speculation about “criminal intent.”

He added: “That statement cannot be supported without the proper corroborating evidence.”

Golberger said poisoning victims often had telltale signs on their fingernails, and were no such signs mentioned in Murphy’s autopsy report.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office told TheWrap it did not test Murphy’s body for heavy metals because there was no sign of poisoning. But the office said it would be open to investigating further once it receives the lab results from Murphy’s father.

Goldberger said he has visited the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office as recently as last week, and believes they do thorough work.

“They have a a very good toxicology laboratory, and they did excellent work in this case,” he said.

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By Jeff Sneider
TheWrap

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences received separate $10 million gifts from Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. In recognition of these gifts, the two main galleries on the lobby floor of the Academy Museum will be named for Katzenberg and Spielberg – The Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery and The Spielberg Family Gallery.

“Steven and Jeffrey share a passion for moviemaking and philanthropy,” said Academy Museum Campaign Chair Bob Iger. “With these incredibly generous gifts, they are combining the two, moving us closer to our goal of building a museum to preserve the history of motion pictures and inspire the next generation of filmmakers.” The Academy launched the Museum’s $300 million capital campaign in 2012 and has already secured more than half of the campaign’s goal in commitments. The campaign is co-chaired by Annette Bening and Tom Hanks.

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“I am so pleased to join with Jeffrey to help build this museum to celebrate, educate, and preserve the arts and sciences of motion pictures,” said Spielberg. “Having our family name on the lobby floor is a deeply personal way to say how much motion pictures and the Academy have meant to all our lives.”

“Both Steven and I recognize that film’s global impact deserves a museum that reflects its unequaled heritage and serves as a beacon for the future of what we love,” added Katzenberg. “Marilyn and I appreciate this opportunity to be part of such a significant project.”

Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs commented, “Steven and Jeffrey have elevated the art of filmmaking to new heights and have created some of the most beloved films of all time. They continue to be champions of our industry. Having them join us as we build the Academy Museum is an incredible honor. We are so grateful for their support and partnership.”
The lobby of the Academy Museum will be a lively open space that will invite the public to engage in the life of the Museum. The Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery and The Spielberg Family Gallery will be the only gallery spaces on the lobby level and will showcase exhibitions that will explore the past, present, and future of moviemaking.

“We are building the world’s premier movie museum, and I cannot imagine doing this without the support of two of our industry’s most inspiring leaders,” said Academy CEO Dawn Hudson. “Their gifts will create the first galleries our visitors experience when entering the Museum.”

Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali, the Academy Museum will be located next to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in the historic Wilshire May Company building. Slated to open in early 2017, the Academy Museum will contain nearly 300,000 square feet of state-of-the-art galleries, exhibition spaces, theaters, screening rooms, education centers, and special event spaces.

By Brent Lang
TheWrap

Dustin Hoffman is in negotiations to join the cast of “The Cobbler,” an off-beat drama starring Adam Sandler as a shoe repairman who integrates himself into the lives of the people whose footwear he fixes.

Tom McCarthy, who oversaw quirky and human films like “The Visitor” and “Win Win,” is directing the project, which Mary Jane Skalski is producing. The low-budget film is currently shooting in New York City.

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Details of the plot are being kept firmly under wraps.

McCarthy has assembled an eclectic cast for the film. Method Man and “Downton Abbey” actor Dan Stevens are also appearing in the project.

Hoffman recently starred in HBO’s racing drama “Luck” and will next appear in Jon Favreau’s “Chef” opposite Robert Downey Jr.

The two-time Oscar winner is represented by WME.

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BOSTON (AP) — It’s kind of a big deal that Emerson College is changing the name of its school of communication.

The college in Boston will rename the school — for one day only — the Ron Burgundy School of Communication on Dec. 4 to honor the fictitious television anchorman.

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Actor Will Ferrell, in character, is scheduled to share his path to journalism greatness with students. His visit will include a news conference, the renaming ceremony and a screening of “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.” Ferrell, as himself, will introduce the movie.

College President Lee Pelton says Burgundy “understands the power of media, as well as hairspray, firsthand.”

Burgundy, known for telling people he’s “kind of a big deal,” says he hopes to let students know how hard it is to make it to the top, in his words, “especially if you don’t have good hair.”