In a weekend that had tons of free-range beasts, moviegoers had the choice of watching Sam Worthington hang out on a ledge, Vampires take on genetic Werewolves, or Liam Neeson just take on wolves. And it looks like the man and his “particular set of skills” continued to dominate the hearts of men and women everywhere, by bringing The Grey to the #1 spot this weekend with an estimated $20 Million.

Close behind the dramatic man vs. beast tale was the fourth installment of the “Kate Beckinsale in leather” films known as Underworld. Not a terrible second weekend for the flick, as it raked in $12 Million, just halfing its take from last weekend. In the third spot this weekend, Katherine Heigl continues to make mens’ stomaches turn with her One for the Money ”comedy”, which only made $11.7 Million this weekend.

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In just over a year’s time, you can expect Orson Scott Card’s name to join the likes of Suzanne Collins and George R.R. Martin as some of the best modern authors who have successfully crossed the threshold into the Film and TV medium. Card’s entry, of course, is the Ender’s Game series.

We got word a while back that Ben Kingsley is set to join the cast, which is a big name within itself, but now that’s getting completely squashed with the news that Harrison Ford and Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin are joining the cast. From Variety.

Ford will play Colonel Hyram Graff, who’s in charge of training the young male recruits at an elite military academy. Breslin will play Valentine Wiggin, Ender’s older sister, while Steinfeld will play Petra Arkanian, Ender’s ally and trusted right hand.

Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) is directing from his own script, which is adapted from Orson Scott Card’s award-winning novel. Summit Entertainment is co-financing and will release the film in the U.S. on March 15, 2013.

Set in Earth’s utopian future, “Ender’s Game” stars Asa Butterfield (“Hugo”) as the title character, a genius strategist who’s recruited by the government to help destroy an insect-like alien race.

Let’s hope this film doesn’t follow the critical responses that Ford’s last two sci-fi films, Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Cowboys & Aliens, because those were definitely not the quality Ender fans will be looking for come March.

It turns out even decades of laughter through the form of hundreds of felt puppets can’t beat the Kristen Stewart pregnancy movie. After having one of the most intense marketing campaigns that Disney has ever executed for The Muppets, Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 still managed to beat the film in the box office by over $10 million during the holiday weekend.

The vampy melodrama got the #1 spot for the second weekend in a row with $42 million this weekend, while Muppets (which made $42 in total since it opened on Wednesday) was only able to pull in an estimated $29 million. It looks like vampires really are more popular than singing frogs and pigs. Shame.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, Sony’s Arthur Christmas fell flat with an estimated $12.7 opening weekend. Speaking of falling flat, Scorsese’s Hugo had an even weaker opening, as it came in 5th place with just over $11 million.

These films could very well do better as we draw closer to the holidays, but don’t expect to see much in the form of sequels for these family classics. Those films may not have performed as well as they could have, but what did was the Weinstein’s My Week with Marilyn which pulled off just over $2 million for its first weekend.

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We’ve been fans of Amanda Seyfried since her days as Lilly Kane, Veronica Mars’s dead best friend on the sadly short-lived show of the same name. She’s come a long way since then and has been very busy starring in several films,

On of them is the upcoming thriller Gone. In the film Seyfried stars as Jill Parrish who comes home from working the night shift to discover that her sister Molly has suddenly disappeared.

Convinced that Molly has been abducted by the same serial killer from whom she escaped just a year before, and that by sundown Molly will be dead, Jill embarks on a race against time to rescue her. The film also stars Wes Bentley, Jennifer Carpenter and Sebastian Stan.

Check out the trailer after the break. Look for Gone to arrive on February 24.

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As if it were a surprise. The penultimate film in the Twilight saga, Breaking Dawn: Part 1, opening in just over 4,000 screens across the nation, managed to pick up just under $140 Million in the domestic box office. It also got just over $280 Million worldwide.

With a production budget of $110 Million, and making $15 Million more than the opening weekend of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1, Summit is sitting pretty high and mighty at this point. Also opening this weekend, Warner’s Happy Feet Two, which came in at #2 with $22 Million.

As expected, the rest of the box office took a bit of a hit due to all the vampire-on-werewolf action. Last weekend’s #1 hit Immortals took more than a 60% drop and only grossed an estimated $12 Million. Adam Sandler’s unfortunate new flick Jack and Jill came in right behind with just under $12 Million.

We expect Breaking Dawn to continue its success throughout the week, and possibly next weekend. Disney’s Muppets opens wide on Thanksgiving Day, so don’t expect to see the Twilight kids walk away completely unscathed after Kermit has his way with them.

This week’s Film Score Friday is going to stretch the concept a bit. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn actually has an original soundtrack, not a full score release as of yet, but I did want to branch out a little bit. Plus there is a single track of original score on the album, hooray for loop holes!

The album is a collection of pop songs that either appeared in the film or were inspired by it. Soundtracks like this are a very interesting proposition, it is very possible to arrange a fantastic set of songs that both evoke the film and make for a great listening experience. In fact my first introduction to the world of film scores was through soundtracks like this one.

Now I am far from Twilight’s target audience, but I have seen all the films so I know what to expect going into this album. These are going to be a collection of songs that are harmless, sappy and most of them will probably sound the same, right?

Well, a funny thing happened on the way to me writing this, I actually started to really like some of these songs. Mayhaps I have grown soft in my young age, but some of these songs are actually damn catchy. Also, and much more importantly, the songs actually work really well in the context of the film.

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There wasn’t much going on this Saturday, so I figured I might as well take the Brown Line up to the Western stop, then catch the 1:10 viewing at the Davis Theatre. I wasn’t much in the mood to head downtown to one of the AMCs, so I decided to venture uptown.

The Davis is one of those theaters that looks like it’s been around for years. It has the old-style theater sign with the letters descending in vertical order. I’d been there once before to see The King’s Speech with a friend who lives around the area, but I didn’t remember the distinct smell of urine that pervaded everywhere, from the box-office to the screening room itself.

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The Summer movie season is in full swing and as such we should expect to see lots of trailers and other publicity materials for all sorts of movies coming out over the next few months. This time around Summit Entertainment has released a new trailer for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers.

This one is a new take on the classic Alexandre Dumas story that also happens to be in 3D. Not sure why the director and producers felt like it needed to be in 3D but heck, what do I know?

With audiences seemingly less interested in 3D these days and unwilling to pay premium prices for it, it seems like a bad idea to make this kind of movie in 3D — especially if something like Transformers 3 doesn’t help revive the 3D slump.

Although, according to the trailer, this movie was filmed in 3D and not converted after the fact. At least that’s something and doesn’t completely look like such a blatant grab for extra case from audiences. Plus, the movie has the underrated Ray Stevenson, Christoph Waltz and Milla Jovovich, so at least that’s something.

Click through for the trailer. The Three Musketeers hits theaters on October 14th.

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In 2009, director Duncan Jones made a splash on the indie scene by bringing us a smart, trippy sci-fi film called Moon. The film was warmly received by critics, but fell short of being a commercial success.

Despite the fact that Source Code has all the trappings of a studio film (bigger budget, bigger stars, bigger advertising campaign) Jones has remained remarkably faithful to his indie roots. The result is the rare mix of a smart thriller with wide audience appeal. We’ve seen that audiences don’t always shy away from smart films (case in point, Christopher Nolan’s Inception); maybe we are finally starting to see the studios warm to the idea that smart and commercially viable are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts.

Source Code proves that the two can concepts can co-exist in perfect harmony. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Captain Colter Stevens, who finds himself on a train in Chicago one day and is completely panicked to find out that he has no idea who the woman sitting with him is, and he doesn’t know how he got on the train. Before he can put the pieces of the puzzle, the train blows up.

Colter finds himself waking up in a pod-type device, listening to the soothing voice of Colleen (Vera Farmiga), a military officer who explains that he has been sent back in time (before the train exploded) to find out who placed the bomb on the train. They believe that another attack is planned, and the only way to stop it is to find the perpetrator of the attack on the first train.

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Red certainly isn’t an important or groundbreaking film, but it is a lot of fun, and that counts for something in my book.  Sometimes that is exactly what we are seeking out, and this film delivers.  It’s a blast.

Bruce Willis plays Frank Moses, a man who appears to be living a  ho-hum existence  in the suburbs.  He spends his free time convincing a government employee in Kansas City (Sarah, played by a sassy Mary-Louise Parker) that he has not received his government checks.  He is really ripping them up, just so he can call her every few days and talk.  The two have adopted a flirty rapport during their chats.

In a thrilling opening sequence, Frank finds out (rather unexpectedly) that he is being targeted by assassins, and he quickly and efficiently employs a variety of weapons and booby traps to thwart their efforts.  It is clear that this is no ordinary citizen, you see Frank is classified by the CIA as RED (Retired Extremely Dangerous.)

After he has time to get his wits about him, Frank rushes to Kansas City to rescue/kidnap Sarah, because she will be targeted l if the unknown assailants check his phone records.

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The name of this year’s movie game seems to be massive casting. If Expendables was for the slightly older action star, then Summit Entertainment’s RED is definitely skewing much older in terms of casting.

The film stars Bruce Willis as the leader of the greatest CIA agents ever to go through the agency. The only problem? They’re all over the hill and retired. Willis leads a team of Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Helen Mirren, with folks like Ernest Borgnine and Richard Dreyfuss joining along as well. In order no to alienate the viewers under the age of 50, Mary Louise Parker, Julian McMahon, and Karl Urban fill out the cast.

If the action and casting isn’t enough to warrant your $10, then how about the fact that the film is based on a comic of the same name? Originally written by Warren Ellis, the script comes from the Hoeber brothers, who also brought Whiteout to the silver screen.

We’ve got 5 brand new clips for you to check out after the jump, so be sure to enjoy the action, and catch RED in theaters on October 15th.

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You know her best as Sayeed’s hot yet ill-fated love interest Shannon in Lost and as a daughter who’s father “has a particular set of skills” in Taken. Now, Maggie Grace is set to jump into another role: a vampire who threatens Kristen Stewart’s Bella in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

According to the report, Grace will play the role of Irina in the final installments of the Stephenie Meyer novel, which Bill Condon is directing as two separate films. In case you don’t know or haven’t read the books, Irina is a member of the Denali coven of vampires who are considered cousins to the Cullens as they are the only others who don’t prey on humans.

Sadly, things go wrong as they often do and when Irina blames the Cullens for the death of her lover, she plots revenge. . . and things go downhill from there.

Part one of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn will be released by Summit Entertainment on November 18, 2011. The second will hit theaters late in 2012.