FROM MTV.COM: Predictions were that "Michael Jackson's This Is It" could be the highest-grossing music film of all time, and the documentary chronicling the final concert rehearsals of the King of Pop got off to a good start. A series of late-night screenings pulled in $2.2 million in the U.S. on Tuesday, setting the film up for a possible #1 ranking at the box office this Halloween weekend, according to The Associated Press.
The fright-filled weekend could set up a showdown between the zombie-loving late pop star and the surprise success of low-budget horror flick "Paranormal Activity," which pulled in just $1.7 million on Tuesday after topping the box office last weekend. While "Activity" will expand to its widest release yet over the weekend when it unfolds on 2,400 screens, "This Is It" will be playing on more than 3,500 screens.
Continue reading
FROM MTV.COM: There are some things you can always count on in one of today's modern vampire novels: a breathless, cross-species love affair, bone-breaking lovemaking, lots of smoldering eyes and buckets of spilled blood. But, according to TMZ, an author named Jordan Scott claims she saw a few too many similarities between her 2006 vamp tale, "The Nocturne," and "Twilight" scribe Stephenie Meyer's 2008 book, "Breaking Dawn."
In a cease-and-desist letter obtained by the site, Scott's publisher claims the fourth book in the "Twilight" series has "striking and substantial" similarities to "The Nocturne," part of a trilogy that 21-year-old musician/author Scott began writing when she was 15.
Continue reading Stephenie Meyer Accused Of Plagiarizing Novel For 'Breaking Dawn'
There are plenty of things the Internet is great for. Like, for instance, watching zombies battling sharks underwater.
But what it's really amazing at is taking today's news and remixing it while it's still today's news — like, oh, let's say, the f-bomb-tastic Christian Bale tirade from the set of "Terminator: Salvation" that has been lighting things up over the past 24 hours.
Read more...
It's fitting that a pair of dark rags-to-riches stories in which the underdog endures great pain to rise up triumphed Sunday night at the Golden Globes. The biggest winner of the evening, "Slumdog Millionaire," overcame odds just to get made and has built the kind of word-of-mouth buzz most filmmakers only dream of, especially for a small picture filmed in the slums of Mumbai.
And especially on a night when it was up against some major Hollywood heavy hitters like "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Doubt" and "Frost/Nixon," all of which were shut out of the major categories. Read more...
Lawyers for late actor Heath Ledger's 2-year-old daughter, Matilda, have filed a lawsuit against an insurance company that held a $10 million life insurance policy on the actor. According to a report, the insurance company is claiming the actor's death may have been a suicide — even though officials said it was accidental — and has not yet paid out on the policy.
Read more about the Ledger insurance lawsuit here.
