will ferrell (13 posts)

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Next up: $400 million.

The Dark Knight was primed to enter a stratosphere reached by only seven films in Hollywood history after grossing an estimated $75.6 million this weekend, and surpassing $300 million domestically in record time.

Among the box office also-rans, Will Ferrell got his mojo back, while Scully and Mulder had theirs abducted.

More than anyone, Batman was again the man. Where once a $400 million overall take for the latest Caped Crusader adventure was considered a possibility, now it's considered a lock.

"Certainly, $400 million, boom, that's going to happen," Media by Numbers box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian said today.

"The trajectory it's on has never before been seen. This is absolutely unprecedented."

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Here's an elementary bit of casting.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell are set to star as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the latest addition to the Judd Apatow canon, a comedy inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of the brilliant pipe-smoking sleuth and his reliable partner in crime solving.

Tropic Thunder scribe Etan Cohen is penning the script for Columbia Pictures. Apatow and manager Jimmy Miller will produce.

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Will Ferrell's afro turned out to be more impressive than Semi-Pro's box office.

The 1970s-spoofing basketball comedy led a weak weekend field with $15.1 million, per estimates compiled Sunday by Exhibitor Relations, the worst opening for Ferrell since Elf made him big.  

Debuting in fourth place, The Other Boleyn Girl, a costume drama about a million miles, and a few centuries, removed from Semi-Pro's shorty-shorts world, was actually the Top 10's biggest hit.

Playing on fewer than half as many screens as Semi-Pro, the Natalie Portman-Scarlett Johansson effort grossed a solid $8.3 million.  

The unconventional romantic-comedy Penelope, the other major new release, didn't blossom: It opened in eighth, with $4.006 million.   

As far as the expectations game, Ferrell might have shot the biggest air ball of all the weekend's top competitors.

From 2003 through last year, the Saturday Night Live alum starred in six wide-release comedies. Each and every one, even a perceived bust such as Bewitched, opened with at least $20 million. His biggest hit, Talledega Nights, debuted with $47 million.

Then came Semi-Pro's $15.3 million.  

That afro really was something, though.

Elsewhere:

•    No Country for Old Men's success might not have been so great for Oscars' ratings, but the Oscars were pretty great for the movie's box office. One weekend after its Best Picture win, business zoomed 67 percent (ninth place, $4.005 million; $69.6 million overall).
•    Last weekend's champ, Vantage Point ($12.8 million; $41 million overall), fell to second, but didn't fall completely apart.
•    The family-fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles (third place, $8.7 million; $55.1 million overall) isn't blowing anybody away, but it's hanging in there.
•    Top 10 dropouts included: the romantic-comedy nonstarter Definitely, Maybe ($3.3 million; $26.2 million overall); the Best Picture loser There Will Be Blood ($1.6 million; $37.6 million overall, per Box Office Mojo); the middling Martin Lawrence performer, Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins ($2.7 million; $39.2 million overall); and, the Jack Black bust, Be Kind Rewind ($2.1 million; $7.1 million overall).
•    In limited release, Oscar's Foreign Language Film winner, The Counterfeiters ($202,000 at 18 theaters), enjoyed the weekend's best per-screen average, per Box Office Mojo. The French film The Duchess of Langeais ($21,500 at three theaters) was no slouch, either.
•    Chicago 10, the new, partly animated documentary about the 1968 Democratic Convention riots, didn't catch fire, pulling in an okay $44,800 from 14 theaters, Box Office Mojo estimated.   

Here's a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:

1. Semi-Pro, $15.3 million
2. Vantage Point, $12.8 million
3. The Spiderwick Chronicles, $8.7 million
4. The Other Boleyn Girl, $8.2 million
5. Jumper, $7.5 million
6. Step Up 2: The Streets, $5.7 million
7. Fool's Gold, $4.4 million

8. No Country for Old Men, $4.005 million
9. Penelope, $3.8 million
10. Definitely, Maybe, $3.3 million

Will Ferrell is ready to take the laughs on the road.

The funnyman will headline a college stand-up tour as part of a promotion for his upcoming film Semi-Pro, which is due for release from New Line Cinema Feb. 29.

"Not only will this tour make people laugh, but it's going to change lives...I think," Ferrell said of the venture.

The tour, which will take Ferrell and rising comics Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin and Nick Swardson to seven schools over three weeks in February, will be sponsored by Ferrell's FunnyorDie.com Website.

Dubbed Will Ferrell's Funny or Die Comedy Tour Presented by Semi-Pro, the trek is slated to kick off Feb. 4 at Kansas State University, before traveling on to Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State, University of Rhode Island, Boston College and UNC Chapel Hill.

A video crew from FunnyorDie.com will tail the comics on the road and clips from the appearances will be posted regularly on the site, as will weekly videos of Ferrell and his Semi-Pro costar Andrew Daly.

Set in 1976, Semi-Pro stars Ferrell as one-hit-wonder Jackie Moon, who used the profits from his chart-topping song "Love Me Sexy" to fulfill his dream of owning a basketball team. Woody Harrelson, Maura Tierney and André Benjamin also star.

In addition to promoting the film, the tour aims to draw attention back to FunnyorDie.com, which enjoyed a massive debut with hit viral video "The Landlord."

Though traffic has since ebbed, some 3.5 million fans continue to visit the site each week and Knocked Up guru Judd Apatow signed on to the venture in October, further adding to its laugh-factor credibility.

All those steamy Talladega nights have led to this: Will Ferrell is a dad again.

The comic actor and his wife of six years, Viveca Paulson, rang out the old year by welcoming their second son.

Publicist Matt Labov says Matthias Ferrell made his grand entrance a little after 2 a.m. Saturday. No further birth stats were released.

The 39-year-old star of the NASCAR-themed summer hit Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Paulson, a 37-year-old art auctioneer, tied the knot in 2000; their son Magnus will turn three in March.

While making the publicity rounds in November for his latest movie, Stranger Than Fiction, Ferrell let it slip on The Late Show with David Letterman that he was expecting another boy.

Ferrell snagged a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Stranger, a comedy about a mild-mannered tax preparer who discovers he's somehow become the subject of the new novel by a famous author (Emma Thompson).

Next up, Ferrell will be seen in the recently wrapped Blades of Glory, a farce in which he plays a disgraced Olympic ice skater who teams up with his rival, played by Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder, for one last shot at the gold. The film is due in March.

After some time off for diaper duty, he will show off his jump shot as the owner-coach-player of a fictional '70s basketball team in Semi-Pro, costarring André Benjamin. The film is slated for a 2008 release.

Will Ferrell is not a graduate of the "University of California." He is not the "sonn" of Hubert and Mary Ferrell. He was not born in July 1968, and if he had been, he wouldn't be 36 years old.

And, no, he is not dead.

As hoaxes go, Tuesday's press release which purported to announce a fatal paragliding accident involving Ferrell wasn't a terribly convincing one. The item, posted on iNewswire.com, was filled with glaring errors of the spelling, mathematical and factual kind.

"Not much to say other than we heard and read about it this morning and reacted accordingly," Ferrell's publicist Matthew Labov said in an email. "There was no point in trying to track [the source] down as it was obviously a hoax."

Obvious or no, the bogus press release--a step up from the way such so-and-so-is-dead stories are typically spread (i.e., email, radio, word of mouth)--did prompt calls to Labov's office from news organizations. The standard response: Ferrell, 38, son of Kay and Lee Ferrell, graduate of the University of Southern California, is "alive and well, and filming a movie in Montreal."

To put a finer point on it, Labov told E! News that, no, the Anchorman star wasn't paragliding Monday in the San Diego area, as claimed in the release. In fact, according to the rep, Ferrell "never has" paraglided anywhere at anytime.

Josh Meyers could vouch for the actor's lack of paragliding skill. He runs the paragliding company, Airtek, that supposedly employed Ferrell's guide and fellow fatality, Horacio Gomez.

"I have no knowledge of Will Ferrell paragliding," Meyers deadpanned Tuesday.

Likewise, Meyers has no knowledge of a Horacio Gomez, or, for that matter, a paraglider who would perish, Will Ferrell-style, in a crash in the "dense woods."

"If we hit trees, we're just fine," Meyers said. "We never die in trees."

Meyers was struck by the number of inaccuracies in the release. Mostly, though, he was struck by the number of phone calls he fielded from Ferrell-curious reporters, starting with one from the New York Times.

"Imagine checking your voice mail, and not being able to get through them as fast as they're coming in," Meyers said.

Meyers theorized that he was dragged into the drama because if one is going to write about paragliding in San Diego, one is probably going to find his company in a Google search. (Drilling down further, Defamer.com theorized that paragliding was selected as the cause of death because of a Ferrell-spoken line in Wedding Crashers about a deadly hang-gliding accident. Not that paragliding and hang gliding are the same thing. They're not, Meyers said.)

More than once, Meyers referred to himself as "amazed"--amazed that a person, demonstrating "an 8th grade level of literacy," could post a "phony little thing" killing off a well-known actor, and implicating a real-life company.

Perhaps what happened, however, wasn't so much amazing, as human--iNewswire, an online press release service that posts items from both paying and non-paying customers, admittedly let one get by.

"The editor thought it sounded like a real press release," said Eric Borgos, president of Impulse Communications, the parent company of iNewswire. "Maybe the person didn't know who Will Ferrell was, which didn't help."

The Ferrell release went up on iNewswire at about 12 or 1 p.m. (ET), Borgos said. After being asked about it a couple of hours later by inquiring reporters, he said, it was removed from the site.

"The problem is we never really had serious news stories like this before," Borgos said. "In cases like this in the future, we'll definitely check it out."

iNewswire tried, but failed to find the source of the bogus Ferrell story. The trickster, a non-paying customer, used a proxy server--the ISP address can't be traced, Borgos explained. All that's known about the anonymous user is that he or she tried, but failed to post about 10-15 other press releases on the site Tuesday, he said, including one that clarified that "Will Ferrell is not really dead."

"Obviously, I understand how bad it is for everyone on [Ferrell's] end," Borgos said.

Actually, as the followup release correctly pointed out, Ferrell is fine.

Who is Will Ferrell? The answer to Saturday Night Live's host question for May 14.

The former Not Ready for Primetime Player--and dead-on Alex Trebek impersonator--will return to his old comedic stomping ground for the first time since he left three years ago to pursue what has become a blockbuster movie career.

With characters like Craig the Cheerleader, the cowbell-obsessed member of Blue Oyster Cult and schoolteacher Marty Culp, along with impressions of Robert Goulet, President George W. Bush, former Attorney General Janet Reno, Chicago Cubs sportscaster Harry Caray and Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton, Ferrell shot to stardom during his seven-season stint on SNL.

After playing Dr. Evil's hapless henchman Mustaffa in the first two Austin Power films, Ferrell started focusing more on movies, finally leaving SNL when his contract expired in 2002.

Since then, Ferrell, 37, has become Hollywood's go-to funnyguy on the strength of hits like Elf, Anchorman and Old School.

He most recently appeared in Woody Allen's Melinda and Melinda, which opened in March. He has a half-dozen other films on his docket for 2005.

Ferrell next appears as family man/obsessed soccer dad Phil Weston in the comedy Kicking and Screaming, opening May 13.

Then he'll star opposite Nicole Kidman in Bewitched (opens June 24) followed by a bit part in Wedding Crashers (July 15) opposite frequent partners-in-comedy Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn.

By year's end he'll also appear in the musical movie remake The Producers, take a dramatic turn opposite Ed Harris in Winter Passing and cameo in The Wendell Baker Story with Luke Wilson.

And the hardest working man in the funny business shows no signs of slowing down. He plays the Man in the Yellow Hat in the big-screen adaptation of Curious George, due in February 2006, and has several films in various stages of development, including Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, Stranger than Fiction, Talladega Nights, Joan of Bark: The Dog that Saved France and the recently announced Land of the Lost.

That's a load of movies to promote, giving Ferrell ample opportunity to match Chevy Chase, who has the most return appearances by a former cast member, having held down the fort eight times, and possibly top Steve Martin's record of 13 SNL hosting stints.

In Elf, he was a big guy among little people. Now Will Ferrell will have to get used to living with the pint-sized set in real-life.

The former Saturday Night Live funny guy and wife Viveca Paulin celebrated the arrival of a bouncing baby boy last weekend, his publicist confirmed Thursday.

Magnus Paulin Ferrell made his Hollywood debut early Sunday, weighing in at 8 pounds, 12 ounces. It's first child for the couple, who married in 2000.

Ferrell, 36, is coming off a breakout year that saw him star in two hugely successful films--the Animal House paean Old School, which grossed $76 million and has spawned a sequel, and the Yule-themed yukfest Elf, which talled $173 million.

Now considered one of Hollywood's go-to wisecrackers, Ferrell got his start as a Not Ready for Prime Time Player on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2002, where he goofed on President George W. Bush, Jeopardy's Alex Trebek and pompous film buff James Lipton and created such characters as Craig the Spartan Spirit cheerleader and music-mangling teacher Marty Culp.

Ferrell also played inept baddie Mustafa in the Austin Powers franchise, Bob Woodward in Dick, Jesus in Superstar and the fashion-conscious villain Mugatu in Zoolander. Other credits included A Night at the Roxbury, The Ladies Man and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

Ferrell can currently be seen in an unbilled cameo in the just-released spoof Starsky & Hutch. Aside from pulling diaper duty, he'll also keep plenty busy with months to come, with several films on the horizon, including the upcoming summer comedy Anchorman, in which he plays a pompous '70s-era newscaster, and Winter Passing, which will feature him in a dramatic turn.

Then there's the aforementioned Old School sequel, the lead role in the film adapation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Confederacy of Dunces, a turn as Darrin opposite Nicole Kidman's Samantha in the movie version of Bewitched, and one little Magnus will appreciate--the voice of the Man in the Yellow Hat for the CGI adventure Curious George.

Who's going to fill Will Ferrell's shoes? Who'll get Ana Gasteyer's dressing room? And most important of all: Who'll do Dubya?

So many questions, and some answers as NBC's Saturday Night Live nears the start of its 28th season on (when else?) Saturday night.

Matt Damon is set to host the opener, with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band as the musical guest.

In place of the departing Ferrell and Gasteyer, look for two new faces: Fred Armisen and Will Forte.

Armisen has plied his comic trade on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Forte has written for such shows as Late Night with David Letterman and That '70s Show. He's also performed with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv troupe that counts current SNL-ers Chris Kattan, Chris Parnell and Maya Rudolph among its alums.

Technically, Armisen and Forte are not replacements for Ferrell and Gasteyer. The latter were full-fledged cast members, but the newbies are being given the somewhat less-prestigious "featured player" status--until, presumably, they prove they won't freak out on live TV.

Still unknown is who'll portray President Bush. Ferrell was SNL's incumbent White House imitator, but he departed after last season's close to pursue big-screen dreams. (New mom Gasteyer, who gave birth in June, left at the same time.)

SNL exec producer Lorne Michaels tells USA Today that, much like the 2000 election, the decision on the comedy show's new prez will go down to the wire. The casting choice "will literally depend on what's written for the political opening," he says.

One cast member possibly ruled out is Darrell Hammond. Already he's the show's President Clinton, former Veep Al Gore, current Veep Dick Cheney, and Cabinet members Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft. Michaels says Hammond fills out "80 percent of our political cast."

Still, Hammond tells USA Today that, because of things he's overheard on the set, he thinks the Commander in-Chief gig may still be his.

"I'm trying to stay in the middle. The whole idea of preparing this character I might not play is something I'm pretty used to," Hammond says in the paper.

SNL embarks on its new season fresh off its first Emmy win for writing since 1989. Returning cast members include the current "Weekend Update" anchor team of Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey, who is also one of the show's head writers.

Fey predicts President Bush's battle stance against Iraq will be a big target--at least until the shooting starts and "until human lives become involved."

Yes, even a show with 28 years of experience in funny stuff has its limitations.