That unfortunate loud thudding noise you just heard was John Carter‘s opening weekend. The mega budget, would be franchise starter came in at a beyond disappointing 30.6 million. Good enough for second place to last week’s winner, The Lorax.

Speaking of this week’s box office champion, The Lorax hauled in an impressive 39.1 million, representing a mild 44% drop from last week’s huge opening numbers. With a massive opening, and a mild drop, the Dr. Suess adaptation is in prime shape to be the break out hit of the spring. It really only has The Hungar Game to compete with, and that audience is similar but far from exact.

Project X held well, and preformed strongly in the wake of a solid opening weekend. This week it was announced that a sequel to the found footage party film was possibly underway, and a continued strong presence at the box office goes a long way in validating that decision.

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If you like this sort of thing then you will be excited to see the first teaser for Universal’s Despicable Me 2 has arrived. The first one was fun and this looks to be more of the same.

Plus, the first one made over $525 Million globally, so you should have expected to see a sequel as soon as possible. It’s only going to take about two years. Look for Despicable Me 2 to hit theaters on July 3, 2013.

Yeah, that’s more than a year away but things tend to get started earlier in the process these days to help build that important “brand awareness.” Although, with all that money in the bank from the first movie, the awareness is already pretty high.

Still, you can never be too careful these days. Enjoy.

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I can hear the pitch meeting now. It probably went a little something like this: Peter Berg: “Transformers made a crapload of money, right? Well, this is Transformers on the ocean. See, robots attack ships and try to sink the them.” Studio Exec: “You’re a genius. Here’s a bag of money.”

I don’t know if Battlship will be good or not (probably not) or if Peter Berg is really a genius (I’m guessing no) but I can guarantee the movie will be busy and extremely loud. To prove that fact, please take a look at the new trailer just released today. We have it for you after the break.

In it you see lots of robots and whatnot trying to attack a group of ships at sea. All they wanted to do was have some simple war games and now these damn underseas robots have made this shit get real — or something like that. Does the story really matter? Not much as long as stuff explodes convincingly. Hint: it mostly does.

Peter Berg “directs” a cast of pretty people like Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and the always cool Liam Neeson (obviously doing this one for the money).

As the trailer says “The battle for Earth begins at sea” on May 18, 2012. Check it out after the break.

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Most of the fanboys and fangirls will get plenty of Kristen Stewart next week with the first half of Twilight: Breaking Dawn, but for those who want to see her in less of a”damsel in distress” capacity and more of a strong heroine type, you’ve got the upcoming film Snow White and the Huntsman.

The film is going to highlight a bit more of a mythical take on the classic Snow White fairytale, which will be nice, seeing as how this is one of three Snow White incarnations we’re getting now, including ABC’s Once Upon a Time series and Relativity Media’s Mirror Mirror.

So you’re caught up to speed on this prett-people-filled flick, here’s the synopsis.

In the epic action-adventure Snow White and the Huntsman, Kristen Stewart plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Charlize Theron) out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the young woman threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) dispatched to kill her.

You can see this trailer embiggened this weekend as it’s attached to reels of Immortals, or just catch it after the jump. Snow White and the Huntsman is set to hit theaters June 1st.

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Say what you will about Mark Wahlberg but his movies are often entertaining and he does know his way around an action sequence. Case in point is his latest upcoming film Contraband.

In the action thriller, which is based on the 2008 Icelandic film Reykjavic-Rotterdam, Wahlberg plays a security guard trying to go straight who must return to his old life of high-stakes smuggling to settle a family member’s debt with a ruthless former boss. Naturally, things don’t go exactly as planned and, you can bet, stuff ends up blowing up.

Starring with Wahlberg are Giovanni Ribisi, Kate Beckinsale, Lukas Haas and Ben Foster. Check out the trailer after the jump.

Look for Contraband to hit theaters early next year.

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The online content streaming landscape just got a bit more interesting as Amazon announced late Thursday it has made a deal with NBCUniversal to provide 1,000 Universal Pictures movies to its streaming customers. The new content includes films such as Being John Malkovich, The Jetsons, Flipper, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Billy Elliott. Well, that’s quite a cross-section of content.

This new deal is in addition to the one Amazon recently made for it to offer CBS shows such as Star Trek and Cheers to its customers. All these deals for content make perfect sense if you think Amazon is about to release a tablet in the next few months.

It’s widely been speculated that said tablet would be coming out and give users access to the company’s Amazon Unbox, Amazon Mp3, Kindle, Cloud Music and Cloud Drive services. All of that and a well done tablet powered by Android could, potentially, take a bite out of Apple’s iPad dominance. We’ll see.

Check out the full press release after the jump.

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If toys make an effective inspiration for movie franchises, why not games? After all, regardless of its relative creative merits, the Transformers franchise has managed to make a metric crapload of money.

So, why not try to do the same with a movie based on a classic game? It could work. That’s just what director Peter Berg and his team have done with the upcoming Battleship. To prove it, we’ve got the first trailer for the film for you right now.

In it we get a lot of the film’s story of a young, upstart naval officer (Taylor Kitsch) in love with his Admiral’s daughter (Brooklyn Decker) who needs to put aside his personal feelings and learn to be a man when an alien invasion threatens his fleet of ships. The movie is, of course, based on the classic board game Battleship and from the trailer, it actually looks like director Berg gets that he’s making a movie based on a game, is in on the joke and doing his best to make it a fun and exciting film.

When I first heard they were making a movie based on Battleship, I was, to say the least, skeptical. After watching the trailer I’m now intrigued, especially as to how Berg and company are going to pull it off. Who knows, maybe they can?

Check out the trailer after the jump. Battleship, which stars Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, Brooklyn Decker and Rihanna, arrives in theaters on May 18th, 2012.

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It what may come as sad news for fans of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower who were anxiously awaiting its translation from book series to feature films and TV series, it looks like Universal has decided to pull the plug. News came late yesterday that the studio decided to not move forward with the extremely ambitions adaptation of the series which would have started with a trilogy of films and two limited-run TV series.
book

So now the filmmakers, which include star Javier Bardem, director Ron Howard, producer Brian Grazer, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman and Mark Verheiden, who was set to co-write the TV elements with Goldman, need to look for a new place to set up. It’s going to be a tall order finding a studio that’s willing to go on the hook for what would surely be a commitment of at least $500 Million (or more).

It’s not that hard to understand why Universal was reportedly more interested in doing one film to see what happens before moving forward with the rest. In this climate that’s a big bite for any studio to take and they were probably looking to minimize their risk. Makes sense.

In case you’re not familiar withThe Dark Tower series, it centers on the last living member of a knightly order of gunslingers named Roland Deschain who becomes humanity’s last hope to save civilization as he travels the land on a journey towards the Dark Tower. Along the way, he encounters all manner of characters, both good and bad, in a world that’s part Old West and part magical realm.

It’s quite an interesting series so let’s hope it finds a way to the big screen. In the meantime, Marvel is doing some excellent adaptations of the series which are plotted by Robin Furth and scripted by Peter David. Stephen King serves as Creative and Executive Director of the comics.

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• We finally get the first sounds of Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull in a new teaser for Captain America: The First Avenger. Funny…he sounds a lot like Megatron.

• It looks like the lawsuit against Warner Bros for use of Mike Tyson’s tattoo on Ed Helms in The Hangover Part II may force them to CG the tattoo out of the DVD’s. This seems like a completely reasonable use of that $400 million the film made in the box office.

• Dark animated film 9 director Shane Acker is planning on a big-screen adaptation of Thomas The Tank Engine. Our hope is that Tim Burton also produces this film and Thomas is now a train…from hell!

• Ever want to know what Raiders of the Lost Ark would be like with Tom Selleck and Sean Young? Here you go, but we warn you: the mustache did not help him in the audition.

• Before we ever get the inevitable leaked pilot, we’ve got a whopping 7 second teaser from the failed NBC Wonder Woman series. Who knew you could sum up the entire reason why it failed in 7 seconds?

• In hoping to leave the kids table and join the big boys, Nintendo has teamed with Ubisoft to work on a new raunchy game for the WiiU, titled Killer Freaks from Outer Space. We’re totally sold.

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Your Highness is the movie equivalent of Mongolian BBQ: You get your plate and come to the first station, the meat.

There are some things you feel comfortable with, like the chicken (James Franco) and the lamb (Natalie Portman), some things that, sure, you could go for, like the lovely push-up-bra-wearing mahi-mahi (Zooey Deschanel), and then there’s the weird stuff you’re not certain you’ve heard of, like the surimi (Justin Theroux) and the calamari (Danny McBride), which you nevertheless feel obligated to try because, hey, you’re at the Mongolian BBQ, and you wouldn’t be here unless you were trying to try new things.

Then you get to the veggies. You have no idea what combination works with what, so you toss in some of everything–water chestnuts (R-rated sight gags), bean sprouts (stoner humor), edamame (dirty puns), and then you decide “What the Hell?” and go full Mongoloid by cramming in a bunch of peppers and drenching it in spicy buffalo and Tzatzihi sauce (foul, foul language, boobies, five-headed dragons…) to make it (hopefully) interesting.

And after it’s all been worked up, you’re served with something that’s surprisingly tolerable at first, but tastes a little ickier with each successive bite.

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We all know that sci-fi and fantasy book adaptations are huge right now. Harry Potter just about broke the box office, Twilight is continuing the trend, and Hunger Games is in the process of bringing that even further with another huge screen adaptation. Well, that’s not all, as Ron Howard and super producer Bryian Grazer are getting some movement on their adaptation of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series.

It’s now being announced that No Country For Old Men star Javier Bardem is now being courted for the lead in the film, and potentially “films”. From Deadline.

I’m told that Bardem has officially been offered the lead role by director Ron Howard and Universal Pictures. While formal negotiations haven’t yet begun, there’s a high level of enthusiasm internally that they’ve got their cowboy. Akiva Goldsman has scripted the first movie, and will write the TV component as well. Imagine Entertainment’s Brian Grazer is producing with Goldsman and the author.

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There may have been plenty of mixed emotions about Funny People, but before that film, writer/director Judd Apatow struck comedy gold with Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up.

The film also starred plenty of Apatow regulars, such as Paul Rudd and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann. Now, word is coming in that Apatow is planning on returning to the world of Knocked Up through the film’s B-story characters played by both Rudd and Mann. From Variety.

Apatow will write and direct the film, the first he’s helmed since 2009′s “Funny People.” Apatow, Barry Mandel and Clayton Townsend will produce.

In “Knocked Up,” Mann played Katherine Heigl’s older sister, who is married to Rudd’s character. Plot details are vague, and it’s not clear whether Heigl or Seth Rogen would reprise their roles from 2007′s “Knocked Up,” one of Apatow’s biggest successes with $200 million in worldwide box office.

The film is set to hit theaters in 2012, with Universal backing it. Expect to see some interesting viral stylings from both Apatow and Rudd, as they both frequent Funny Or Die.com, a site that Apatow is partnered with.