20 Bond Villains You Love to Hate

 

20 Bond Villains You Love to Hate
Loved Christopher Walken’s Max Zoran and Grace Jones’ May Day from A View to a Kill. Christopher Walken never disappoints, and I loved the scene where May Day picked up a member of the KGB and tossed him across a row of bleachers. —Snarf

I also pick Zoran from A View to a Kill because Chris Walken was such a nut job. —Rahul

May Day from A View to a Kill was the best villain EVER!! —Jerry

‘Madagascar’ sequel No. 1 at box office

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Families herded into movie theaters for another trek with stranded zoo animals as the animated sequel “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” led the weekend with a $63.5 million debut, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Dreamworks Animation’s “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” led the weekend with a $63.5 million debut.

 The haul for the DreamWorks Animation comedy far surpassed the $47.2 million debut for “Madagascar” over Memorial Day weekend in 2005. Its three-day total also beat the $61 million gross the first movie took in over that full four-day holiday weekend.

“It just shows people seem happy to escape to the movies and have a good laugh,” said Anne Globe, head of marketing for DreamWorks Animation.

While parents with children were the bulk of the audience, “Madagascar” also drew teens and adults on their own, who made up half the audience on Friday and one-third on Saturday, Globe said.

Premiering in second place with $19.3 million was the Universal Pictures comedy “Role Models,” starring Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd as immature adults sentenced to community service as mentors for two misfit youths.

BOX OFFICE TOP 10
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa,” $63.5 million.
2. “Role Models,” $19.3 million.
3. “High School Musical 3,” $9.3 million.
4. “Changeling,” $7.3 million.
5. “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” $6.3 million.
6. “Soul Men,” $5.6 million.
7. “Saw V,” $4.2 million.
8. “The Haunting of Molly Harvey,” $3.5 million.
9. “The Secret Life of Bees,” $3.1 million.
10. “Eagle Eye,” $2.6 million.
The weekend’s other new wide release, the Weinstein Co. music comedy “Soul Men,” opened weakly with $5.6 million, despite the lure of Samuel L. Jackson and his late co-stars, Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes, who died last summer. Jackson and Mac play an estranged singing team on a reunion road trip to a memorial concert.

Mac also was among the voice cast for the “Madagascar” sequel, providing vocals as Zuba, the father of Ben Stiller’s Alex the lion.

“Certainly, he just brought a wonderful heart to the role of Zuba. We were just fortunate to have him for that character,” Globe said.

The movie also reunites voice stars Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith and Sacha Baron Cohen as the animal gang crash lands in an African nature preserve.

Disney’s “High School Musical 3: Senior Year,” which had been No. 1 the previous two weekends, slipped to third place with $9.3 million, raising its total to $75.7 million.

“Madagascar” and “Role Models” kicked off a big start to Hollywood’s holiday season. The top 12 movies took in $128.8 million, up 32 percent from the same weekend last year.

“It’s all boding well,” said Nikki Rocco, head of distribution for Universal. “We have lots of really good films coming, lots of commercial films. I love the fact that everybody’s going to the movies. I love the fact that everybody likes what they’re seeing.”

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The season continues with Sony’s James Bond adventure “Quantum of Solace” on Friday, then Summit Entertainment’s vampire romance “Twilight” and Disney’s animated canine comedy “Bolt” on November 21.

“Quantum of Solace” continued to pull in big audiences overseas with $106.5 million in 60 countries, raising its total to $160.3 million since it began opening internationally Oct. 31.

Hollywood’s domestic revenue for the year stands at $7.96 billion, a fraction ahead of the pace in 2007, when the industry took in a record $9.7 billion, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers.

Factoring in inflation, the number of tickets sold this year trails last year’s admissions by 4 percent. But Hollywood has a stronger lineup this time heading into Thanksgiving, so studios could finish the year with a bang. iReport.com: Review Hollywood’s latest offerings
“Given where we are and the films in the pipeline, we have a huge shot at more than making up for any kind of attendance deficit,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers. “You wouldn’t know there was a recession if you were just looking at the movie industry.”

‘DWTS’ Down to Final Four

Maurice Greene has finally encountered a race he cannot win: Dancing with the Stars.

The world-record-holding sprinter was eliminated from the competition show on Tuesday night, along with his dance partner Cheryl Burke.

But the former Olympic medalist was not bitter in defeat, saying, “I had a lot of fun. I made a lot of new friends out here. I learned how to dance out here in front of millions of people every night. I had a great time.”

The hit show’s four remaining “stars” are ‘N Sync singer Lance Bass, model/actress Brooke Burke, young Hannah Montana star Cody Linley and Greene’s fellow athlete Warren Sapp.

The only other athlete in this season’s field, Misty May-Treanor, was recently forced to withdraw after rupturing her tendon.

Ridley Scott Rolls the Dice on ‘Monopoly’

That’s right: A movie version of the age-old board game is finally in the works, and Ridley Scott will direct. Here’s hoping it’s about half as long as the average Monopoly game!

According to the Hollywood Reporter, longtime director Scott plans to give the Hasbro game a futuristic twist reminiscent of his ‘80s classic Blade Runner.

Universal and toymakers/board-game kings Hasbro are looking to repeat the success of Hasbro’s previous movie venture, the megablockbuster Transformers, whose sequel is currently filming.

Also in development are movies based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, Battleship and, somehow, Ouija Board — while the company’s Trivial Pursuit has already been turned into a syndicated TV game show.

No actors have been lined up for Monopoly yet, but screenwriter Pamela Pettler (Corpse Bride, Monster House) is charged with the task of concocting a movie script out of the real estate game.

Jen Slaps Angelina’s Wrist

Jennifer Aniston has chastised Angelina Jolie for being “uncool” in regards to her comments about how she and Brad Pitt first got together, according to People.com.

In the December issue of Vogue (out Nov. 19), Aniston says Jolie should have been much more circumspect about the romance, which blossomed while Pitt  and Aniston were still married. “There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening,” Aniston, 39, says of comments Jolie had made to the same magazine a year earlier. “I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss. … That stuff about how she couldn’t wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool.”

Aniston also chats about her own romantic life, including her much-discussed on-again, off-again relationship with 30-year-old musician John Mayer, who she says has matured since they’ve been together, theHuffingtonPost.com reports. In fact, she is frankly a little tired of defending the relationship all the time.

“People need to mind their own business! Did you ever think Claudia Schiffer and David Copperfield made sense? Love just shows up.”

Meanwhile, her ex-honey Pitt  had to be rescued by a security guard from aggressive paparazzi at the premiere of his upcoming The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Monday night.

People.com reports that according to a source close to the actor, “The paparazzi stormed the theater and were incredibly aggressive, pouring in through all entrance areas. They were hitting bystanders with their cameras. The security guard was merely trying to safely and quickly remove Brad from the melee.”

Brad didn’t think much of it. “Though they [the paparazzi] were exceptionally more aggressive than usual,” Pitt tells People, “breaking through a security barrier and into a private holding area, ultimately [it was] just another day in the life.”