During a recent press conference, Will Smith was asked about shooting I Am Legend in New York City. He replied:

“Shooting in New York, especially something on this level, is difficult. I would say, percentage-wise, it’s the most amount of middle fingers I have received in my career. I’m used to people liking me, it’s like fun. Middle fingers, I was starting to think F-U was my name.

We shut down six blocks of Fifth Avenue on a Monday morning. That was probably poor logistics, that was poor planning. You realize you’ve never actually seen an empty shot of New York. When we were doing it, it is chilling to walk down the middle of Fifth Avenue. You never have that opportunity.

Two o’clock in the morning on a Sunday you can’t do that. It created such a creepy energy and there are iconic buildings.

There’s a shot of the U.N. A shot of Broadway. It puts such an icky, eerie feeling on the movie when you see those shots, so logistically it was a nightmare but it absolutely created something you can’t do on a green screen or in another city substituting for New York.

Ellen Page is this season’s breakout star. The young actress is receiving rave reviews for her role in Juno.

So, what does the future hold for Page?

“I’m in An American Crime, which premiered at Sundance, and will hopefully come out next summer,” the actress told MTV. “It’s a really intense film. It’s based on a true story about a girl in ‘65, who was horribly tortured in a woman’s basement.”

From there, Page will resurface next spring in Smart People, a flick about a widowed professor (Dennis Quaid) dealing with new love and the reappearance of his adopted brother.

“It’s produced by Michael London, who produced Sideways,” Page said.

The actress portrays Quaid’s daughter in the film and said about the role: “I play a completely different character from Juno; I play a very bitchy, young Republican… It can often be so easy to judge other people - which is obviously a huge mistake, and it causes a lot of the harm in the world… For a role like this, the important thing is, I can’t judge … [as an actress] you realize, ‘Oh wow, now I know why she is so isolated and angry.’”

Lastly, there’s Jack and Diane.

“I’m shooting a film in the spring with Olivia Thirlby (the cheerleader in Juno),” Page said about the final movie on her current docket, teasing her newfound fans with the promise of love scene between the two Juno best friends (in the flick, Page is a teenage lesbian werewolf). “I have a film lined up for the summer, too - so it’s all chugging along.”

Anyone who has seen Borat knows Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t shy about getting naked.

As Signor Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, though, the actor’s privates aren’t entirely natural.

“Yeah, we augmented,” Sweeney Todd’s two-time Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood said about Cohen’s rather large chunk of manhood in the flick.

Not surprisingly, it was Cohen’s idea to enlarge his romantic region for the film. His body-hugging pants were stuffed with “a little quilted thing.”

Of course, it’s not so little. But Atwood said she hopes it comes off somewhat authentic.

“We tried different materials and different sizes and positions,” Atwood said, trying not to laugh too hard. “You kind of forget what you’re doing, and you’re just sort of looking at what looks the best. I like if a lot of people think it’s real.”

Forget The Joker or even Batman himself for a moment.

Check out this picture from The Dark Knight, as the Caped Crusader rides to the scene of a crime aboard his Batpod. We gotta get one of those…

As we get closer and closer to Iron Man, no doubt we’ll find the movie on everything from action figures to lunch boxes.

With that in mind, here’s a look at the first marketing efforts for the movie: the Iron Man video game:

Josh Brolin is a wanted man these days. Following his turn in No Country for Old Men, the actor is entertaining numerous offers.

There’s one movie, however, he hopes never comes across his table.

“Why do people want there to be a Goonies sequel?” asks the actor, reasonably. “There’s two ways it could go – to me, it’d be interesting to see a sequel because it’s been so long, 23 years or something. So now, you’d have me, a 40-year-old guy whose probably drinking now, chain-smoking… I don’t fuckin’ know (Laughs).

But to me, the whole idea of going from “I love The Goonies, which is a classic” to “I love The Goonies, what a classic, but did you see the new one?” ….You know what I mean?”

Brolin is signed on, however, for Milk. He’ll star alongside Sean Penn.

“Yeah. I’m really happy about that. I’ve had a lot of scripts come across that are edible, and I’ve been reading them all, and I read Milk and I think Sean [Penn], who I’ve known for a while, kinda lobbied for me to do it. I think Matt Damon was supposed to do it, but he left. I read it and I just loved it man. There was no question.

A lot of the scripts you read you’re asking yourself ‘is this really going to come together? Will they change some of the dialogue?’… This script is just perfect. It’s an amazing story that should be told. It’s Sean, it’s Gus Van Sant, and it’s Emile Hirsch – who I love – so it’s all good. But I’m basically doing it for free – these great roles, I don’t get paid shit. I don’t know why.”

Get excited, fans!

The entire cast of 2005’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is coming back to reprise their roles in the movie’s sequel, hitting theaters on August 8, 2008. They include:

Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) as Lena, America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) as Carmen, Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) as Tibby and Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) as Bridget.

Still glowing from his starring role in 300, Gerard Butler is the action star du jour.

With that in mind, sources tell CHUD that the actor is in talks to star in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Reportedly, Karl Urban had been in talks to play Creed - the dude who would become Sabretooth - but that has fallen through.

Will this casting coup really take place? It’s possible. Butler’s schedule has opened up because the Escape from New York remake he had been penciled in for has come apart.

We’ll let you know when we learn more. But who wouldn’t love to see Hugh Jackman do battle with Gerard Butler?!?

With Golden Globe nominations being handed out this week, a pair of dramas are in line to score top billing.

There Will Be Blood was named 2007’s Best Picture by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association last weekend, with Paul Thomas Anderson winning Best Director and Daniel Day-Lewis nabbing a Best Actor award for the movie.

French actress Marion Cotillard was named Best Actress for La Vie en Rose.

Daniel Day-Lewis stars in There Will Be Blood.

Meanwhile, The Boston Society of Film Critics named Ethan and Joel Coen’s No Country for Old Men as the year’s best film, with it star, Javier Bardem, winning Best Supporting Actor.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly won the Boston award for Best Foreign Film, while Butterfly director Julian Schnabel beat out the Coens for Best Director. The Washington, D.C, Area Film Critics Association also named No Country for Old Men as its top film choice.

If you didn’t know Ray Winstone before this year, you know him now.

The British actor scored a lead role in Beowulf and will soon star opposite Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The thespian spoke to IGN soon after picking up an Honorary Richard Harris Award at the recent British Independent Film Awards:

IGN: Congratulations! You sounded genuinely touched in your acceptance speech.
Ray Winstone: Well, it’s a complete honour, isn’t it? [Richard Harris] was someone I watched as a kid, and I was lucky enough to meet him. In fact one of the times I met him was the night before 9/11 in Toronto, sitting in a wine bar with Richard talking about films we’d just done. I’d watched him in This Sporting Life and it did quite honestly change my outlook.

It really opened the doors for people like me or people from Liverpool or Coventry or wherever. Probably I didn’t even realise it at the time but those kind of films, Look Back in Anger, This Sporting Life, it’s like a circle that’s gone round. If you’d asked me twenty years ago, I’d have said ‘Bollocks, awards what do they mean?’ but I’ve got to be honest with you, it does give you a lot of confidence to go on and do what you want to do and it’s a great thing when people in your industry say well done and you feel accepted.

I’m overwhelmed by it.

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