The Rundown: April 8-14

Hey Quickflixers! Welcome to the latest installment of The Rundown, a new feature that will appear on the blog every Wednesday, highlighting our favourite news items from the past 7 days, as well as notable box office and weekly rental figures.

So, what did we learn this week?

Harrison Ford was cast in Cowboys and Aliens (revealed through director Jon Favreau’s Twitter page), Katherine Heigl stood in-front of a white background next to a handsome co-star – again, and the cast of Mad Men (drunkenly) sang along to Bye Bye Birdie.

In the world of superheroes, it was revealed that The Green Lantern’s suit would be completely computer generated, Logan Lerman was (briefly) considered to be a lock for the new Spider-Man, and Buffy creator Joss Whedon was tapped to direct the Marvel team-up flick The Avengers.

Three big trailers debuted. The first was for Sundance hit and future Oscar contender The Kids Are All Right; the second for Sex and the City 2 (we also glimpsed the very unnatural looking poster – see above) and the third was for the new Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg comedy The Other Guys.

And in our favourite (read: most inexplicable) news item of the week, Chris Rock revealed that he would pen a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s crime thriller High and Low. We look forward to the impending news that Martin Lawrence will write his own remake of a Kurosawa film – Yojimbo. It’ll be called Big Mifune’s House.

Top 5 Quickflix Rentals

1. 2012
2. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
3. The Ugly Truth
4. Paranormal Activity
5. Julie and Julia

In Cinemas This Week

The Book of Eli
Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
Beneath Hill 60

On DVD This Week

The Twilight Saga’s New Moon
The Boys Are Back

On DVD Next Week

The Lovely Bones
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans

Weekend Box Office Apr 8-11*

1. How To Train Your Dragon
WKND = $3,547,843 / TOTAL = $13,486,727
2. Clash Of The Titans
WKND = $3,232,566 / TOTAL = $13,306,445
3. Date Night (M)
WKND = $2,145,150 / TOTAL = $2,145,150
4. Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang
WKND = $1,773,277 / TOTAL = $5,170,533
5. Kick Ass
WKND = $1,645,572 / TOTAL = $1,777,986
6. The Last Song
WKND = $1,462,866 / TOTAL = 4,239,264
7. Alice in Wonderland
WKND = $1,285,747 / TOTAL = 34,763,471
8. She’s Out Of My League
WKND = $592,488 / TOTAL = $2,399,054
9. The Spy Next Door
WKND = $454,519 / TOTAL = $1,492,615
10. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
WKND = $419,024 / TOTAL $2,315,988

*From Urban Cinefile.

Discuss: So, what do you think of this week’s rundown?