Old franchises never die. They just get rebooted, re-imagined, re-cast or re-”Bourne.”

Matt Damon’s first two “Bourne” adventures were a breath of fresh air for a stale action genre, even if they helped bring the Shaky Cam Era into the 21st century. But that third installment, 2007’s “The Bourne Ultimatum,” made it clear the franchise needed to end.

Nuthin’ doing. Hollywood simply found a new actor to take over.

Jeremy Renner,  the steely presence in “The Town” and “The Hurt Locker,” officially becomes the face of the franchise in this summer’s “The Bourne Legacy.”

No Damon, no worries if this clip is any indication. But we’re still looking for a reason to keep the franchise alive.

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Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion,” available now on Blu-ray and DVD, captures the credible fear that an airborne virus could wipe out thousands, if not millions, of people.

So, where are the thrills, the chases and the heart-stopping revelations that usually accompany this doomsday scenario? And why can’t Soderbergh, an Oscar winner himself for the 2000 film “Traffic,” find the screen time to showcase all the Oscar nominees – and winners – in his cast?

The sound of a person coughing opens the film, and one of the first objects seen is a small bowl of bar nuts. Already, we’re dreading the kind of viral calamity about to strike courtesy of these small, deft strokes.

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For years, actors have been essentially insulting half their potential audience by trashing the right in press interviews and talk show appearances.

Just ask Kate Beckinsale, who told Entertainment Weekly regarding the 2008 elections – “And I was so shocked to see people admitting to being Republican on their front lawn!”

Now, The Hollywood Reporter’s Heat Index feature suggests the reason Matt Damon’s “We Bought a Zoo” flopped was … wait for it … because Damon dared to critique President Barack Obama. [Link behind paywall]

The actor’s media slams of President Obama and ‘Bourne Identity’ writer Tony Gilroy probably didn’t help ‘We Bought a Zoo,’ which has disappointed at the box office.

When was the last time a major press outlet blamed the death of the movie star on said stars mocking the people who pay for movie tickets?

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“Tree of Life” grossed a pretty pathetic $13 million, “Happy Feet Two” grossed an abysmal $60 million, and “Moneyball” grossed only an okay $75 million. But in this market, where the concept of the movie star is all but dead, Brad Pitt was named the “top money-making star of the year.”

Number two was George Clooney who released two films this year that probably won’t gross $90 million combined.

Bosses at Quigley Publishing Company have asked theatre owners and film buyers to vote for their top 10 box office generators and this year exhibitors credited Pitt with bringing in more traffic than any other celebrity due to his acting and/or vocal appearances in Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and Happy Feet Two.

Coming in at number two was Pitt’s pal George Clooney for both The Ides of March and The Descendants, and last year’s winner, Johnny Depp, fell to third with The Rum Diary, Rango and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

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The new film “We Bought a Zoo” focuses on a widower who buys a new home for his two young children. The house has one amenity that didn’t make it to the brochure; it  has a zoo in the backyard. The zoo comes equipped with an eclectic mix of creatures including tigers, snakes and lions. Like the zoo itself, this film is jam-packed. It includes various plot lines about subjects ranging from young love to grief to how to maintain a zoo. Unfortunately, it’s the multitude of storylines—which may have worked separately—that bog down this otherwise interesting family flick.

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As the story begins, Benjamin Mee  (Matt Damon) is referred to as “a writer who specializes in adventure.” His career as a journalist, however,  is sidetracked when he loses his wife six months before the story begins.

Ben eventually quits his job and decides to move his family to a new location, but his bid to buy a house turns into an adventure itself. He falls in love with a large semi-secluded home that comes equipped with a fully-staffed zoo. Although his brother (Thomas Haden Church) rejects the idea, Ben decides to buy the house/zoo and try to open up his very own animal kingdom.

Based on a true story and directed by Cameron Crowe, “Zoo” had a lot of potential. Crowe, who previously directed “Jerry Maguire” and “Almost Famous,” has a knack for presenting idealistic individuals who face new realities when their lives change abruptly. “Zoo” is no different from that. As Ben grieves his wife, he’s also trying to balance raising children by himself and opening up a zoo. (more…)

Actor Matt Damon got swept up in Obama-mania like 97 percent of the film industry.

Many of Damon’s peers have since bent over backwards – and then some – to explain away the president’s less than stellar tenure in the White House.

Damon isn’t having it.

The “Bourne Identity” actor shared his disappointment with the Hope and Change Meets Reality Tour earlier this year. Now, he’s at it again, teeing off on the president in the pages of Elle Magazine.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who worked for Obama at the grassroots level. One of them said to me, ‘Never again. I will never be fooled again by a politician,’ ” Damon told the magazine. “You know, a one-term president with some balls who actually got stuff done would have been, in the long run of the country, much better.”

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‘L.A. TIMES’ TO INSTITUTE PAYWALL IN FIRST QUARTER OF 2012

No one reads this rag now, but now by not reading we’ll save money. Nice.

PODCAST WITH ‘RISE OF THE APES’ SCREENWRITERS

The married screenwriting team of Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver talk about the five-year experience of making the film, from the germ of the idea straight through to production, and how they got started in Hollywood. No overnight successes in screenwriting. They also co-wrote “Eye for an Eye” and “The Relic,” two underrated favorites of mine.

Budding screenwriters should definitely give this a listen.

SIX ‘BASED ON A TRUE STORY’ FILMS WITH UNPLEASANT EPILOGUES

If we learned anything from How Stella Got Her Groove Back it’s that a 20-year-old is capable of having a mature and fulfilling relationship that’s not based on sex. This is still technically true for the real-life Stella, author Terry McMillan, who wrote the book on which the movie is based. See, her real-life Jamaican lover based their relationship not on sex, but on a love of getting the fuck out of Jamaica by any means possible, even if that meant faking interest in an American tourist twice his age. … But that fact alone isn’t why the couple is separating — as it turns out, Jonathan Plumber, the real-life Winston Shakespeare, is actually gay[.]

[…]

When Hinkley’s residents contacted Erin [Brockovich] about their concerns (“concerns” is a term that here means “money for our cancer bills”), they found that their one-time advocate was now unreachable. Once they finally received the money, they noticed that it was far less than they expected. That’s because the law firm, wanting more than the agreed-upon 40 percent of the settlement ($133 million), took an extra $10 million for “expenses.”

SPIELBERG OBVIOUSLY FEELING BURNED OVER ‘INDY 4′

Spielberg should be embarrassed:

Steven Spielberg won’t make a fifth ‘Indiana Jones’ movie to “prove any point”.

The filmmaker – who has directed all four of the previous installments in the franchise – does know many people did not enjoy the last movie ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, but would not work on further films just so he could win them round.

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Politico:

The video stars Kevin Spacey, Matt Damon, Sean Penn, Kristen Wiig, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen as part of the foundation’s celebrity division, pumping out ideas like not breathing to save the environment. There’s even a cameo from Bubba at the end.

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There are several ways one can go about making an “epidemic thriller” like “Contagion.” The 1995 thriller “Outbreak” starring Dustin Hoffman served as a race against time; last year’s “Never Let Me Go” pulled at our heartstrings through the emotional ride of the characters; the comedic “Zombieland” had its hilarious moments and ridiculously gory scenes. Fortunately for us in the year 2011, inventive director Steven Soderbergh brings us “Contagion.”

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“Contagion” begins on day two of the outbreak, where we see several people in cities across the globe fighting a mysterious disease that first comes across as the common cold or flu. The colossal cast illustrates how several health organizations around the world respond to the deadly virus, spreading just as quickly as the panic. From a sickly Minnesota wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her outraged husband (Matt Damon), the epidemic spreads to cities like Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, London, and Tokyo, which shows just how fast this virus could potentially wipe out the whole planet. The team consists of a CDC administrator (Laurence Fishburne), a scientist (Jennifer Ehle), a doctor (Elliot Gould), a researcher (Katie Winslet), and a military man (Bryan Cranston) who must all work together to keep the virus contained and to find a cure. The World Health Organization sends an epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard) to Hong Kong in hopes of figuring out where the source started. While all these higher ops are trying to figure out this ever-spreading problem, citizens must hide in their homes and fend for their lives. (more…)

“Contagion” starts with a cough. It’s an innocent cough—similar to one that millions of people hear or experience every day. However, in “Contagion,” that cough foreshadows something more troubling than the everyday cold. It marks the start of a deadly virus that spreads across the world in a matter of days, infecting millions of people.

Near the beginning of the story, a mother named Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a trip to Hong Kong and becomes sick in Minneapolis. Her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) isn’t concerned at first but when her condition begins to rapidly deteriorate, he brings her to the hospital. Soon afterwards, Mitch find out that Beth has died and learns that his son is infected as well. While Mitch seems to be immune to the virus, he watches firsthand as his family falls victim to it.

“Contagion” soon introduces a large group of characters who will be affected, either directly or indirectly, by the virus. Laurence Fishburne plays Dr. Ellis Cheever, the Deputy Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who is hired to create a cure for the virus.  The doctor sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis to investigate the roots of the rapidly-spreading sickness. In the meantime, conspiracy theorist Alan Krumlede (Jude Law) becomes obsessed with the virus after watching an online video of a man infected with it. Krumlede starts spreading rumors online about pharmaceutical companies working with the government in a grand scheme to help the companies earn a massive profit. The film’s cast is huge and also includes Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Elliott Gould, and John Hawkes. (more…)

MANY THANKS TO OUR 9/11 CONTRIBUTORS

As always, Big Hollywood’s contributors came through in a big way. We can’t thank those who contributed to yesterday’s series of posts commemorating the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity enough. In fact, we received so many excellent pieces that we decided to extend the series into this week rather than pile them all into a single day.

So stay tuned for more.

ANALYSIS: WEEKEND BOX OFFICE

#1. Contagion $23.1 Million Opening

On almost 4000 screens with an Oscar-winning director and four Oscar winners in the cast (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, and Kate Winslet), “Contagion” was only able to scrounge up $23 million.  With a $60 million budget (which doesn’t include advertising costs), director Steven  Soderbergh’s star-studded thriller will have to gross somewhere around $150 million just to break even

Now can we declare the movie star dead?

And when will Hollywood wake up and realize that Matt Damon insulting half the country on a regular basis effectively destroys the most important quality a movie star can acquire: audience goodwill.

#2. The Help $8.6 Million, Total Domestic $137 Million

This $25 million adult drama with no “sure-fire” bankable stars has thus far grossed a whopping $137 million.

This not only proves that a good story that’s well executed and acted can find an audience, but also how hungry people are for this kind of theatre experience.

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To me this ‘raise my taxes!” nonsense coming from wealthy hypocrites is exactly like this Global Warming nonsense coming from wealthy hypocrites. How’s this for a compromise: when you start living like the planet’s in peril only then will I stop laughing in your lying hypocritical face every time you open your lying hypocritical mouth. 

To have gazillionaires wring their lying hypocritical hands over the plight of Mother Earth from air conditioned mansions as they ply their trade in an entertainment industry that guzzles more energy than Halliburton and Walmart combined, epitomizes a lack of self-awareness so pathetic it should qualify you as being mentally ill.

No one is stopping Matt Damon or Alec Baldwin or any one of these “tax the rich” Leftists from paying more in taxes. The only thing stopping them is their own “do as I say not as I do” hypocrisy. They refuse to lead by example and  my guess is that their hypocrisy goes even deeper than this. Anyone want to bet dollars to donuts you’ll see — wait for it, wait for it — WRITE-OFFS on Matt Damon’s tax returns?

I didn’t think so.

Legendary game show host Chuck Woolery is all over this with a helpful PSA that should be titled: “The More Lying Hypocritical Celebrities Know.”

Over to you, Chuck:

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If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years about Hollywood, it’s that actors love being part of disaster movies. Whether it’s “The Towering Inferno” or “The Poseidon Adventure,” or any one of the insane “Airport” movies from the ‘70s, they were jam-packed with ridiculous combinations of stars whom no one would ever consider placing together onscreen otherwise.

That tradition comes back strong this Friday with “Contagion,” a film that boasts a cast featuring such Oscar nominees and winners as Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet and Jude Law in addition to longtime TV and movie favorite Laurence Fishburne and three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston. Hell, Cranston took a part in this epidemic epic even though he does two brief scenes buried amid all the mayhem.

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Now, I know that for most BH readers, seeing the name “Matt Damon” at the bare minimum has them cracking their fingers as they ready a diatribe about how proud they are for never seeing one of his movies, despite the fact that he’s now among Clint Eastwood’s most frequent collaborators. I catch a lot of flak for liking these films like “Invictus” and “Hereafter,” but then again, I’m reviewing how well a movie is made rather than casting eternal judgment upon Matt’s soul.

I’ll point out when he puts a sucker punch – or at least I try. I’m not quite as hawkeyed as some of our dear readers. But this movie has a few ideological surprises in store, and I’ll spell them out right off the bat so that everyone can either cool down and read the rest of the review or perhaps on the other hand, to fuel the fire even more as people say “OK, those ARE good points, but it’s STILL Matt Damon! And he can never redeem himself!”

So, first off, Matt doesn’t come up with a  government conspiracy behind the epidemic, which is caused by a nasty intermingling of bat and pig that I’ll keep a secret since it makes for an awesome ending to the movie. In fact, the rare characters who imply that there’s a government epidemic causing the problem are all shot down.

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Someone needs to take away Matt Damon’s “word of the day” handbook before he hurts himself.

And what is this nonsense about teachers getting a “shitty salary.” GOOD teachers should be (and are) paid very well, especially when you factor in their lucrative benefits and the fact that they receive summers off. This has been documented time and again. The problem is that bad teachers are paid just as well and the damage they do to our schools and children is impossible to overstate.

My family is packed with teachers, and very good ones. What they do is important and to say that they’ve made a difference in the lives of their students doesn’t begin to cover it. But this “preciousness” attached to teaching is nothing more than a political ploy. The Left is using the teaching profession as a way to strengthen corrupt pubic unions and increase the government payroll — two ways to capture political power and create more Democrats.

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Matt Damon drones on incoherently for almost a full five minutes here, but hits a real low when he seriously claims no one started a small business with the Bush tax cuts. His inability to understand basic economics is only topped by his inability to emote onscreen.

And yet these people have power and sway over our political process, all based on … nothing.

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If Hollywood supporters of President Spread-The-Wealth — specifically Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire – allegedly participated in alleged high-stakes poker games and allegedly won alleged money, did any of them report their alleged winnings to the IRS? Or, if they were concerned about the alleged illegality of these alleged high-stakes poker games, did they blindly donate the appropriate tax-the-rich portion to the treasury?

Greg Pollowitz at NRO:

Interesting. Maybe the next time Maguire is in D.C. for a photo-op with President Obama, he can explain to the president why he’s exempt from paying his fair share of taxes on the winnings — you know, to spread the wealth — or stop by the I.R.S. and drop off a check. 

Fox News reports on other potential legal problems:

Aside from Maguire, RadarOnline reported that entertainment industry power players such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon also tried their hand in the high-stakes game, and that the illicit enterprise was still taking place in the home of a top Hollywood producer.

The Los Angeles Police Department did not immediately respond to our request for comment regarding whether or not an investigation was pending, however it seems these big names could all be in big trouble should legal proceedings escalate.

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Radar Online:

Spider-Man star Tobey Maguire is among more than a dozen high-profile Hollywood celebrities being sued in connection with a mega-millions illegal gambling ring that ran high-stakes underground poker games, Star magazine is reporting exclusively.

Maguire, 35, won more than $300,000 from a Beverly Hills hedge fund manager who embezzled investor funds and orchestrated a Ponzi scheme in a desperate bid to pay off his monster debt to the star and others, it’s alleged.

An FBI investigation into Brad Ruderman, the CEO of Ruderman Capital Partners, uncovered how he lost $25 million of investor money in clandestine poker games held on a twice weekly basis in suites at the luxury Beverly Hills hotel, Four Seasons, and the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard.

Tinsel town A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon also played in the no-limit Texas Hold ‘em games which had a buy-in of $100,000, multiple members of the ring told Star. DiCaprio, Affleck and Damon are not being sued.

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I just saw the new Matt Damon flick, The Adjustment Bureau, and wanted to like it. I really wanted to like it. But I didn’t.

Like many films, The Bureau is based on a fantastic ruse: Somewhere out there a group of men dressed in stylish black overcoats and fedoras called The Adjustment Bureau have a plan for how all of us humans will live our lives. Not ‘should’, mind you, but ‘will’. And they’re not talking about whether you drink Coke or Pepsi – they leave the small stuff to individuals so we have the perception of Free Will. The big stuff, though, the real significant choices – career, spouse, political affiliation (mostly Democratic, from what I could tell), is up to them. Every now and then they make an adjustment to our Plan to keep everything down on Planet Earth running smoothly. Unfortunately, about halfway through the film, the ruse gets in the way of the real story. And that’s too bad because the central message, the reason the director made the picture and we streetwalkers go to see it, is well worth talking about.

We may not talk about it much, but we think about it. We think about it a lot: The personal choices we make, especially the big ones, and the consequences that ensue, for better or worse. For example: Should I be a lawyer or a schoolteacher, single or married, pursue money or service, pleasure or sacrifice? And these are only a few, as anyone will tell you. These things matter, and in fact might even change the world. Perfect fodder for a thought- provoking movie.

George Nolfi, first time director and accomplished screenwriter and producer, no doubt wanted us to be neck deep in the “choice” dilemma and, for awhile, he almost pulled it off. We meet interesting characters that we immediately like, root for them to be together, and struggle along with them as the wise men of the Star Chamber do their best to keep them apart. We believe that Matt Damon could be a politician-on-the-rise, and Emily Blunt, especially Emily Blunt, could be a world-shaking modern dancer. Until the middle of Act II there is just the right mix of all these elements to make us “check our minds at the door” and follow them on their rough and tumble journey that finally ends with wedding vows. But Nolfi, faced with his own artistic dilemma, fouls it back to the screen. He includes so many scenes about The Ruse that it crowds out the message that the plot normally conveys.

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A young politician’s life changes forever when he is confronted with a new reality in the drama “The Adjustment Bureau.” Matt Damon stars as a Congressman who discovers that his life is being manipulated by a group of “adjusters” who are trying to keep the Congressman’s life on a certain track. The story’s concept is strong and could have been used to make an intriguing and thoughtful film about a man fighting for freedom from outside forces. Unfortunately, “The Adjustment Bureau” is not that film.

Damon plays David Norris, a “bad-boy Congressman” who is running for the United States Senate. He’s an up-and-coming political rock star who spends time with real-life political figures like Terry McAuliffe, Wesley Clark, and Madeleine Albright, who all have brief cameos in the film alongside commentators like Jon Stewart, Mary Matalin, and James Carville.

Norris’ campaign eventually derails when a secret from his past is revealed and he ends up losing the Senate race. However, on the night of his concession speech, he meets a young woman named Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt) hiding out in the men’s bathroom.  Although the politician and the young woman have little in common, they are soon making out with each other like overeager teenagers on a Friday night. Afterward, Norris uses his concession speech to talk about how fake and poll-driven his campaign was. (more…)

As a Christian, I’ve grown up with the debate between free will and predestination. Is my faith in Christ my choice, or did God choose me so that I had no choice in the matter? The Adjustment Bureau, a new film from established writer and first-time director George Nolfi explores the balance between fate and free will in a story that spans the genres. 

“The Adjustment Bureau” is all things to all people. For sci-fi fans it’s based on (though largely changed from) a short story by Philip K. Dick,who wrote “Blade Runner.” For thriller fans, it’s written and directed by one of the writers of “Ocean’s 12” and “The Bourne Ultimatum.” For comedy fans, the dialogue is witty and fresh, and for romantics, it’s a love story. 

The Adjustment Bureau is the story of David Norris (Matt Damon), a young politician on the verge of becoming one of New York’s senators. A chance meeting with a ballerina named Elise (Emily Blunt) threatens to ruin his dreams however, when the agents of Fate itself step in and try to steer him back onto the political course outlined for him, and away from the woman he loves. Ultimately, they give him a choice: a chance to change the world, or the freedom to be with the woman he loves. 

I’m typically not a fan of films that are written and directed by the same person. Having a director who can reign in a writer, or who knows how to edit out needless dialogue or scenes is essential. Unless you’ve got the talent of George Nolfi, who has kept the dialogue real throughout the film. 

The acting is solid. Damon and Blunt play off each other expertly, and the agents of fate are neither friendly or villainous. They are doing their job. 

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