In the least shocking news ever, Transformers: Dark of the Moon absolutely destroyed the weekend box office, making $97.4 million over the weekend and $162.1 million over it’s five days of release.  It’s now the highest grossing Independence Day weeekend release of all time and the ninth highest five day opening of all time.  In other record breaking news, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides crossed the $1 billion mark over the weekend, putting it in seventh place on the all time highest gross list, ahead of The Dark Knight and behind Alice in Wonderland.  In a pretty distant second was last week’s number one, Cars 2, which made another $25 million but dropped 62% from last week.  Bad Teacher dropped down to third with $14.1 million and the two other new releases of the weekend barely registered with Larry Crowne coming in at fourth place with $13 million and Monte Carlo came in at $7.6 million.  The only other big movement was from Green Lantern, which plummeted from third to seventh.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2

Conviction

Never Let Me Go

Monsters

Hatchet II

Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition

Best Soundtrack: Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Best Score: Tron: Legacy

Best Cameo: Bruce Willis/Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Expendables

Best New TV Show: The Walking Dead

MIA Award: The Red Dawn Remake

Best Exaggeration of Real Life Events: Unstoppable

Best Titular Line: Faster

Best Use of 3D: Jackass 3D

Most Realistic Use of Computers: The Social Network

Wicked Awesome (aka Best Boston Accents Award) Award: The Town

Mind Fuck of the Year: Inception

Best Erasing of Past Movies: Predators pretending Predators 2 never happened

Most Horrifying Moment: The Toy Story gang almost burning in an incinerator

Best Commercial for China: The Karate Kid

Best Team of Covert Operatives/Mercenaries: The Expendables

Just Getting to the Good Part Award: Robin Hood

Best Comic Book Movie: Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Biggest Plot Holes: Clash of the Titans

Warmed Our Cold Hearts Award: Toy Story 3

Best Time Travel Device: Hot Tub Time Machine

The “That’s Enough Tim Burton” Award: Alice in Wonderland

Best Buddy Cops: The Other Guys

M. Night Shymalan  “What a Twist!” Award: Shutter Island

Road to Recovery Award: Nicolas Cage

Good Timing Award: Edge of Darkness, coming out a few months before Mel’s implosion

Steven Seagal Direct to DVD Award: The Killing Machine

Lincoln Hawks Memorial Over the Top Award: The A-Team

Ass Kicker of the Year: The Expendables

Movie of the Year: The Expendables

This week the unrestrained tangent following of Zach, Joe and Chris talks about the possible inspiration for The Dark Knight Rises, the many faults Watchmen, the appeal of Anthony Bourdain and the perfect video game version of Inception.

• Show and Tell: Chris watched Faster (as did Zach), Surf Ninjas, and also watched a bunch of Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations.  Joe watched Crazy Heart and The Ultimate Fighter finale, and Zach watched the series finale of Terriers, Watchmen: Director’s Cut and Operation: Endgame.  All the guys, of course, watched the season finale of The Walking Dead as well.
• News: The Back to the Future game gets a trailer, Inception is possibly going to be turned into a video game, Batman: Prey is potentially the basis for The Dark Knight Rises and more details about the Burn Notice prequel movie plus Dexter gets renewed.  All that plus the New Release Round Up.
• Tim Burton: It’s the 20th anniversary of Edward Scissorhands so the guys take that as an opportunity to talk about the director’s storied career; starting out with Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and all the way to this year’s Alice in Wonderland.

We want to hear your comments, feedback and, most importantly, suggestions for discussion topics. Send them all to contact@everythingaction.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to us in the iTunes music store (just do a search for Everything Actioncast in the store) and follow us on twitter @evaction and on Facebook.

Inception

Shrek Forever After

Restrepo

Boy Meets World Season 4

Alice in Wonderland (3D Blu Ray)

Cronos (Criterion Collection)

Lost in Translation (Blu Ray)

Videodrome (Criterion Collection)

Rush Hour (Blu Ray)

The Deep (Blu Ray)

St. Elmo’s Fire (Blu Ray)

Half Past Dead (Blu Ray)

This week we welcome our first guest host, Chris’ friend Joe, and talk about great future roles for master thespian Gary Busey, the terrible lessons taught by Rookie of the Year, the lost 80′s classic Solarbabies,  movie news and our top 5 favorite TV to Movie adaptations.

• Show and Tell: Brian watched Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland and subjected himself to the MTV Movie Awards, Chris goes back to the mid 90′s with Rookie of the Year, Zach checked out the premieres of Burn Notice and Royal Pains, Solarbabies and the animated apocalypse of 9.  Joe closes us out with some quick thoughts on the video game Red Dead Redemption.
• News: The Crow reboot moving forward, Captain America and Thor concept photos, the return of Thundercats and the trailer for Norwegian Ninja.  Also the New Release Round Up.
• Top 5: We share our top 5 favorite TV to Movie adaptations inspired by this weekend’s release of The A-Team.  Joe also gives us his four TV shows that should have gotten a movie.

We want to hear your comments, feedback and, most importantly, suggestions for discussion topics. Send them all to contact@everythingaction.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to us in the iTunes music store (just do a search for Everything Actioncast in the store) and follow us on twitter @evaction.

Chris returns from his whirlwind tour of the West Coast to join Zach and Brian for another exciting episode of the Everything Actioncast.

• Show and Tell: Chris saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and MacGruber, Brian checked out Big Fan and Zach rewatched Children of Men and also watched three very different mystery movies with Brick, Fletch and Mystery Team.
• News: Alice in Wonderland makes over $1 billion, Platinum Dunes making the next TMNT movie, we remember Dennis Hopper’s best roles and check out the trailer for Lost Boys 3: The Thirst.
• Total Recall: This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Arnold classic Total Recall so the guys talk about their favorite parts and, as a bonus, get side tracked into a continuation of last week’s video game movies talk.

If you like what you hear (or don’t) please leave us some feedback or send in a comment. Our e-mail is contact@everythingaction.com and you can also find us on Twitter @evaction or on Facebook. To not miss an episode, definitely subscribe to the podcast in the iTunes music store and give us a rating and feedback there as well.

Alice in Wonderland

Burn Notice Season 3

The Wolfman

Life

Rescue Me Season Five

Aqua Teen Hunger Force Vol. Seven

War of the Worlds (Blu Ray)

Bad Boys (Blu Ray)

The Man with No Name Trilogy (Blu Ray)

Heartbreak Ridge (Blu Ray)

Absolute Power (Blu Ray)

Sudden Impact/The Enforcer (Blu Ray)

The Rookie (Blu Ray)

I thought that most people enjoyed Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland but I didn’t think it would do the apparently insane amount of business it did overseas.  The movie has, as of today, made $667 million at the international box office and $332 million domestically, making it the sixth film to earn $1 billion dollars worldwide.  It joins the ranks of The Dark Knight, Avatar, Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

Despite pretty negative reviews, especially about how bad it’s 3D conversion was, Clash of the Titans dominated the weekend box office with $$61.2 million.  Tyler Perry continues his inexplicable string of hits with his latest, Why Did I Get Married, Too?, which made $29.2 and took home the second spot.  Last week’s number one, How to Train Your Dragon, only dropped 33% and made another $29 million.  The other new release, The Last Song, made $16 million over the weekend but actually made $25 million due to it’s coming out on a Wednesday.  Alice in Wonderland took a big hit due to Clash of the Titans stealing a bunch of it’s 3D screens.  It made $8.2 million which is a 53% drop from the previous week.  Nothing else too big happened over the weekend and I expect Clash to remain strong as it’s only new competition is Date Night.

Sherlock Holmes

Alice in Wonderland Un-Anniversary Edition

An Education

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Steven Seagal: Lawman Season One

Collateral (Blu Ray)

The Killer (Blu Ray)

Backed by overwhelmingly positive critical response and not too much competition, How to Train Your Dragon easily took the top spot at the box office this weekend.  The movie took in $43.3 million, slightly lower than Monsters vs Aliens which came out around this time last year, but still decent for March.  This bumped Alice in Wonderland down to second with $17.3 million and losing 355 theaters.  The other new movie, Hot Tub Time Machine, came in a lower than expected third with $13.7 million.  Last week’s surprisingly strong number two, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, couldn’t last and dropped down to fifth with $10 million.  The only other big mover was Repo Men, which is rapidly falling off the charts.  Last week it debuted in fourth place and this week it dropped down to ninth pulling in only a little over $3 million.  This weekend has the much hyped Clash of the Titans coming out, which is also 3D, so we’ll see if Dragon can hold onto the top spot.

Alice in Wonderland continues to dominate the number one spot at the box office. Tim Burton’s latest racked up another $34 million this weekend bringing it’s total to just over $265 million. The new movies proved to be stronger than expected with The Bounty Hunter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid battling it out for second. Wimpy Kid squeezed out the victory, making just over $22 million while The Bounty Hunter took in $20.6 million. In a distant fourth was the other new release, Repo Men, which managed just over $6 million. Last week’s 2,3 and 4 all moved down to 5,6 and 7 while maintaining their same order. The only other big mover is Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer, which expanded over the weekend and took the eleventh spot, up from fifteen. Can Alice hold up against fellow 3D movie How to Train Your Dragon or could Hot Tub Time Machine take home the crown?

Alice in Wonderland destroyed everything in it’s path this weekend, easily making more than the rest of the top ten combined and probably even the top 20 combined. Tim Burton’s latest pulled in $116 million, making $41 million of that on opening day alone. In a distant second was the other new release, Brooklyn’s Finest, which made $13.3 million and just barely beating Shutter Island in it’s third week. The rest of the field suffered between 40%-50% drop offs, with the only exception being Crazy Heart. Four movies are opening this weekend but none really strong enough to take on Alice, especially if it maintains it’s momentum.

Alice in Wonderland

Starring: Johnny Depp, Mia Wasilkowska, Anne Hathawy, Helena Bonham-Carter

Directed by: Tim Burton

Plot: Alice returns to Wonderland to find it under the control of the evil Red Queen and must reunite with her old friends, like the Mad Hatter, to save it.

Rotten Tomatoes Freshness: 58%

Critic Consensus: “Tim Burton’s Alice sacrifices the book’s minimal narrative coherence — and much of its heart — but it’s an undeniable visual treat.”

Brooklyn’s Finest

Starring: Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes

Directed by: Antoine Fuqua

Plot: The lives of three cops are transformed when they get involved in a drug operation.

RT Freshness: 33%

Critic Consensus: “It’s appropriately gritty, and soaked in the kind of palpable tension Antoine Fuqua delivers so well, but Brooklyn’s Finest suffers from the comparisons its cliched script provokes.”

It was pretty disappointing last night in terms of Super Bowl movie trailers.  The Wolfman, Alice in Wonderland and Prince of Persia all had ads but there was nothing really new about them compared to previous trailers.  The only new trailer was for The Last Airbender.  The movie is based on the extremely popular Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender but they had to drop the Avatar in order to avoid confusion with a certain other movie.  I’ve never seen the show but from what I gather there are different warring nations that control different elements such as water and fire.  Our hero is the only person in the world who can control the power of wind and air.  The movie is being directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who I don’t trust as far I can throw him but it might be interesting to see how he fares with an adaptation of an established franchise instead of his rapidly diminishing original fare.  Check out the trailer below and the movie is coming out this summer.

January

Daybreakers- In the not too distant future, almost everyone on the planet has been turned into a vampire.  Those that aren’t are either farmed for blood or make up a small resistance movement.  It’s got some big names like Willem Defoe, Sam Neill and Ethan Hawke but it doesn’t look like anything special.

Youth in Revolt- Michael Cera stars in this adaptation of the book of the same name as both Nick and his bad boy alter ego Francois as he tries to get with the girl of the dreams and not get arrested because of what Francois does.  The hipsters will probably eat this up with a spoon.

The Book of Eli- This one looks awesome.  Denzel Washington makes his way through a post apocalyptic wasteland, defending his precious book and beating down anyone who tries to stop him.  Gary Oldman looks like he’s in full on crazy villain mode as well so I’m pretty excited for this one.

Legion- Another view of the apocalypse, this time God gets fed up with humanity and sends angels to kill everyone.  However, Archangel Michael joins a small band of people to defend a waitress who might be pregnant with the second coming of Jesus.  This one is looking like one of the aforementioned “dump it in the early part of the year” movies.

Edge of Darkness- Mel Gibson is back in front of the camera in this revenge thriller.  Gibson plays Thomas Craven, a detective who takes his daughter’s murder into his own hands.  Last year we had the awesome Taken, which had a similar premise so it might be hard for this one to live up to that.  It will be interesting to see Mel back in front of the camera and see if he can still kick ass.

February

From Paris with Love- Speaking of Taken, Pierre Morel, who directed it, has another action movie up his sleeve with From Paris with Love.  Starring Jonathan Rhys Myers and John Travolta, who are reluctant partners who have to foil terrorists in Paris.  I’m sure the action will be good but will we all be distracted by Travolta shaved head and beard combo?

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief- It’s gonna be a big year for Greek Mythology with this, Clash of the Titans and God of War III.  Based on a series of books, the story follows a group of teens who discover they are actually the offspring of Greek gods and they must team up to catch a thief who stole Zeus lightning.  I’m seeing lots of hype for this one, can it step out of the shadow of Harry Potter and become the next big fantasy franchise?

The Wolfman- This one is looking great from the trailers and has an extremely strong cast including Benicio Del Toro, Hugo Weaving, Emily Blunt and Anthony Hopkins.  Vampires are the monster du jour right now so I’m wondering if people will be interested in their hairy cousins.

Shutter Island- Shutter Island was supposed to be out in November of last year but got pushed back to February.  I hope this isn’t a comment on it’s quality because it looks good from the trailer.  Coming from Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, it’s about a pair of US Marshalls investigating the disappearance of an inmate of the asylum on the titular island.  It looks pretty creepy but my one fear is that there’s a fairly obvious twist ending that I hope they avoid.

Cop Out- Kevin Smith’s first directing gig without writing it is looking fairly generic from the trailers.  Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis as cop partners seems like a great idea but I’m skeptical.

The Crazies- A remake of a George A. Romero movie, The Crazies looks extremely creepy and like everything The Happening wishes it was.  A small town’s residents start to go insane and start killing each other and the sheriff, his wife and a small band of survivors must escape before the Army destroys the town.  I’m a sucker for zombie and related movies so I’ll probably check this one out.

March

Alice in Wonderland- Tim Burton plus Alice in Wonderland is pretty much a match made in heaven and the movie is looking like a visual smorgasbord.  All the classic characters have gotten the Burton treatment with Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter stealing most of the limelight.  It’s also not a strict retelling as it’s kind of like a sequel as Alice returns to Wonderland to find the Red Queen controlling the land.

Green Zone- Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon reteam for the new action movie Green Zone.  Based in Iraq, it follows a CIA agent trying to find weapons of mass destruction and higher up terrorist leaders.  Greengrass and Damon have given us some of the best action movies of the decade in the Bourne series but Iraq war movies have been notoriously underwhelming, with a few exceptions like The Kingdom or The Hurt Locker.  Hopefully this will buck the trend.

Hot Tub Time Machine- A hot tub/time machine sends John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Rob Corddry and Clark Duke back into the 80′s.  Great cast and great potential for jokes make me excited for this one.

Clash of the Titans- “It Guy” of the moment Sam Worthington stars in this remake of the classic tale of Greek mythology.  It looks like it’s taking lots of inspiration from God of War and going in an “extreme” direction but it looks like it has great special effects and could be a fun ride.  The Krakken at the end of the latest trailer also is huge and should be awesome on the big screen.  It might lack the charm of the original, with it’s robotic owls and stop motion.

Tron Legacy

Zach: Let me just change my pants here…ok.  What else can you really say other than this looks awesome.  The original Tron was the first movie to really feature CG and this one looks like it’s going to try to kick it up to the next level.  From seeing some of the concept art it looks like they’re going to be updating Jai Alai and Disc as well as the light bikes in the trailer.  I think this and possibly Avatar in 3D are going to explode people’s brains out the back of their skulls.

Brian: I was expecting a jump in the CGI, but… wow. That is just jaw-dropping. Got to love the light bikes, too. It’s impossible to do a movie like this and NOT have in 3D. I’ll be waiting with ticket in hand when this sequel comes out.

Alice in Wonderland

Zach:  If you thought the promo photos were freaky, wait till you see Johnny Depp in action as the Mad Hatter.  Seeing this trailer, it’s pretty obvious that Tim Burton is the perfect choice for directing a Wonderland movie, it was already kind of freaky but Burton takes it to the next level.  It’s got a great look and I can’t wait to see Burton’s take on all the Wonderland natives.

Brian: Tim Burton is known for his creepy-but-cool movies, and picking him to do an update of “Alice in Wonderland” was a perfect choice. Especially after watching the trailer. Burton also deserves credit for going with a little known actress in the title role rather than some popular Hollywood bimbo who could’ve turned it into a star vehicle. Another impressive looking trailer.

Ninja Assassin

Zach:  Never heard about this one till the trailer came out last week at Comic Con and online but we have Korean pop star Rain starring in Ninja Assassin.  It looks like your typical martial arts/action movie with fights in a building on fire, in the rain, ninjas, that sort of thing.  I also don’t know about Rain’s acting ability, if there is such a thing.  Seems like a DVD rental/catch it on USA sort of thing.

Brian: I enjoy ninja flicks as much as the next person, but lately just all seem to be about betrayal and other similar targets. Meh. This trailer doesn’t really excite me, especially with its corny cliche dialogue (“They won’t stop until you’re dead.”) I agree with Zach here, a rental or late night viewing at best.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Zach: Apparently someone high up enjoyed our buddy Mike Parker’s CollegeHumor show “Clock Suckers” because this movie is kind of the exact same thing.  Well, instead of a bath tub it’s a hot tub.  This seems like it could be good though; it’s got a great cast with John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Clark Duke and Craig Robinson as the gang who travels via hot tub to 1986.  I loved Craig Robinson’s cocaine fueled freak out about Terminator and there’s probably some jokes still to mine about 80′s pop culture.

Brian: Ah, a goofy comedy. Don’t know how I feel about this one, seems like a movie Jack Black turned down. But Craig Robinson is hilarious, and so is Rob Corddry. But the real dark horse here is John Cusack whose involvement is interesting to say the least. Might be a fun movie, who knows.

Jennifer’s Body

Zach:  So here’s the dilemna with this movie, on the one hand you have Megan Fox, half naked and a cheerleader and on the other hand it’s written by Diablo Cody, who let Juno out onto the world and caused me to almost foam at the mouth by how pissed off it made me.  It seems like they want a sort of Evil Dead meets Species thing going on but I’m dubious because besides Sam Raimi, there aren’t a lot of people who can pull off horror/comedy sucessfully.  We’ll have to see how it fares when it comes out later this year.

Brian: The trailer’s been removed. Also, this movie is written by Diablo Cody and starring Megan Fox. Don’t even need to watch it. PASS.

Sherlock Holmes

Zach:  After Iron Man, I’m pretty much down for whatever Robert Downey Jr. is doing and Sherlock Holmes looks like it could be a lot of fun.  Guy Ritchie has been sort of lackluster lately, I’ve heard, but it looks like there’s some cool stuff going on including the boxing with “Fight Night” like slo mo and Holmes’ patented cane fighting  and it’s got a sense of humor as well.  I might have to check it out when it comes out.

Brian: Ritchie said in an interview how he culled a bit about Holmes being a little proficient in karate. The trailer is pretty fun and funny even though I’m not too keen on Rachel McAdams being the female lead. I have faith that even if the movie’s a little bit sucky, Downey Jr. will find a way to pull it out. I’ll be watching.