Steven Seagal,
America's favorite Talentless-Clint-Eastwood-
Imitator-with-a Bowling Ball-In-His-Gut, took the top box office spot
with a Fire Down Below without even hitting the $10 million mark
($6.1 million bucks). Just last weekend, even adjusting with kindness
for the three-day weekend, Seagal would have been number five on the
box office chart behind week two veterans G.I. Jane and Money
Talks, Air Force One's week six and Hoodlum's opening.
And Whispering Ponytail Man would be in a fight even for spot five,
with week four of Conspiracy Theory and box-office juggernaut
Excess Baggage putting up similar numbers. Then again, what do
you expect from a guy who kicks when he fights?
John Cusack
is making the air controller comedy Pushing Tin with Four
Weddings And A Funeral director Mike Newell. No truth to
rumors that studio heads are trying to use their previous hits to their
P.R. advantage by calling it Four Air Disasters and a Competition
or Grosse Pointe Air Space.
Also, Cusack is developing a sequel to Grosse Pointe Blank, the
hit film about a slacker hitman who wants to win back his ex-girlfriend.
And he and Newell are developing the Nick Hornby bestseller High
Fidelity, which the Reuters wire calls "the story of a slacker who
owns a record store and wants to win back his ex-girlfriend." Cusack's
resume includes The Real Thing (Slacker Crosses Country For Girl),
Eight Men Out (Slacker Plays Baseball), Say Anything (Slacker
Obsesses On Ione Skye), The Road To Wellville (Slacker Tries
To Make Corn Flakes) and Con Air (Slacker Becomes Action Hero).
No wonder they call him Mr. Originality!
