In news sure to infuriate feminist bloggers the world wide web over, Tobey Maguire's production company has acquired the rights to Lori Gottlieb's controversial Atlantic story "Marry Him! The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough," according to Variety's Michael Fleming.  read more »

“Ben looks like Beaker from the Muppets on the outside, but then inexplicably like a guy from Prison Break under his clothes,” said Mindy Kaling, the 28-year-old actress who plays Kelly Kapoor on The Office. “I think if I’m going to have a boyfriend who works out, he better be sort of embarrassed about it, like Ben is. Sheepish fitness is the only tolerable kind.”  read more »

Natalie Portman is insecure at times, the 26-year-old actress said in an interview with MTV, where she also talks about the consequences of her poor professional choices. “I might think I won't be able to do something, but I'll do it anyway, because I've sort of known that failing isn't that bad. Especially with my job, no one gets hurt. If I mess up, it's like, ‘OK, somebody loses a little money,’ which I know is a big deal to some people, but no one dies,” offered the 26-year-old star of director Zach Helm’s fantasy feature, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, which opens tomorrow. In the interview, Ms. Portman also talked about taking off her clothes for Wes Anderson’s short, Hotel Chevalier, referring to the fleshy episode as “really silly.” Though she purports to not “really have regrets,” she did say that she doesn’t “like the misappropriation of stuff, like when you create something as part of a story and then a piece of it ends up on a porn site.” In her next film, director Jim Sheridan’s drama Brothers, a remake of Susanne Bier’s 2004 Brødre, Ms. Portman will act alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire, who plays her husband in the flick.

James Vanderbilt, writer of the Zodiac and Basic screenplays, will replace the original Spider-Man scribe David Koepp in the drafting of the fourth installment of the superhero series. Producers want more character-driven stories, rather than a focus on special effects, according to Reuters/the Hollywood Reporter.

No deals have been made to bring back series director Sam Raimi or stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst.

Plot points are being closely guarded by the studio, though the intent is to scale back the story to include only two villains instead of repeating the "Spider-Man 3" model. The third installment, which grossed $336.5 million domestically this year, saw Spidey battle a busy triumvirate of evildoers in the forms of Venom, Sandman and Goblin. It was widely reckoned as overly cumbersome with one too many plot lines.

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Manhattanites apparently love Spider-Man with the same insane intensity as the rest of America: Spider-Man 3 topped both the U.S. and Manhattan box office once again, raking in $60 M. over the weekend, while 28 Weeks Later, the follow-up to the zombie sleeper 28 Days Later, angled for the bloodthirsty “R” crowd and made away with $10 M.

Behind Spider-Man 3, the gory horror film had the strongest per screen average in the city, a very healthy $20,718.  read more »

Director Sam Raimi tried everything in this second superhero sequel—and nothing worked.  read more »