It’s never a good sign when a film gets pushed back over 6 months. It’s even worse when a studio like Paramount pushes 3 of their upcoming 2012 films back. That seems to be the case, as the mountainous studio has pushed back 3 of its releases. One of these releases is the upcoming 3D epic Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton.

According to an interview with Deadline, a studio exec for Paramount says this is all part of the plan to push the film overseas, but when a film gets pushed from March 2 to January 11 of the following year, it’s never a good sign.

“This should really set up the international,” a studio exec explains to me. ”Jeremy Renner’s international profile should be in great shape after being in Mission: Impossible 4 now, then The Avengers in May, then The Bourne Legacy in August. As this past weekend shows, January is great play time internationally, and we haven’t done too bad domestically in January, either.”

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Even Eddie Murphy and his band of not-so-ready for Ocean’s 11 players couldn’t knock Antonio Banderas and his animated counterpart “Puss” from their place on the box office mountain top this week. Whether that’s a good thing, or a bad thing, we’re not entirely sure.

That’s right, Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots managed to steal another weekend with an estimate of $33 Million and a total of $75 Million overall. Universal’s Tower Heist was able to come in second, however, with $25 Million. Not very good, considering the film cost upward of $75 Million to make.

Also hitting theaters this weekend, Warner’s A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas opened to a small $13 Million, which makes sense, seeing as how Halloween was less than a week ago!

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The best performance in Tower Heist comes not from its most bankable stars Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, rather it’s the nervously underplayed schlub Mr. Fitzhugh, an out-of-work stockbroker played by Matthew Broderick, who’s channeling parts of Bob Newhart and parts of Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion. Director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour) tends toward broad comedy, but the funniest bits by far are Broderick’s subtle squeaks of concern.

There’s a scene early on when he’s being evicted from his apartment. The living room is completely empty save for two tents. Broderick explains to the building manager that he’s sold all the furniture. “I told the kids we’re going green,” he gives a resigned shrug, “my kids aren’t very smart.”

The manager is Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller), who’s been working at the building for years and is the golden boy of its owner Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a Madoff-inspired Wall Streeter who, we learn, has taken the employees’ pensions and either stolen them or made some really bad investments (the movie never really makes it clear, but since he’s rich, he’s automatically bad, I guess). The Feds, led by the sexy Claire Denham (Tea Leoni) naturally swoop in to cart off Shaw for some SEC violations, leaving little hope for the tower employees to recover their life savings.

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Just when you thought things couldn’t go much further past films like Battleship, The Smurfs, or a third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, one more film gets thrown into the mix that has everyone asking one question: Why?

That’s the first and only question we asked when news came through that the classic cartoon Hong Kong Phooey was getting a new animated film (likely in 3D). We didn’t bother asking “Who?”, as we were still stuck on the first question. As it turns out, star of such classics as Norbit and Meet Dave, Eddie Murphy will be stepping into the recording studio to give Hong Kong a shot. Here’s what Deadline had to say:

Eddie Murphy will give voice to the animated lead character in Alcon Entertainment’s live action/animated big screen adaptation of the of the 1970s Hanna-Barbera animated TV series HONG KONG PHOOEY, it was announced by Alcon co-founders and co-CEO’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove.

Alex Zamm (“Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts,” “Tooth Fairy 2”) will direct. Kosove and Johnson will produce with Jay Stern and Brett Ratner. Steven P. Wegner will executive produce.

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In absentia of our diligent box office reporter Shannon Hood I’m stepping in to bring you up to speed this week. The top three spots were taken by two remakes and one sequel, the former making me feel like I’d gone through a time warp back to the ’80′s.  It was exciting and a little disconcerting all at the same time.

Taking the top spot was the remake of the 1984 classic The Karate Kid.  For the purists out there you can rest easy knowing the producers did not use the same characters from the original.  While the premise is basically the same Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) have been replaced by Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). Personally, I thought Jaden Smith was too young to portray the character properly but the audience seemed to disagree with me.

The Karate Kidwent onto make $56 million in its opening weekend.  Given that the budget was $40 million this is certainly decent returns and I have no doubt will lead to a sequel, if not a trilogy.  Way to go Jaden!  Your superstar dad, Will Smith, must be very proud.

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Since last years The Dark Knight grossed over $1 Billion worldwide, there has been plenty of speculation lately on another sequel to Christopher Nolan’s highly successful Batman film franchise. Many of the questions revolved around who the next villain will be playing opposite Christian Bale, and one rumor kept popping up that Eddie Murphy will be donning the green trunks as The Riddler. Murphy never took the time to comment on the subject, and our questions went unanswered.

That all changed on late night television, of all things. Thankfully, legendary comic Eddie Murphy made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien last night to promote his new film Imagine That and was able to put some of our minds to rest.

Check out the clip after the jump.

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