Movie News & Gossip

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Two more seasons of HBO's "Entourage" and then a movie?

That seems to be the plan, according to Mark Wahlberg, an executive producer of the Hollywood-set show.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Novelist Jonathan Lethem's "Gun, With Occasional Music" is being loaded once again.

Gabe and Alan Polsky, who recently produced "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," have optioned the film rights to Lethem's sci-fi noir hybrid. Originally published by Harcourt Brace in 1994, the book has drawn interest from filmmakers for more than a decade.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sony Pictures on Thursday said global ticket sales for its movies have neared $3.4 billion, beating a studio record with a range of films such as Michael Jackson's "This Is It," which raked in more than $250 million worldwide.

The Jackson film, which was put together from video footage of the late pop star rehearsing for a series of concerts that would have taken place had he not died in June, debuted in theaters in late October and ended its run outside the United States this week with $180 million internationally, Sony said.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Fanged phenomenon "New Moon" and the leggy Sandra Bullock drama "The Blind Side" -- which finished No. 1 and 2, respectively, at the box office this past weekend -- again will battle for the top spot in domestic rankings.

But the rousing box office rung up during the Thanksgiving period by Summit Entertainment's teen vampire romance and Warner Bros.' football-themed true story has produced a good news/bad news situation for film distributors.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Director Jason Reitman's "Up in the Air" was named best film of 2009 by the National Board of Review on Thursday in the first major award of Hollywood's Oscar season.

Clint Eastwood was named best director for "Invictus."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hollywood has finally realized that Tobey Maguire has grown up. The actor who gained fame as a teenager in the "Spider-Man" movies has embraced fatherhood and a new role as a soldier whose family is torn apart by war.

The 34-year-old actor is now a married father of two and appearing in his first film in two years since "Spider-Man 3", the adult drama "Brothers," which debuts in major U.S. cities on Friday and looks at soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

PANAJI, India (Reuters) - An unusual Indian film that casts 68-year-old Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan as a 13-year-old school boy, with his own son playing the lead, has the world's most prolific film industry buzzing.

In "Paa," Bachchan plays Auro, a teenager afflicted with progeria, a rare genetic condition that causes a person to age faster than normal.

PANAJI, India (Reuters) - What does it take to make a movie? A bicycle, a bullock cart, a small handycam and a soaring imagination -- that's what Indian director Shaikh Nasir will tell you.

Nasir is one of several makers of low-budget spoof movies set in the industrial town of Malegaon, around 300 km (190 miles) from Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, and a world apart from the glitzy sets, big-name stars and lavish productions of the world's most prolific film industry.