Only Bryan Singer has directed a better superhero movie than Guillermo del Toro's original Hellboy. It was one of the real surprises of 2004 and starting next July the whole gang is back for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army. Early details about the film have been sparse (expect Del Toro compadre Harry Knowles to have the lion's share of exclusives), but today at noon the first trailer for the film rolls out simultaneously on......

There was a welcome flight to quality this weekend as movie-goers finally gave some love to a good flick. American Gangster blasted its way to the top with an impressive haul of 46.3 million dollars. Bolstered by positive reviews and the stellar box-office power of Denzel Washington, Gangster should continue to thrive in the coming weeks. Jerry Seinfeld's initial foray into the motion picture business can certainly be called a success. Despite mediocre notices,......

In what the Wall Street crowd might call a flight to quality, North American audiences made The Bourne Ultimatum this weekend's box office champ by spending 70.1 million dollars on the superb third installment of the Matt Damon franchise. Expect across-the-board great reviews and excellent word-of-mouth to keep Bourne afloat for the rest of the summer, especially now that the release schedule is lightening up a bit. The Simpsons Movie nose-dived 65% after an......

A few weeks ago in this space, I predicted that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer would be the big-budget flop of the summer. Turns out I missed it by one week. Evan Almighty tallied a meager 32.1 million dollars at the box office over the weekend--well below already reduced expectations (the ugliest five words a studio chief can ever hear--worse even than "the call girl taped everything"). Considering its budget was somewhere......

How LA Observed gets these LA Times internal memos is beyond us, but we love it. Today Kevin Roderick printed an email whose subject line was: "The Times' Innovative Pre-Awareness Promotional Campaign for 'The Black Dahlia'." Now we realize the times they are a-changing but we feel a little creeped out with our local paper getting all giddy about being in bed with a movie studio over a summer movie. Isn't the job of......