When Superbad was released, everyone was stoked on Cera and his skinny, off-beat quiet wit. He was ranked No. 1 on Entertainment Weekly's 30 Under 30 actors list. He had garnered comedic street cred from his stint on Arrested Development. And shucks, how could you forget those dimples? He was one of those cool, John Cusask-esque unlikely sex symbols! And yet now, film critic Jeffrey Wells says Cera is a mere "two or three steps from being over." His logic?

...the two main reasons are (a) he's already repeating himself and (b) his aversion to being famous, hard to swallow from a guy who's been acting since he was 10 or 11 years old, is profoundly tiresome. Nobody has time for that sensitive "poor me because I'm rich and famous" shit.

As much as we hate to say it, we fear for Cera, too. We can't put up with this innocent guy shtick for too much longer. Dude: if you're gonna shine, you need some charm - and we think you may be lacking in the department. In fact, we read that you sat "rod straight" and said "I don't know" 48 times in one hour when a New York Times writer was profiling you recently.

Cera's upcoming flicks aren't lookin' like total winners either. This winter, from the creator of Not Another Teen Movie comes Extreme Movie, a film that will explore the joys of teen sex and co-stars Jamie Kennedy and Frankie Muniz. Niiice. And next year's Youth in Revolt, in which he plays a 14-year-old whose parents are divorcing and seeks his dream girl to take his mind off of things along with his virginity - screams typecast.

Plus, he upset fans with the recent news that he may be one of the key players vetoing the greenlighting of an Arrested Development flick.

Sigh. We're sure it's just all of the pressure to be the Next Big Thing weighing those little bony shoulders of his down.

• On The Brink [Hollywood Elsewhere]

What he won't be doing any time soon is a movie version of a certain quirky TV show. He hasn't heard of any plans for an Arrested Development film.

"I don't think I would want to see a movie of the series if I was a fan, anyway," Cera says. "And I don't really see a need for it if you can get the three seasons on DVD."

Michael, the mere fact that you say there's "no need" for an Arrested Development movie tells us that you're not ready for the vocal protest that's bound to ensue from shocked fans. Let's all hope this is just a bit of negotiations hardball designed to bump up the salary for Arrested Development's most unexpectedly bankable performer — otherwise, we'll have to bring back BluthWatch '08. And this time, it's personal.

• Michael Cera: A superstar? Aw, shucks [National Post]

Not long after his micro-budget debut Wrong Numbers hit at the 2001 South by Southwest film festival, Holdridge said he had fielded calls from every major studio looking to adapt his comedy about "unruly teens trying to buy beer for a party on their last night of high school" for Hollywood. Sony eventually hired him to write the script on spec, which apparently took a couple years too many for the studio's taste, as Holdridge discovered when he heard about a new Sony project called Superbad:

That was the last straw. As far as he could tell, Wrong Number had been co-opted by Judd Apatow and company.

"It was devastating," Holdridge recalls, hesitant to accuse any particular individual of ripping him off. "Their script was different. Our script was fucking awesome, but you can't copyright a concept." Holdridge suspects the executives at Sony may have suggested his idea to more established Hollywood comedic forces, but he places some of the blame in his own lap. "I have some responsibility because I went and made another movie," he says. "I don't want to complain. What if we just had the same idea?"

Yeah, what if? It's not like Midnight Kiss doesn't owe its own life to Before Sunrise/Sunset, Manhattan and a few other couples-gabbing-in-the-streets classics. And Apatow is the Comedy Person of the Year, after all. But as Holdridge alludes to in the profile, Wrong Numbers is illegal to screen since Sony picked it up seven years ago. We can't wait for the double feature when the time finally comes — and as much as we appreciate his discretion under the circumstances, we're fairly sure it will come.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• 'In Search of a Midnight Kiss' Director Alex Holdridge [indieWIRE]

Though there is some truth to what Garr says, she did manage to work with the best directors in film history: Coppola, Scorsese, Sydney Pollack among them, and she got props from Tina Fey, who said earlier this year, "There was a time when Teri Garr was in everything. She was adorable, but also completely real — her body was real, her teeth were real, you felt like she'd be your friend.''

Though there is a notable lack of "Teri Garr" types in today's cinema, there are still some actresses who fit the bill: funny, smart, real women with whom you'd totally want to drink margs and make filthy jokes. Here are five of them!

Judy Greer: our girl Judy has the same quirky look and comedic chops as Garr, and her star has been on the rise for several years now. She's played second banana to the best of them including Jennifer Garner in 13 Going on 30 and Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses, but she holds a permanent place in my heart for her role as wonky boob-job recipient Kitty in Arrested Development.

Lauren Ambrose: I have loved Lauren Ambrose since she played the disgruntled teen who gets it on with Seth Green in Can't Hardly Wait. Of course she was the awesome in Six Feet Under, and we'll try to look past the Jezebel James incident.

Emma Stone: Emma Stone is more of a proto-Garr. She's only 20 and though she stars in the upcoming House Bunny which looks like an insult to womanity, Stone was so effortlessly cool and fun as Jonah Hill's love interest in Superbad that she gets to be included on this list. Don't let us down, little missy!

Kat Dennings: She played Catherine Keener's daughter in the 40 Year Old Virginand she's going to co-star in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist with Michael Cera. From reading the synopsis, Nick and Norah might be the best comedy of 2008 (you heard it here first people!). In addition, Kat has an amazing blog that you must start reading forthwith and a fucking sweet YouTube channel.

Mindy Kaling: Another 40 Year Old Virgin alum with a blog that I love, Mindy is a triple threat: Writer, Actress, Bff-material. Her character on The Office, Kelly Kapoor, is a parody of all those lady-mag loving bitches we love to gently mock, and even so we still want to go shopping with her fictional self and gab about Justin Timberlake.

Random Roles: Teri Garr [AV Club]
Kat Dennings [Official Website]
Things I Bought That I Love [Mindy Kaling Blog]

Earlier: Tina Fey: Comedienne, Cover Girl, And Great Role Model For Women

Over all, American studios depend on foreign markets for roughly half of total revenue. But Apatow-produced films like the Will Ferrell vehicles Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, did more than 90 percent of their theatrical business domestically. And the Apatow-directed 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up had more than 60 percent of sales at home.

The numbers should give pause to Hollywood. When the summer selling season is over, studios will probably collect far less from international markets than they would have with a larger roster of high-budget fantasies like Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Last year, those two movies did very well at home, then fared even better around the world.

At least until Apatow deigns to an international slob-comedy diplomacy mission to shoot Superbad 2 on Michael Cera and Jonah Hill's study-abroad journey in Paris, the trick may be to just make the movies worse, hints The Times: What Happened in Vegas and Night at the Museum each outperformed their domestic grosses in international release. This could be as simple as outsourcing scripts or casting Ashton Kutcher, but in any case, we hope he does it soon; word on the street is that OPEC hates the trailer for Step Brothers.

• When a Film's Comedy is Lost in Translation [NYT]

I mean, [Efren "Vote For Pedro" Ramirez] did a movie with Jack Black after [appearing in Napoleon Dynamite], right? So, that's good."

Christopher Mintz-Plasse: I'm starting a movie with Jack Black in two days. And then I have another movie coming out with Paul Rudd. So, I guess I'm completely different than the Vote for Pedro guy. Is he doing anything right now? E!: Um, I know he goes out a lot. CMP: Hopefully, I have a longer lasting career. That's all I have to say. It's up to you fans to keep watching me.

That's the spirit, McLovin! Although he hasn't been hanging around the Hollywood scene very long, he's already learned one of the golden rules to surviving in this town: when someone is down, it never hurts to give them a good swift kick, especially when said kick improves your standing on the C-List. Long live McLovin, he might just make it yet!

• McLovin Fights Back [E! Online]

In today's Rush & Molloy column, it is reported that McLovin (aka Christopher Mintz-Plasse) attended a Super Bowl party thrown by Playboy just this past weekend. Perhaps spurred on by his friends or a healthy dose of liquid courage, McLovin proceeded make his way into the DJ booth, grab the mic and scream out out the following quote to the crowd of rowdy partygoers: "Allow me to reintroduce myself ... I am McLovin!" Naturally, this concerns us just a smidge. Not because McLovin isn't allowed to go out and have fun, mind you, it's more because we already know how this story ends. And it ain't pretty. We hope that by pointing out the similarities in career trajectory that McLovin shares with Pedro now, he'll avoid the indignity of spittin' rhymes alongside American Gladiator's Militia and the "I Can Do 200 Of These" guy in Season Two of MTV's Celebrity Rap Superstar.

[Photoshoppage done by Seth, natch]

• Side Dish: Celebs' Primary Picks

Though the world's largest retailer pulled the "Superbad" DVDs from island stores, it had not yet decided by week's end to do so in its other outlets. Sony Pictures, the producer of the movie in which a teenager tries to buy $100 worth of liquor using the counterfeit Hawaii ID, defended the promotion, saying the license's features "make clear" it isn't real.

The city, however, said the license is close enough for nefarious individuals to copy and reproduce with a photo replacing that of a hologram of the movie's characters. So concerned was the mayor that he notified the Department of Homeland Security about the cards.

What was meant to be a hilarious promotional ploy to encourage Superbad fans to invest in the 2-disc unrated extended edition of the teen comedy has now backfired heavily with the giant retailer, a miscalculation that could wind up costing millions for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment—to say nothing of the thousands of Spaceship Challenger-as-penis-doodle-disaster display-cases scrapped after being universally deemed as extremely poor taste.

• DVD comedy errs with fake licenses [Star Bulletin]

After all, menstrual blood is gooey, photogenic, and just the right place on the fetidness spectrum between "semen" and "barf" to make for hilarious — but not absolutely stomach-churningly putrid — physical humor. And you thought the point of the movie was the poignancy of the adolescent male bond! Go Seth Rogen! We think we can think of a certain comedic pregnancy sequel that could maybe give America its seminal (heh) comedic "period sex" scene!

1. Superbad - $18 million
With a mildly disappointing&trade second week take, the country's schoolgirl crush on Superbad may be showing signs of waning—possibly because it had exhausted its core audience of phallic doodle enthusiasts in its opening weekend. Still, enough moviegoers were taken with Superbad's colorsafe-beer-swilling charms to secure its first place status. America, it turns out, was more than willing to accept the movie's drunken offer to take us upstairs and put its mouth on our collective penis.

2. The Bourne Ultimatum - $12.4 million

With a 24-day total of just north of $185 million, Matt Damon continues to ably prove why he's known as Hollywood's Biggest Bargain. We therefore beseech his team of acupuncturists to find the right damn spot in or around his ear to plunge those spasm-alleviating needles. Hollywood simply cannot afford to have its most likable and profitable star out with a backache in these crucial weeks before a looming talent strike.

3. Rush Hour 3 - $12.2 million

It's a testament to the instincts of Hollywood's billion dollar director Brett Ratner that audiences are still lapping up the you-simply-can't-fake-it chemistry between Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. They may still express a humorous inability to understand the words coming out of each other's mouths, but their bored faces far more easily communicate the sentiment, "Third homes in Belize don't exactly buy themselves, now, do they?"

4. Mr. Bean's Holiday - $10 million

Nothing quite says "last week of August" like a Mr. Bean movie, which pulled in a surprisingly healthy number from the Blackadder set. They may have turned up to see the latest adventures of their bumbling, bulging-eyed hero, but stormed out in disgust when they realized it involved Bean stumbling into a European death-sport hostel, where he was swiftly ball-gagged and rendered into human prey for a graphic, 90-minute torture pornfest.

5. WAR - $10 million

The clues to Lionsgate's underperforming martial arts feature may lie in WAR's generic name. Perhaps The Thighmaster was on to something with his alternative suggestions—at least with Staring Contest or Cupcakes, you know what you're getting.

6. The Nanny Diaries - $7.8 million

Sorry, Scarlett. No one cares about your poopie-diaper problems.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE August 24-26, 2007 [Box Office Mojo]

1. Superbad—$31.2 million
With Knocked Up debuting to about $30 million back in June and Superbad edging past that number even in this mid-August box office wasteland, there can be no disputing that Seth Rogen is the Biggest Comedy Star in the World. (And we recognize this title without irony; this isn't Shia LeBeouf we're talking about.) Having so easily dominated the R-rated comedy space in this breakout summer season, we think we're beginning to understand The Green Hornet thing: once you've done for [mild spoiler alert?] menstrual blood and penis cartoons what collaborator Judd Apatow did for crowning babies, it's not too early to look for new worlds to conquer.

2. Rush Hour 3—$21.831 million
Even though Brett Ratner may have delivered a new Rush Hour sequel that will likely finish far behind the previous installment at the box office, there is a bright side to the situation: without a fourth Rush in the works, we may be looking at a Chris Tucker hiatus that exceeds even the six-year vacation he took between the second and third chapters.

3. The Bourne Ultimatum—$18.986 million
Thanks to the giant "Bourne Comes Home" banner Universal considerately draped on Damon's NYC apartment building, the actor can return each day to a throng of well-meaning, if misguided, fans, each of whom beg the action star to beat them unconscious with whatever seemingly harmless implement (a diaper bag, a recently purchased hot dog from a sidewalk vendor, etc) they have handy.

4. The Simpson Movie—$6.675 million
Unable to handle the sudden crush of attention brought on by the great success of The Simpsons Movie, Ralph Wiggum has been seen hanging out behind the Kwik E Mart, huffing scented magic markers and offering to show his squiggle to anyone who buys him a Squishee.

5. The Invasion—$6 million
The Tomatometer score finally climbed out of the teens, but the disappointing™ result was inevitable: America was never going to turn out to see body-snatching monsters attempt to vomit on Nicole Kidman.

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE August 17-19, 2007 [Box Office Mojo]

Hill, who plays a hapless high school student in "Superbad," was named in a March 2006 Los Angeles Superior Court complaint...

Hill was booked on the misdemeanor charge, which was later reduced to an infraction (to which he entered a guilty plea). Hill was fined $50, but a court docket indicates that the levy was suspended.

With the charge successfully reduced, we doubt Hall's minor criminal record will prove to be any deterrent to his budding career. Still, we hope the actor takes from this a valuable lesson about the consequences of his self-voiding actions, ultimately deterring him from one day pulling a Jim Carrey, and, in an improvised flight of comic fancy, soaking the set of his latest movie in torrent of asparagus-tinged waste-water.

• "Superbad" Star A Real Pisser [TSG]

The studio announced in March that it had optioned the rights to the superhero property that follows the adventures of Brit Reid. A wealthy publisher of The Daily Sentinel by day, Reid roams as a masked crime fighter by night, dedicated to protecting the lives and rights of the city's citizens. Reid is accompanied by Kato, a chauffeur-bodyguard-personal assistant during business hours who transforms into a masked sidekick with a knack for martial arts when the sun goes down. The two cruise around town in a dark sedan known as the Black Beauty. [...]

Rogen is just the newest player in a large and varied cast of characters who have tried to bring Green Hornet to the big screen. A Green Hornet film was previously announced at Universal with Ron Underwood directing. Three years ago Miramax entered a deal with Kevin Smith to adapt and direct a Green Hornet film. Actors as wide ranging as George Clooney, Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Wahlberg have been rumored to be in talks to play Reid over the years. And at one point or another Jason Scott Lee and Jet Li have been rumored to play Kato.

While Apatow's name appears nowhere in the story (and for all we know, he has no direct involvement in the project), it seems a testament to rapidly expanding power and influence of his comedy mayoralty that longtime collaborators like Rogen are now pushing the more conventionally heroic Clooneys and Gyllenhaals from these kinds of roles. Once Superbad hits theaters and starts rolling up Knocked Up-level grosses, maybe we'll get to see Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, and McLovin* revive the X-Men franchise ruined by Brett Ratner.

[*This is actually kind of a great idea. Someone please forward this to Fox and get the ball rolling immediately.]

• Seth Rogen tabbed for Green Hornet [LAT]

· Seth Rogen is a vacuum of not caring about Paris Hilton.
· ABC News hands the world a hit list that could prevent the rise of the next ubiquitous celebutard menace.
· One is in jail, one's in rehab, but one is still at large, picking up all the nipple-flashing slack.
· God always takes the best TV scientists too young.
· We're still divided over whether Colton and Aboud's "Jane" or "Amanda" is the hotter Melrose recreation, but leaning toward the Bisset-inspired one.

• Ben Greenman Attacks Seth Rogen [Gawker]
• Previously: Canadian Journalist Uncomfortable With How Closely Apatow Blockbuster Mirrors Own Knocking-Up [Defamer]