May 23, 2005 |
HOLY SITH!
To quote Yoda, "Shattered, box office records were." Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith grossed $158.5 million since opening Thursday, the best four-day debut in history. The previous benchmark was set by The Matrix Reloaded, which brought in $134.3 million in 2003. Darth Vader and Co. also bested the three-day record set by the first Spider-Man ($124.7 million vs. $114.8 million), though Sith's Friday-to-Sunday haul — $108.5 million — was lower than Spidey's ($114.8 million). George Lucas' Star Wars climax also rang up $144.7 million overseas, bringing the pic's worldwide total to $303 million. To quote Yoda, "Talk like this, why do I?" |
EVERYBODY LOVES PATTY
Everybody Loves Raymond's body is barely cold and already costar Patricia Heaton has lined up her next gig. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Heaton is in final negotiations with cabler TNT to headline the Moonstruck-esque romantic comedy The Engagement Ring. |
GIRLS GONE OVER
Relax, Gilmore Girls fans — your prayers have been answered. After being bombarded with frantic e-mails that probably looked something like this — "Help! My TiVo cut off the end of Tuesday's Gilmore Girls season finale!" — WB has announced that the four-star episode will be rebroadcast on May 31 at 9 pm/ET. Girls' faithful who TiVoed the episode (which ran slightly longer than an hour, hence the glitch) missed out on a cliff-hanging plot twist five years in the making. And no, Lorelai didn't slap her mum. That's next season's cliff-hanger. |
JACKO WATCH
Michael Jackson's defense attorneys are planning to call comedians Jay Leno and Chris Tucker to the stand this week at the singer's child-molestation trial. Leno is expected to testify about a phone call he received from Jacko's accuser asking for money, while speed-demon Tucker will reveal why it's OK to drive in excess of 100 mph as long as you're on your way to church. |
YEP, SHE'S A WINNER
It's safe to say Ellen DeGeneres wore out her dancing shoes Friday night. The comic-turned-professional gabber picked up Daytime Emmys for best talk-show host and best talk show for The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Jeopardy was named best game show, while The View's Meredith Vieira won as best game-show host for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Among sudsers, ABC's mob-drenched serial General Hospital picked up best soap honors for a record eighth time. Who says gratuitous violence doesn't pay? (For more on daytime's big night, read our backstage diary in Soaps News.) |
ANOTHER LIST!
Time magazine has put together its list of the 100 greatest movies of all time, and there's not a J.Lo film in the bunch. There also aren't many surprises, as the list features such usual suspects as Lawrence of Arabia, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, two Godfathers and Schindler's List. OK, there's one surprise — and it's a good one: Disney's Finding Nemo made the cut. |
RECOVERING
Australian pop diva Kylie Minogue underwent successful breast cancer surgery Friday in a Melbourne hospital. No further details were released. |
BEST OF THE FEST
The Cannes Film Festival concluded over the weekend and, as usual, a bunch of people/films I've never heard of won awards. The Belgian pic The Child walked off with the fest's top honor, the Palme d'Or, while the Jury Prize went to China's Shanghai Dreams. Hanna Laslo was named best actress for Free Zone and Tommy Lee Jones won best actor for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrad. Wait, is that the Tommy Lee Jones? If so, I know him! What do I win? |
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