DAN’S MOVIE DIGEST 144

Murphy: “I’m absolutely thrilled. It’s exciting to be a part of something sobig and artistically groundbreaking. I love the film and I’m ecstatic to beworking with director Robert Rodriguez and the crew again.”

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3Reggie Lee (The Fast And The Furious) has landed a supporting lead inPirates Of The Caribbean 3, directed by Gore Verbinski. Lee will starsopposite Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Chow Yun-Fat as avillainous Pirate named Tai Huang.

Lee filmed initial scenes with Depp in April while both sequels were filmingconcurrently on St. Vincent in the Caribbean. He resumes filming in lateAugust in Los Angeles and the Bahamas through 2006. Pirates Of The Caribbean3 is due in theatres in 2007.

SAHARA 2Sahara cost $130 million and made $119 million back at the box-office, butexpected DVD sales could spell hope for a sequel.

Director Breck Eisner told ‘About.com’ that “we sure hope to be doing oneand I think a lot of that depends on actually how we do on DVD. There are 18books [starring Matthew McConaughey’s character Dirk Pitt] so we have a lotof source material to pull from.”

“I know they have two or three of the books under contract. But I’m notsupposed to tell anyone which ones they are yet, sadly. [A] script is beingwritten as we speak. Matthew [McConaughey], Steve Zahn, Bill Macy, and RainnWilson are all under three-picture deals.”

All figures are weekend box-office gross.

• 1. Wedding Crashers ($20.0m) (total to date: $116m)
• 2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) ($16.4m) (total to date: $148m)
• 3. Sky High ($14.6m)
• 4. Stealth ($13.3m)
• 5. Must Love Dogs ($12.9m)
• 6. Fantastic Four (2005) ($6.91m) (total to date: $136m)
• 7. The Island ($5.96m)
• 8. Bad News Bears ($5.63m)
• 9. War of the Worlds (2005) ($5.48m) (total to date: $218m)
• 10. La Marche de L’empereur ($4.03m)

UK TOP 10 (CINEMA)

• 1. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (£7.97m)
• 2. Madagascar (£1.70m)
• 3. Fantastic Four (2005) (£1.61m)
• 4. Wedding Crashers (£1.24m)
• 5. War of the Worlds (2005) (£1.01m)
• 6. The Skeleton Key (£0.76m)
• 7. Dark Water (2005) (£0.17m)
• 8. The Descent (£0.142m)
• 9. Batman Begins (£0.141m)
• 10. Kicking and Screaming (£0.06m)

All the following are U.K. release dates, and are subject to change.

• 5th August 2005: Herbie: Fully Loaded (right), Stealth, Because of Winn-Dixie, Stealth, The Devil’s Rejects, Beautiful Boxer, Yes, Dear Wendy, The Last Days, Wolf Creek
• 12th August 2005: The Island, Fever Pitch (2005), The Rising, Supercross, Crash (2004), Primer
• 19th August 2005: Bewitched, Paradise Now, R-Point, Danny the Dog, Me and You and Everyone We Know, Bewitched (2005),
• 26th August 2005: Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, The Dukes of Hazzard (2005), Bad News Bears, Intruder, The Cave
• 2nd September 2005: The Business, The Honeymooners (2005), Red-Eye, On a Clear Day, Vital
• 9th September 2005: Cinderella Man, Land of the Dead, Rock School, The Man, The Longest Yard
• 16th September 2005: Four Brothers, Must Love Dogs, Pride and Prejudice (2005)
• 23rd September 2005: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Revolver
• 30th September 2005: Goal!, Corpse Bride, A History of Violence, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Aeon Flux, The Perfect Man, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, The History of Violence
• 7th October 2005: Night Watch, Oliver Twist (2005), The Constant Gardener, Serenity, The Kinky Boot Factory
• 14th October 2005: Wallace & Gromit Movie: Curse of the Wererabbit, Lord of War, The Dark
• 21st October 2005: Nanny McPhee, Murderball, Elizabeth Town, Syriana, Sky High, Broken Flowers
• 28th October 2005: Doom, Flightplan, The Legend of Zorro
• 4th November 2005: V for Vendetta, The Exorcism of Emily Rhodes,
• 11th November 2005: Everything is Illuminated, The New World, Hustle & Flow, In Her Shoes
• 18th November 2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• 2nd December 2005: Tickets
• 9th December 2005: Hey Mr DJ, Just Like Heaven, The Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Shopgirl, Brokeback Mountain
• 14th December 2005: King Kong (2005)
• 16th December 2005: The Hawk is Dying
• 30th December 2005: Stray Dogs
• TBA: The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl in 3D, Domino, The Pink Panther (2005), Halloween 9, Final Destination 3D, Noel, The Tiger and the Snow, Underworld: Evolution, Walk the Line

All the following are U.S. release dates, and are subject to change.

• AUGUST: 3001 (5), Doom (5), Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (12),
• SEPTEMBER: Birth Of The Pink Panther (23), Legend Of Zorro (23), Serenity (30), Spy Hunter (30)
• OCTOBER: Wallace & Gromit (7), The Fog (14), Land Of The Dead (21)
• NOVEMBER: Cars (4), Harry Potter 4 (18), Brother Grimm (23)
• DECEMBER: Chronicles Of Narnia (9), Underworld 2 (9), King Kong (14), The Producers (24), Zathura (21), Mad Max Fury Road (31), Die Hard 4 (31)

Page Content copyright © Dan Owen, 2005.