Box office update: 'IMMORTALS' slashes competition with $15 million!!!

Could it be? It looks like some Greek gods, a cross-dressing comedian, and a Spanish kitty cat are actually breathing life into the dismal box office!

Relativity’s Tarsem Singh-directed 3-swords-and-sandals action flick Immortals easily topped the box office on Friday, fighting its way to a better-than-expected $15 million. That puts the picture on pace for a $37 million weekend, about half of what 300 opened to in 2007. Still, considering the rut the box office has been in this fall, a $37 million debut is pretty impressive.

In second, Adam Sandler’s latest comedy Jack and Jill laughed up (actually, there probably wasn’t much laughing involved) $9.9 million on its first day. Sony’s Adam Sandler comedy could earn $27 million over the Friday-to-Sunday period, but considering his other films typically open in the $40 million range, Jack and Jill will have to work hard to join the $100 million club.

Puss in Boots finished in third with $9 million. The Shrek spin-off will lose some of its audience to the family-friendly Jack and Jill, but it still has a good shot at passing that picture and reaching second place. In all likelihood, it will earn a similar $27 million.

Brett Ratner’s terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week gets just a slight bit better thanks to Tower Heist dropping by an alright 40 percent to $4.9 million on Friday. The Eddie Murphy/Ben Stiller comedy may fall by 35 percent for the weekend to $15 million, lifting Tower Heist’s total to $45.5 million.

Rounding out the top 5 is J. Edgar, which earned $4.3 million and looks like it’s headed for an opening right in the same range as Clint Eastwood’s last picture, Hereafter, which found $4.1 million on its first day of wide release and earned $12 million over the entire frame.

Check back tomorrow for the full box office report.

1. Immortals – $15 million

2. Jack and Jill – $9.9 mil

3. Puss in Boots – $9 mil

4. Tower Heist – $4.9 mil

5. J. Edgar – $4.3 mil

THE REVIEW (by Adam Markovitz)

The ''producers of 300'' have gotten high billing in ads for Immortals, another swords-and-sandals mini-epic in which men dressed like Hellenic gay pride paraders wrestle and preen and cross swords (in a perfectly hetero-virile way, of course).

But once you've spent two hours watching amber waves of abs ripple across the screen, you might think bigger credit really ought to go to the actors' personal trainers. After all, it's the size of his pecs — and certainly not his personality — that designates Theseus (Henry Cavill) as this story's hero. He's a stonemason from a small village, and his single definable character trait — a hot temper — only serves to move him from one bicep-flexing fight to another with minimal dialogue in between.

The focus of most of his anger is King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke, chewing the scenery like a four-course meal), a tyrant out to conquer both the earth and Olympus by dint of a magical bow. Helping Theseus fight him are a sensual oracle (Freida Pinto) and the Olympians themselves, including fiery, brawny Zeus (Luke Evans) and fierier, brawnier Poseidon (Kellan Lutz). The gods of Homer and Virgil these ain't; Immortals' shaved-chest-thumping mythology owes more to Men's Health than to Bulfinch's.

Plot machinations ensue, though you won't much care — or understand, since the dialogue is all muttered in a Babel of pan-U.K. accents to underscore its pointlessness. But what saves Immortals as a moviegoing experience is the exuberant, kid-in-a-candy-store virtuosity of its director, former music-video wunderkind Tarsem Singh (The Cell). He has no apparent love or patience for storytelling, but Singh is a visualist on par with Julie Taymor and Tim Burton. He makes images of such overblown, pop-baroque splendor that the eyes have no choice but to gorge. Every landscape is a canvas for cartoon-crazy architecture, every body a mannequin for inhuman costumes, every battle blow a candidate for slo-mo glory. Without any narrative heft, these sights don't last in the mind much longer than they linger on screen. And yet they thrill in short-lived bursts that Singh doles out carefully, keeping pace with the audience's appetite. It's his name that ought to be above the title. B

Source: Inside Movies | Grady Smith

HENRY CAVILL | Man of Steel behind-the-scenes! Need I say more?

Just when you thought there were enough hot photos of Henry Cavill out there.... Suddenly a new set surfaces and proves why he is predicted to be the next hottest leading man. See for yourself. :o)

 

HENRY CAVILL | Why HE IS the hottest IMMORTAL and SUPERMAN!!!

Henry Cavill shows off his fine figure in this shirtless new still from the upcoming 3-D movie, Immortals, out November 11.

The legends of the Greek Gods will come to life like never before in the Tarsem Singh-directed flick, which also stars Mickey Rourke, Stephen Dorff, Isabel Lucas, Freida Pinto, and Kellan Lutz.

Henry, who has been busy in Vancouver shooting Man of Steel, plays the Greek warrior Theseus, who battles against imprisoned titans.

ABOUT THE MOVIE 'IMMORTALS'

Visionary director Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) transports us to a mythical world of treachery, vengeance and destiny in Immortals, a stylish and visually spectacular 3D action adventure. As a power-hungry king razes ancient Greece in search of a legendary weapon, a heroic young villager rises up against him in a thrilling quest as timeless as it is powerful. 

The brutal and bloodthirsty King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) and his murderous Heraklion army rampage across Greece in search of the long lost Bow of Epirus. With the invincible Bow, the king will be able to overthrow the Gods of Olympus and become the undisputed master of his world. With ruthless efficiency, Hyperion and his legions destroy everything in their wake, and it seems nothing will stop the evil king's mission.

As village after village is obliterated, a stonemason named Theseus (Henry Cavill) vows to avenge his mother, who was killed in one of Hyperion's brutal raids. When Theseus meets the Sybelline Oracle, Phaedra (Freida Pinto), her disturbing visions of the young man's future convince her that he is the key to stopping the destruction. With her help, Theseus assembles a small band of followers and embraces his destiny in a final, desperate battle for the future of humanity. Immortals is produced by Gianni Nunnari (300), Mark Canton (300) and Ryan Kavanaugh (The Fighter).

 

  

 

‘The Immortals’ Trailer

 

 

 

 

Source: Just Jared

Man of Steel HENRY CAVILL | The Sky's The Limit

After battling Greek gods in Immortals and donning Superman's cape for the series reboot, Henry Cavill can teach you about career climbs.

The superhero began life a chubby little boy.

As a child in England, Henry Cavill was known as "Fat Cavill." "It's definitely a shitty nickname," Cavill says, seated in a Chicago sidewalk cafe. "But kids are kids. Kids are cruel. Whatever. I was fat."

It's hard to admit, but sometimes even cruel kids have a point. In time, Cavill, the lead actor in the current toga-abs epic Immortals and the forthcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel, became as tough on himself as his classmates had been on him. He accepted the harsh reality of his situation—he was "round," as he puts it, and needed to make a change. The rugby, field hockey, and cricket of his boarding-school days weren't enough.

He grew up and out of his pudgy body and then kept going. He became a model and an actor, running for four seasons as fun-loving bad boy Charles Brandon on Showtime's Henry VIII drama The Tudors, a role that required nude sex scenes. (Tough job!) But even that experience wasn't enough to give him confidence in his body. He still thought of himself as overweight until just a few years ago, when he trained for Immortals, the 300-style action flick due out this month. Cavill spent countless hours hoisting weights alongside the throngs of ripped warriors in the cast.

"There was a sense of team and camaraderie," he says. "We all sweated together, we all bled together, we all ate the same highly inefficient food and just kept on going and supported each other." When he felt weak, the group kept him going. "Because they were doing it—and if they could do it, so could I. It's not the end of the world that your feet hurt. Push yourself."

Playing Theseus, a Greek warrior chosen by the gods to save the homeland, Cavill was greased up, ripped, and 25 pounds lighter than he is now. He could have asked director Tarsem Singh to apply the film's extensive CGI to assist him with that eight-pack, but he opted instead to embrace a grueling training regimen designed to create a lean, carved physique. As a result, Theseus's abs are all real, with no digital enhancement. "It's very stressful," Cavill says, "waking up Monday morning and saying, 'Can I still see that vein in my abs?' "

Sometimes a little obsession is what it takes to excel. And the first step is rejecting the status quo. Henry Cavill's story is about nothing if not perseverance—the kind of intestinal fortitude that spurred him to chase an ultra-ripped body and steadied him when multiple celebrated roles slipped through his fingers.

Technically, Man of Steel isn't Cavill's first time wearing Superman's cape. About 7 years ago he was cast as Clark Kent (and alter ego) in the last update of the franchise, Superman Returns. But when the original director, McG, abruptly quit, Cavill was gone with him. As it turned out, that flaccid sequel to the Christopher Reeve series proved to be kryptonite for the career of its replacement star, Brandon Routh.

Now that Cavill has the S shield firmly emblazoned on his chest and the movie is due out in 2013, it all seems meant to be. Then again, maybe not. "That really bugs me," he bristles, mocking the phrase "meant to be." The 28-year-old lifts his coffee cup and places it firmly back down an inch away. "This was meant to end up there because I put it down."

Cavill prefers to believe in action and reaction, cause and effect. He rattles off any number of reasons why roles don't pan out, theorizing about his lack of performance, bad timing, even just a run-of-the-mill bad day for one or the other of the parties involved. "Who knows? But I don't think it's anything like 'It wasn't meant to happen.' "

His other high-profile letdown: losing the role of James Bond to Daniel Craig just a year after losing Superman Returns. "I obviously wasn't right for Bond," Cavill admits now, secure that he gave it his all. "I did, and I wasn't right. That's all." He also realizes that with The Tudors and memorable supporting turns in Tristan & Isolde, Stardust, and Woody Allen's Whatever Works now under his belt, he has more name recognition than he once did. That helped him land Man of Steel, and who knows what else is down the road?

"He's definitely more Superman now than he was 7 years ago, I think," saysMan of Steel director Zack Snyder. "He has been the rock that we can build this movie around." That rock didn't spend the past few years sitting around. "I want to be chosen, not wish I was part of something," Cavill says. "I didn't pine over the fact that I didn't get the last one. It was 'move on, carry on,' whatever!"

Cavill's perspective feels distinctly British, with its echoes of the old World War II poster "Keep Calm and Carry On." In fact, Cavill attributes his strength of character to his childhood as the second-youngest of four boys in Jersey, a British island off the coast of Normandy, France. "I think my parents brought me up that way—very much, 'Okay, well, there's no point in worrying about that now because that's gone. Take every learning experience you can and apply it to yourself and grow from it. You didn't get it. Tough. Now move on. Get the next one.' "

And the next one doesn't just happen on its own. "Putting in the hard work and losing is the tough bit," Cavill says. "That is what makes you special. That's what makes you a man: giving your all, losing, getting back up, and giving it your all again. Because otherwise it would be easy."

Source: Men's Health | Just Jared