Oy vey: after shifting more dates than an old lady working in the produce section, it appears that Richard Kelly's thriller The Box has been bumped once more, from next March to next November. Usually, this would be a bad thing, but I'm still seriously intrigued by this adaptation of Richard Matheson's short story, in which a young couple (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) are given a mysterious box that can make them wealthy, but at the cost of killing a stranger the moment they use it.

The film is completed enough to merit a PG-13 from our pals over at the MPAA (for "thematic elements, some violence and disturbing images"), so it's not post-production woes holding the film up. One suspects this is a much less sprawling film than his Southland Tales, which we'll come back to soon enough. Is it part of WB's strategy to spread out product as the strike catches up to them, as they had by moving Harry Potter from this week to next summer?

Man, if I could just kill a stranger to get some answers...

In the last few years, Nicole Kidman has starred in a number of movies that underperformed at the box office, but last year's disappointing grosses for The Interpreter The Invasion, The Golden Compass and even Margot at the Wedding likely contributed to her being named the least bankable actor in Hollywood by Forbes magazine. Apparently, given her exorbitant asking price, Forbes estimates her movies only earn, on average, as much from ticket sales as she earns for appearing in them. This is a major drop compared to last year, when Kidman's films were estimated to gross $8 for every $1 she's paid.

After Kidman, Forbes names Jennifer Garner, whose '07 films The Kingdom and Catch and Release did poorly enough that the runaway success of Juno couldn't help her ranking. On average her films grossed $3.60 for every $1 she took home. In third place, not surprisingly, is Kidman's ex, Tom Cruise, who bombed big time with Lions for Lambs last year. Others making the list of most overpaid actors include Nicolas Cage, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Jim Carrey, Cate Blanchett and Will Ferrell. Meanwhile, Russell Crowe, who topped the list last year, is considered more fairly paid this year thanks to the success of American Gangster.

Such fluctuations in actors' bankability only continues the debate regarding the importance of movie stars these days. Certainly all the names on Forbes' list are big names who occasionally headline blockbuster hits, but are they actually significant to moviegoers' attraction to a movie? Apparently not.

So, which actor do you think is most in need of a major reality check before his or her next major paycheck?

I hate to spread totally speculative bad buzz, but if any advance development merits the term "not a good sign," it's a movie getting its release date pushed back seven months to early September, the year's most notorious dumping ground. Yep -- Richard Kelly's The Box is now scheduled to be released by Warner Bros. on September 11, 2009.

Now, to be clear, its original February release date wasn't exactly a plum spot either. But occasionally something sneaks through early in the year -- think Cloverfield. The few weeks around Labor Day are where movies go to die. The only recent exception I can think of is 3:10 to Yuma.

I'm hoping against hope that the switch isn't actually a vote of no confidence, since a Twilight Zone-style sci-fi film from the director of Donnie Darko sounds fantastic. If it is a low-confidence move, I'm hoping it's a case of a studio not knowing a good movie from a hole in the wall. That happens a fair amount, don't you know. Richard Kelly could use a boost after Southland Tales sank last year.

The Box is about a suburban couple who receive a mysterious wooden box with a single button. The box comes with a promise that if one of them presses the button in the next 24 hours, they will get a million dollars -- but somewhere in the world, someone will die. The film stars James Marsden, Cameron Diaz and Frank Langella.

[hat tip: Cinema Blend]

I guess members of Arcade Fire like to keep an eye on their online reputation, because it took a total of eight days for the band to reduce a popular rumor to rubble. A little over a week ago, Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) had posted that, "a very famous band who is honoring us with being the first filmmakers they've ever scored a film with" had signed up to score his upcoming thriller, The Box. Before you knew it, Pitchfork had picked up the story and was reporting that Arcade Fire was that "famous band".

Cut to one week later and Arcade's co-founder, Win Butler, posted the following message on his blog (through the band's official site): "Arcade Fire is NOT doing the soundtrack to any film. We are all off for the summer, writing songs, reading books and keeping our plants alive" -- although he did concede that he might compose some original music for the film along with band mate Owen Pallet (Final Fantasy).

The Box takes place in 1976, where an unhappily married couple (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden) receive a mysterious box from a stranger (Frank Langella). The box will reward the couple with a massive payday, but only on the condition that a complete stranger dies in return. Erik gave us the heads up on some production photos back in February, but so far there is no release date. Hopefully the 'stink' of Southland Tales has finally worn off, and Kelly will be able to secure an official date soon.

Here's where I get confused: If you knew a pair of people like the characters played by Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in the new feature-length sitcom pilot What Happens in Vegas, you'd probably hate them. Undoubtedly, in real life, you'd want to punch / mock / immediately walk away from people so outrageously stupid, selfish, and insufferable. So here's my question: Why would you actually PAY for the experience of meeting two such woeful and worthless people? It's not like there's much upside for you...

Pre-packaged movie star detritus of the most inane order, What Happens in Vegas offers an I Love Lucy premise, an Odd Couple leading duo, and a Three's Company screenplay. (I mean, like, season five Three's Company, when you could spot the flaccid punch-lines the split-second the set-up is delivered.) It's not like I went in gunning for the flick, because I happen to think that A) Ashton Kutcher is a fairly funny guy, B) Cameron Diaz is still (often) a generally appealing movie star, and C) "high concept" comedy can sometimes make for one colorful and energetic night at the cinema -- but I've been to writing seminars that offer more humor, creativity, and cleverness than what's on display here. And trust me, writing seminars have none of those things.

The pounding beat of a headache, or the sear of a migraine, is something I rarely have to face. That makes me lucky, for the most part, but it also means that when one hits, like today, all I can think of is heads and brains like a zombie in training. Naturally, this has me thinking of movies that focus on the stories of the noggin. Should I go for The Man with Two Brains or other similar brainy fare? Nah.

Instead, I'm going to focus on a man behind the camera, one who brought us two of the best stories of the mind to date: Mr. Charlie Kaufman. It all started with a little Malkovich Malkovich, and then continued with the overwhelming urge to erase love from the mind -- two stories that make a little headache seem like nothing. On this warm Friday, I give you: Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ...

I will totally admit to bashing this movie when I first heard about it, but I have to say it has some pretty funny jokes. I LOL'd at least four times during this latest trailer (just released by Moviefone) for What Happens in Vegas, and I can't remember the last time I LOL'd at anything starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. See, it's all about Rob Corddry. Put that guy in anything and you're guaranteed a few funny bits. I love the part where Kutcher finds a bunch of hot girls in his living room, and he calls Corddry to tell him there's a hot girl party at his house. The exchange between the two earned bonus laugh points from me. And the trailer is cut together pretty well, with the laughs increasing as it plays out. Kudos to whoever put it together.

What Happens in Vegas stars Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as two random strangers who meet one night in Vegas, get wasted and subsequently get married by drunken mistake. However, while they're parting ways the next morning -- admitting their stupid mistakes -- both wind up winning a three million dollar jackpot. It was her quarter, but he put it in. When a judge sentences them to "six months of hard marriage" these two strangers -- who now despise one another -- will have to find a way to make it work. Think The Break-Up meets War of the Roses. I dunno, looks kinda cute.

What Happens in Vegas hits theaters on May 9 (my birthday!). Check out the trailer above, or head over to Moviefone to watch it in glorious HD.

That picture up there is the official one-sheet for the upcoming romcom What Happens in Vegas. If we went by this poster, the movie looks like one of those cheek-pinchingly happy romcoms full of Vegas weddings and matrimonial bliss. But this is the movie where Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher fall to the huge Las Vegas cliche -- hitting Sin City to forget their problems, while getting drunk and getting married.

The twist -- they play a slot machine as they decide to dissolve the marriage and win $3 million, so splitting up isn't so easy. They're sentenced to 6 months of "hard marriage" by a judge who freezes their winnings. It's just so romantic! Both of them act like asses to the other, and then, oh my god, they realize that they're meant to be! They fall for each other! Yeah, I'm being really hard on this, but c'mon -- Ashton is notorious for his bad romcoms, and the trailer is just a melange of stereotypes and over-done jokes that doesn't seem to offer anything fresh. Cameron and Ashton get hitched on May 9.

What do you think?

The other day we brought you the first image from Richard Kelly's (Donnie Darko) new film The Box, and now USA Today has a whole slew of images featuring the cast and that darn box. Imagine, if you will, some guy who looked a lot like Frank Langella showed up to your house with a mysterious box, and said that you could push a button on said box and come into great wealth. However, once the button is pressed, someone somewhere will die. What would you do? Well, something tells me we wouldn't have much of a movie if Cameron Diaz and James Marsden (who play the husband and wife who come in possession of the box) didn't go ahead and push the button.

On the film, Diaz says, "This is the most beautiful love story ever. It's so romantic, especially at the end. Other then that, it's a crazy, si-fi psychological thriller with a twist of conscience." The Box is supposed to be Kelly's big commercial film, after the writer-director had a hard time wowing audiences with the experimental Darko and the recent Southland Tales. But if you take a couple and put them into a freaky situation everyone can relate to, I imagine ticket sales will look a tad better this time. So far I'm loving the retro vibe and I truly hope Kelly pulls off a damn good thriller. We could use one of those. Check out one more photo below, then head to USA Today to view the rest.

I wonder if the President is reading Cinematical today ...

The first teaser poster/thingy for G.I. Joe was apparently unveiled at the New York Toy Fair over the weekend (as captured by MTV), and it's everything we all hoped it would be. Man, check out that silver on black -- it's all just so ... exciting. 2009 can't come soon enough. In other Joe news, Latino Review claims Jonathan Pryce has landed a "small but integral" role as President of the United States in the film, which comes with the following official synopsis: "From the Egyptian desert to deep below the polar ice caps, the elite co-ed GI JOE team, based from it's headquarters The Pit, deploys the latest in next-gen spy and military equipment to fight crooked arms dealer Destro and the growing threat of the mysterious COBRA organization from plunging the world into chaos." Yum!

In other news, the first photo from Richard Kelly's new flick The Box has arrived online (via Twitch). The photo (which you can view after the jump) shows two hands holding a box which appears to feature a snow globe of some sorts on the top of it. This is being hailed as Kelly's big commercial film, after his first two attempts (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales) confused the hell out of people and the box office. Starring Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, The Box tells of a couple who discover a mysterious box with a button inside that, if pressed, will give them enough money to save their ailing son. However, in return, someone somewhere will die. Freaky! The Box is due out later this year.

Just after Christmas last year, Erik Davis threw up a still from What Happens in Vegas, the new movie starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. The romcom is about two people who fall into the typical cliche -- they've both had some problems in their lives, so they go to Las Vegas to blow off steam. There, they meet, get trashed, and get married. However, this time around, there's a big catch. Just as they're about to part ways and hunt down someone who can get them an annulment, they win $3 million. A judge then freezes their money and sentences them to, well, their marriage. Following the usual romcom rules, the two despise and torment each other, yet grow to love one another.

I'm betting this isn't one of those films that's going to go very far. (Because I Said So!) It will probably pull in a decent chunk of change right away and then fizzle off quickly, unless the big laughs aren't being shown in the trailer, which was just posted on the film's official website.

The one bit of this that I actually enjoyed -- a scene of Kutcher urinating into a sink. However, my appreciation of that scene wasn't because it was funny, but because I once knew a guy who would relieve himself in basement utility sinks rather than use the bathroom in the middle of the night and risk waking anyone up. But that's just my experience...I hope.

[via JoBlo]

Yesterday, we unloaded a bunch of movie pics on you from Universal Pictures upcoming 2008 slate (including two new pics from The Incredible Hulk). Today, we have a few more for you, courtesy of Universal once again, as well as a few other studios who have also unveiled their 2008 calendar. The first image (see above) is from 20th Century Fox's upcoming comedy What Happens in Vegas, starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. The photo comes with the caption: "A night of debauchery culminated with impromptu - and soon regretted - nuptials for Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in What Happens in Vegas." Considering these are two of the most annoying actors working today, here's hoping what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Zing!

From Disney's official 2008 preview comes the first image from the animated film Bolt, which you can view below. Bolt stars the voice of John Travolta as a dog who is the star of a hit TV show. However, when Bolt accidentally gets shipped from his Hollywood soundstage to New York City, he sets out on a cross-country trip through the real world. Here's more from the synopsis: "Armed only with the delusions that all his amazing feats and powers are real, and with the help of two unlikely traveling companions: a jaded, abandoned housecat named Mittens (voice of Susie Essman) and a TV-obsessed hamster in a plastic ball named Rhino, Bolt discovers he doesn't need superpowers to be a hero."

Remember that mushy-sounding, Irreconcilable Differences-esque movie starring the Fanning sisters that's in the works? About a little girl who sues her parents for divorce after finding out she only exists to serve as a genetic match for her dying sis? It's called My Sister's Keeper, and it just got a whole lot better-sounding. According to Variety, Alec Baldwin has joined the cast, which also includes Cameron Diaz as the mother of Dakota and Elle Fanning. Baldwin fortunately won't be playing the girls' daddy; instead he's set for the role of an attorney representing the younger, wrongfully-conceived sister. He will be going up against Diaz, whose mom character is also a former trial lawyer and will be defending herself. It's still unclear if the father role will be significant, or if the parents are now divorced, separated or simply not cinematic equals. Of course, the production has until its February start date to let us know the actor for that part.

Baldwin, who previously worked with Dakota Fanning on The Cat in the Hat, was able to sign on to My Sister's Keeper thanks in part to the writer's strike, which has halted the shooting of Baldwin's hit TV series 30 Rock (though Variety points out he is contractually allowed to schedule a movie, who's to say it would have happened with this, at this time?). I've just recently become addicted to the show specifically because of him, and hope his attorney character is close in tone to his NBC executive character, Jack Donaghy. Yet something -- perhaps the subject matter of the film -- tells me that won't be the case. Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook) will be directing from a script by Jeremy Leven (The Notebook), which was adapted from the novel by Jodi Picoult, while Mark Johnson (The Notebook) produces.

If you wondered when it came out if there needed to be a third Shrek film, all you need to do is ask the kids. Adults may be growing tired of the clever plays on modernity -- mascot contests, bubblegum-blowing teeny-boppers, endless takes on modern store names made to sound "fairy-taleish" -- but kids never seem to tire of the toilet humor that permeates the Shrek series.

The advantage of making a film with ogres and a donkey at the center is that you can acutally (kind of) justify the endless stream of projectile vomiting and fart jokes, and my own kids, at least, never seem to tire of them. And when you have the film on DVD, well, they can rewind to watch the baby spewing green-pea vomit out of the baby carriage over, and over, and over again. So, rejoice, parents, Shrek the Third is here.

Actually, for a third film in a series, Shrek the Third isn't a terrible effort. While it's not as strong as the first two films (the second was surprisingly good for a sequel) and at times it feels that the filmmakers are really reaching by stretching the franchise to support a third film, if you compare it to, say, the dreadful Happily N'Ever After, it's pretty tolerable. Any time you can find a kids' film that the adults in the household can stomach watching multiple times, that's a good thing -- but you might want to make sure to have Shrek and Shrek 2 on hand as well.

If it wasn't for those Shiny Happy Fabio followers, comedian Zach Galifianakis would've stopped Bubble Boy before his journey even began. (He was the ankle-weight-wearing bus dude who wouldn't give the kid a nice, cheap discount.) Since then, he's been a hacker, a homeless man, Santa, a friend of time-traveling Tru, and taught a certain kid about hunting Into the Wild -- just to name a few. Now he's got two more roles on the way, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

One of the roles will be in Tom Vaughn's What Happens in Vegas. He's going to play "Dave the Bear," Jack's (Ashton Kutcher) anti-marriage best friend who is less than happy when Jack marries Joy (Cameron Diaz) during a drunken night in Vegas. As I told you when news broke on the project, the pair get hitched and then undermine each other to get the big payout they win in Vegas. I imagine the Bear will plot against the aptly-named Joy, as THR says he's playing her nemesis.

For role number two, Galifianakis is going to get scientific by starring in the Disney/Bruckheimer flick, G-Force. His role is that of "the lead government scientist in charge of a guinea pig commando program, helping [to] send the highly trained elite agents on a dangerous mission." Elite animal agents, that is. Sounds like appropriate wacky-scientist casting to me. But for now, we've got Largo, Visioneers, and Little Fish, Strange Pond on the way -- all of which are in post-production.