1) G-Force — $32.2. million
As we bemoaned earlier, the success of this film likely means that there will be many, many more awful animation/live-action hybrids to come. Oh, look! Here's one already! The thing about these movies that's really annoying is that because there are live action elements in them, the filmmakers seem to feel like, for some reason, they can be a bit more risque. Because, what?, adults are going to go because they want to see Jason Lee embarrass himself? Whatever the reasoning, it ends up with us having to see poop eating and stuff. Jokes that the classy Pixar and its classy-wannabes would never stoop to. Because animation is art. And live-action is everything else. So live-action/animation is... just pure shit. I mean poop. Eat it.

2) Harry Potter and the Dumbledore Dies — $30 million
Not that this movie is doing bad or anything. It's already grossed like $220 million in the States, not to mention the foreign box office, but still... This thing couldn't beat motherfucking G-Force? 'Tis a sad day for Potterville. Maybe number six is just too dark. What with the gloom and emotions and turmoil and people dying and stuff. Good thing no one dies in the last bo—... Oh. Oh wait. Shit. I mean poop.

3) The Awful Truth — $27 million
Even though this movie seems toxic and horrid, it still did pretty well. Even though Katherine Heigl has, somehow, squandered most of the good will she earned before/during/after Knocked Up, it still did pretty well. Even though Gerard Butler is nothing more than a poorly-accented talking leg of mutton, it still did pretty well. Even though John Michael Higgins and Cheryl Hines were crying all the way to the bank on this one, it still did pretty well. Even though there is no discernible reason why anyone, short of self-loathing masochists, would want to see this apparently dreadful "film", it still actually did really well. Poop. I mean shit.

4) Orphan — $12.8 million
DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE SUPER SECRET SPOILER ENDING. But why wouldn't you want to? Because it is awesome. Orphan is a movie about a secret dwarf who kills people. It is not about a creepy demon kid. It is not about a ghost possessing a child. It is not about a weird cult that pretends to be an orphanage. Nope. Orphan is about a secret hooker 33-year-old dwarf who kills people. It did pretty OK for a horror B-movie in the thick of gushy summer. A movie about a nearing-middle-age Estonian dwarf who kills people did pretty well against a movie about computer guinea pigs who solve crimes for real humans. SHIT.

11) (500) Days of Summer — $1.63 million
Ohhh twee indie success! Though only open on less than a hundred screens, this gimmicky and highly cultivated feature is doing a nice, tidy little business. We here at the Gawkerdrome didn't care for it as much as we hoped to. It just felt... way too forced. And really derivative (in a bad way) of the farrrrr superior Eternal Sunshine. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is like having a delicious chocolate-chip sundae talk to you, and other things look really pretty too, but as a whole it's just a far more conventional film than it seems to think it is. (It clearly thinks very highly of itself. And, sadly, it shouldn't.) Ah well. Good for it anyway.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince grossed a magical $58.4 million. It pulled in $22.2 million in midnight shows. Can some one talk to J.K. Rowling about giving America an loan? [ Variety ]

Right now, with it being the End of Days and all, what would you do with $240 million dollars? Finance a James Cameron 3D movie about a band of humans pitted against a distant planet's indigenous population? OBVIOUSLY! [LAT]

Tyler Perry makes Forbes' list of 2008's highest-paid men in Hollywood. The children of Israel round out the list. So they control the movies and the banks! How do they do it?[/Film]

Fox's telecast All-Star Game delivered an average audience of 14.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched midsummer classic since 2002 — even without Jon Hamm's sexy hands gripping a bat. [THR]

Nick Hornby's An Education has gotten some pretty rave reviews. It looks to be poised as a real Oscar contender. The trailer, filled with British accents, does like pretty titillating. [Variety ]

So you're in a bar last night and there's a girl in sweater vest, tie, plaid skirt, holding a wand, and she has a zig-zag drawing on her face. You order a drink. She orders one too. She giggles and coos with the rest of her broom-swinging friends. You know this girl.

She's your friend's younger sister and you remember what she looked like when she was 12. And she's in your bar, in costume, getting sloshed while waiting for a kid's movie to start.
What does it all mean? For starters, it means you're old.

Second, as somebody who is stitching together her Slytherin scarf right now, I can tell you that the 25-year-old hipster in the knee-socks does geniunely love Harry Potter! We grew up with him. You guys had Remo Williams or some shit but we have this totally charming, decent, wizard fella who is nice to look at and lives in a world of rich political and cultural complexity!

Order of the Phoenix was obviously a political tome about infantilizing effect totalitarian rule has on its citizenry (also maybe an allegory for torture given Ms. Umbridge's approval of 'hard interrogation tactics'?) And the 'Half-Blood Prince' (which also happens to be my pet name for our weekend editor) is a tale of masculine anxiety in a war time state. It's also about potions. Which is totally sweet!

So Old Person, now you know. And godspeed to those young, underpaid, bleary eyed office workers of today who still can't get that marker stain off their forehead. We'll see you in line for the second round tonight! Be sure to send us your pics!

Pictures Via Flickr

New York's Jada Yuan reported seeing the following interaction at Friday's NYC premiere of the new Harry Potter movie. Harry Potter (muggle name: Daniel Radcliffe) was doing red carpet interviews, charming people along the way. A gaggle of reporters gets in his face. One of them is an 11 year-old cutie from Scholastic.

Radcliffe (to other reporters): "One moment, one moment. I will come back to you. [Locks eyes with Scholastic News girl] Hello!"

Girl: "Hey. I'm Danielle from Scholastic News."

Radcliffe: "Hello, Danielle! Pleasure to meet you."

Danielle: "This is an HONOR to interview you."

Radcliffe: "Oh, thank you. You're very sweet. Thank you."

Danielle: "I've seen the first and second movies and read the first and second book and they are SO good. Especially the movies. I loved them, the movies!"

Radcliffe: "Thank you very much. You're very, very kind. They get even better than that, though, so when you get time or when your parents think you're old enough, you must watch the rest. They're very cool."

And then:

Other reporter: "Daniel, how…"

Radcliffe: "One moment, one moment."

Other reporter: "They told us to group together."

Radcliffe: "It will happen. One second, sorry." [re-focuses on Danielle]

Danielle: "How did Harry change from the first movie to the second? I mean, the sixth?"

Radcliffe: "To the sixth? Well, he grew marginally taller. The films have gotten a lot darker since that first film, so I think he has had to get a lot tougher since then. Thank you very much."

Danielle [holding breath, then nearly dropping mike]: "Oh. My. God. Oh. My. God. That was soooo cool!"

There's a little more where that came from. Why can't all movie stars be like the Harry Potter kids? Maybe they'll start to be. Even though Harry Potter reaps its millions of successes (read: dollars) on the strength of the actual franchise property, it surely can't hurt that parents can find something to enjoy in letting their kids be influenced by its key players. Even Radcliffe didn't have his parent-approval rating hurt by letting his cock hang out on the West End and Broadway in Equus. Who'd of thought? Young, million-dollar movie stars as role models to kids. Magic!

Update: Here's Danielle version of her encounter with the wizard one.

The Wall Street Journal does a little comparative study of the two franchises' marketing strategies, focusing mainly on the about-to-drop (squee!) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. See, there's a little romance in that book, and Twilight is all about romance, so is that vampire story's mega success responsible for the HP posters that front-and-center tout hot, hot teen wizard love? The producers say no!

"With all due respect to "Twilight," the longevity and world-wide success of the Harry Potter franchise speaks for itself," a studio representative said.

Ha. As it should be. Twilight is a blip on the cultural radar compared to the Harry Potter phenomenon—the provenance of chastely horny teenage girls and lonely, approaching middle age hobby LARPers, whereas Harry and Co. have the mass and broad appeal of a Da Vinci Code (only they're much, much better.) Though, if we're honest with our Potter-obsessed selves, it's hard to believe that the smoldering and yearning of Twilight—such catnip!—had nothing to do with the smoldering and yearning poster shown here.

The Twilight producers, for their part, are respectably cognizant of their big brother's long shadow:

"It's the only franchise that we ever pay attention to," says Rob Friedman, chief executive and co-chairman of Summit Entertainment. "We are very cognizant of where they are, and we've always been wary of being in too close proximity to ‘Harry Potter' because we know our fans cross over so much, and we definitely don't want to compete with ‘Harry' for attention."

Damn right. Wizard beats vampire, every time.

[CLICK IMAGE TO EXPAND]

• ! OMG, more naked Daniel Radcliffe !! [omgblog].

She was sighted at approximately 10:30 yesterday morning at Quincy House by Chase Russell ’11 and Brian P. Hill ’11. [...]

Hill said he nearly collided with one of Watson’s escorts while leaving the House, before unthinkingly saying he was on his way to class. Watson then went to visit the room of the next student she approached, much to Hill’s chagrin.

“I actually called my mom; I was so distraught,” he said. “It was all I could think about for the entire morning.”

Other unconfirmed reports placed Watson around campus at the Admissions Office, the Barker Center and Annenberg Hall — which is often said to evoke the Great Hall at Hogwarts, the fictional wizarding school at which Hermione studies.

Other unconfirmed reports had sixth-year senior Chris Oberkfell '07 far less distraught after running into Watson on her downlow "pub evaluation tour" of Boston, at the end of which Oberkfell was paid handsomely to delete grainy cell-phone images he had snapped while the young star tested each establishment's wares for quality. Luckily, we'll always have our memories. We can hardly wait to see how the Washington Square News follows this tomorrow.

• ‘Hermione’ Enchants Campus With Visit [Harvard Crimson via CollegeOTR]

Watson, who apparently garnered straight A's in high school finishing exams (Ooh! Sounds fancy!), says she hopes to be a part of a liberal arts program in the U.S. But after recent reports that new student James Franco was being stalked by hordes of psycho freshman while studying at the Columbia University library, we've learned the campus grounds aren't the safest confines for the cream of Young Hollywood's crop.

In fact, some schools are flat out rejecting stars for the unwanted distraction they bring to the classroom. Last spring, Brooke Hogan was denied admission at three colleges in Florida when she was told the nine-camera production team behind her VH1 reality show Brooke Knows Best would disrupt the academic livelihood of other students - which is unfortunate, as she clearly needs the education.

At the University of Southern California, the fine institution from which I recently graduated, there were many "star" students. Freshman year, Lee Thompson Young, vaguely known for his starring role on Disney's long-lost series The Famous Jett Jackson, was constantly ridiculed for his penchant for wearing exclusively all-white ensembles around campus ... classy. When Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos was boning Paris, girls used to flock to his English classes in the hopes of impressing him with their knowledge of Kafka. And rumor had it that David Gallagher, who played that goody-two-shoes with a bowl cut Simon from 7th Heaven, was a huge stoner who shacked up with a stripper in a house off campus.

Point being: Hermione - no matter what you do, you're probably screwed.

• Emma Watson Applies to U.S. Colleges [People]

Jean Fink, a 51-year-old Los Angeles artist who also works as an administrative assistant, was so distraught after a night of fitful sleep that she dashed off a scathing message to the man who'd betrayed her. "I can't breath amymore [sic] because you just ripped out my heart," she wrote in an Aug. 15 email. ...

Kerry McGee, a 24-year-old office administratoPhase of r from Townsville, Australia, says Mr. Horn's attempt to create a positive spin on the delay "put fuel on the fire." In response to Mr. Horn's apology she sent 30 angry letters to Warner Bros. in bright red envelopes — an allusion to "howlers," a magical kind of hate mail in the Potter world that screams loudly at the recipient and explodes violently if left unopened.

The Journal features a fine collection of other strongly and/or wrongly worded e-mails, as well as a referral to some of the fan reaction videos that have arrived on YouTube. We've sampled a selection below for your review, but be advised that the raw frustration and geekery on display may be disturbing to some viewers. All we need now to close this particular circle of hell is a reaction video from Horn — let's hope he survives long enough to deliver.

[YouTube video courtesy of Tristian Crider, lorinjj, tomasdacorta, xxToxicInsanity, snapiekins, lovesallbooks]

• Voldemort Hath No Fury Like Angry Harry Potter Fans [WSJ via Hero Complex]

I ask him about other dream parts: Super-villain? Terrorist? Sex fiend? "I think part of me would love to play a drag queen," Radcliffe says, "just because it would be an excuse to wear loads of eye makeup."

Perhaps he could borrow some mascara from the cougar he lost his virginity to? Oh yes, read on:

Ever since Equus added a kinky twist to the end of one of the most well-attended puberties of the decade, Radcliffe's passage into adulthood has been the stuff of feverish speculation. For the record, Master Radcliffe does drink—in moderation and in private. Vodka and Diet Coke is his cocktail of choice, he says, "'cause I'm a pansy-ass civilian." Also for the record, he celebrated reaching Britain's age of consent, 16, almost three years ago, in the customary manner, with an older girlfriend. The age difference "wasn't ridiculous," he says. "But it would freak some people out."

Daniel, Daniel... if we can weather Sharon Stone's new "May/Surgically-Altered December" romance, surely there's no age gap too terrifying for a Potter fan to withstand. Really, we're encouraged by your progress: after all, what better way to develop motor skills needed for untying shoelaces than to practice unhooking a bra?

• DANIEL RADCLIFFE [Details]

Daniel Radcliffe often has trouble tying his shoelaces thanks to a brain disorder, the "Harry Potter" star has revealed.

The actor, 19, has dyspraxia, a condition that can cause problems with coordination.

"I sometimes think, 'Why, oh why, has Velcro not taken off?' " he joked to Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.

Radcliffe also revealed that he decided to become an actor partly because he had trouble in school due to dyspraxia.

His frightening battle with shoelaces (heretofore known as "That Which Must Not Be Named") aside, at least Radcliffe can console himself with his piles and piles of cold, hard, tween cash. Sure, Zac Efron may be able to lace up his own Jordans, but Radcliffe can afford to actually buy the basketball player (with enough money left over to take Hermione on a Hogsmeade shopping spree).

• 'Harry Potter' star Daniel Radcliffe has dyspraxia, a brain disorder [NY Daily News]

The real story? Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe will be right in the middle of his sensational, highly publicized run on Broadway in the play, "Equus." Radcliffe appears naked in the play, on stage, and has sex in it as well. That's not the image Warner Bros. wants associated with bespectacled Harry, who remains chaste and virginal.

Indeed, posters for Equus are up all over New York, of Radcliffe's naked torso superimposed on a horse's head. This is not the sort of thing that's taught at Hogwarts. For the movie to open on Nov. 21, Radcliffe would have to do publicity entailing answering questions about blinding horses and having sex with them vs. flying around and making potions.

There's just one thing, Rog: this whole Equus brouhaha? Warner Bros. has already been through it. When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix came out last summer, it was right on the heels of Radcliffe's first (underage!) Equus run in London, where the production began. By now, the nudity is old hat — in fact, reports are circulating that Radcliffe's Broadway run isn't causing as big a fuss as promoters had hoped. Forgive us, but for once we're going to believe the official line from the studio heads; after all, we can think of another dark installment in a long-running franchise that did gangbusters business in its mid-July release date this year...

• Harry Potter Scared by Horse [Fox News]

“The release date change does not alter the production schedule for this or future Harry Potter films. Post-production on Half-Blood Prince was completed on time, and the studio’s release plans for the two-part Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will not be affected by this change. We know Harry Potter fans are eagerly anticipating seeing the final chapters unfold onscreen. In fact, the good news for them is that the gap will now be shortened between Half-Blood Prince and the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

Indeed, ecstatic Potter fans around the world rejoiced at having to wait another 11 months for the series' next installment — particularly those at MuggleNet, where glowing reactions ranged from "I AM SO PISSED RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE NO IDEA. 2008 is officially the "WORST YEAR EVER" to creatively spelled calls for a Warner Bros. boycott. And of course, feel free to sign the inevitable angry petition for an earlier release date.

Now Variety reports that Disney is moving its own animated fall tentpole Bolt — which would have opened opposite Potter on Nov. 28 — back to July 17 as well. Universal and Will Ferrell, meanwhile, which previously had that day to itself for Land of the Lost, were last spotted scouting downtown window ledges at lunch. Send our apologies if you see them.

• 'Half-Blood Prince' moves to July [Variety]

All will be revealed — the full list, after the jump:

1. (tie) Daniel Radcliffe, Miley Cyrus - $25 million

3. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen - $15 million

4. The Jonas Brothers - $12 million

5. Zac Efron - $5.8 million

6. Ashley Tisdale - $5.5 million

7. Emma Watson - $5.5 million

8. Hillary Duff - $5 million

9. Rupert Grint - $5 million

10. Vanessa Anne Hudgens $3.2 million

Apparently, tween wealth comes in threes: not only do three Harry Potter stars and three actors from High School Musical make the list, but the trio of Jonas Brothers as well. Still, while the salaries are steep, the number one thing we took away from this list was an overlap with this one. We now eagerly await the salacious (yet tasteful!) Us Weekly slideshow devoted to "Celebrity Tween Virgin Mega-Millionaires."

• Daniel Radcliffe enjoys a spell at the top of Forbes' rich list for young actors... and Emma and Rupert join in the fun [Daily Mail]

The series appears to have abandoned all pretense of being anything less than an adolescent conjurers' dirge, eight shades darker than the previous murky installment. (Deathly Hallows we imagine will be nothing but a black screen with occasional flashes of finger-tip-produced lightning bolts.) We see no Trainspotting touches like heroin-flavored jelly beans or soiled invisibility cloaks, resulting in mysterious floating poop stains. Rather, we get that old scary-movie standby—a creepy kid with pyrokinetic powers and mental command over an army of snakes. Watch out behind you, Harry! Flaming cobra!

• Let the 'Potter' Hysteria Begin ... Again [AOL]