Loaded Couch Potatoes

According to Variety, Ryan Reynolds has been cast as Hal Jordan, the titular superhero of the upcoming Green Lantern feature.  Casino Royale director Martin Campbell will be behind the camera of the project, which is expected to begin production in January.

The casting could end up being somewhat unorthodox, as Reynolds has already played one filmic superhero — or more correctly, a supervillain, Deadpool (in X-Men Origins: Wolverine).  The success of that movie has led to Fox actively putting a Deadpool spinoff film, with Reynolds attached, in development.  Unless I’ve got some early-onset Alzheimer’s developing, there has never been an actor play two different lead roles in two different comic-book-movie franchises.

The casting news caps a summer movie season that may well have seen Reynolds finally emerge as a major star, first appearing in Wolverine, then co-starring with Sandra Bullock in the hit rom-com The Proposal, and now landing the lead role in a studio tentpole film.

Honk Mahfah analyzes Memorial Day weekend at the box office, with two major franchise sequels duking it out for the top spot.

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Honk Mahfah runs his mouth about the weekend box office.  You know you want to read it!

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Honk Mahfah analyzes the box-office results for the weekend of May 8-10, 2009, which saw Paramount successfully re-energize the Star Trek franchise.

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Honk Mahfah analyzes the box office results for the opening weekend of 2009′s summer movie season.

Who won the Manly Cup?  Was it Hugh Jackman or Matthew McConaughey?

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For those who don’t know, Cort and Fatboy are radio personalities at KUFO in Portland.  I’ve been listening to their podcasts for about a month now, and I’m pretty much addicted: these guys are fucking awesome.  Or, as they might say to avoid an FCC fine, frakking awesome.  It’s a very geek-friendly show, as that little Battlestar Galactica reference I just snuck in might indicate.

One of their regular guests, film critic Mike Russell, absolutely eviscerated X-Men Origins: Wolverine on their show this past Friday, and for anyone who thinks a hilarious, geek-friendly radio-based podcast might be something they’d be into, this would probably serve as a good introduction to what these guys do.

Visit their downloads page here, and download the show for Friday, May 1.  As usual, the entire show is well worth your time, but if you want to hear only the Mike Russell segment, it begins at around the 40:00 mark with a discussion of a Muppets-themed film fest that is going on in Portland.  The talk about Wolverine begins at the 48:15 mark.

I didn’t like Wolverine much when I watched it this past Thursday, but I didn’t quite hate it, either.  Russell and Fatboy did hate it, and they are very much willing to tell the world exactly why.  I don’t agree with some of what they say, but a lot of what they point out is so concise, hilarious, and right-on-the-money that it almost makes me want to never review another movie until I can be as good at it as they are.

According to Variety, the grosses for last night’s midnight showings of X-Men Origins: Wolverine are somewhere in the vicinity of $5 million.

This figure is more or less equal to the grosses for last year’s Thursday-night screenings for Iron Man, which went on to pull in $102 million during its opening weekend.  Based on those comparisons, it looks as if the one-two punch of piracy and the swine flu might be less harmful to this weekend’s box-office than many had feared.

Check back Monday morning for weekend total estimates.

Honk Mahfah reviews X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Spoilers ahead, bub.

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Honk Mahfah takes a look at the box office results for the weekend of April 24-26, with Obsessed barreling its way to the top of the charts.

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Mister Black serves up a hearty helping from the past week. (continue reading…)