Hollywood Gets Its Leading Lady Back

Woody Harrelson vehicle dethrones Meatballs in debut weekend

(NEWSER) - Zombieland raked in $25 million to dominate the box office in its debut weekend, easily dethroning Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, which had held the top spot the previous two weekends. The R-rated comic horror movie starring Woody Harrelson drew an overwhelmingly young audience, with 56% under 25, Variety reports. Director Drew Barrymore's Whip It disappointed, taking in just $4.85 million and tying for sixth place with Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. The top five: More»

(NEWSER) - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs dominated the box office for the second straight weekend, racking up $24.6 million in ticket sales and running 10-day total to $60 million. That represents just a 19% fall-off from its opening weekend performance, a notably strong showing in a generally weak autumn market, the Hollywood Reporter notes. Surrogates, a sci-fi flick starring Bruce Willis and a bad wig, lagged expectations in totaling $15 million. More»

(NEWSER) - The Oscars indicate who Hollywood thinks deserves a statue, but if you want to know what insiders really think about stars, start talking money. Forbes did just that, asking industry vets to rank talent based on their ability to make a project pop, from early hype to DVD sales. Here are the top 5.

• Will Smith: His perfect 10 rating comes from a demonstrated ability to draw crowds. His films have made more than $5.2 billion worldwide, and seven of his flicks opened consecutively at No. 1 in the 2000s.

Ex-husband makes the list, too

(NEWSER) - With an ignominious 1:1 ratio of salary to receipts, Nicole Kidman snags the top spot on Forbes’ list of most overpaid movie stars. In other words, her films make a mere $1 for every dollar she’s paid, an average $15 million per flick. Ex-husband Tom Cruise is close behind at No. 3, with Jennifer Garner in the runner-up slot. More»

Franchises, concepts drive movie receipts more than A-list personalities

(NEWSER) - The lure of A-list movie stars is on the wane, the Hollywood Reporter notes after an examination of recent box-office receipts and extensive polling of Tinseltown insiders. Due in part to ubiquity on the internet and magazine racks, big names like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts have seen their films gross far less than those driven by franchises—think Pirates of the Caribbean or Bourne. More»