Tom Cruise and Michelle Monaghan in a scene from "Mission Impossible III," an action thriller set for summer 2006 release.
There's something really wrong with Hollywood if it can't get off to a better start than it did during the dreary summer of 2005.
Last year's first big May releases: The historical snoozer "Kingdom of Heaven" and the forgettable comedies "Kicking and Screaming" and "Monster-in-Law."
This year's summer lead-ins: "Mission: Impossible III," pitting Tom Cruise against supervillain Philip Seymour Hoffman; "Poseidon," a remake of "The Poseidon Adventure" directed by Hollywood's king of the sea, Wolfgang Petersen ("The Perfect Storm," "Das Boot"); the animated "Over the Hedge," an animals-against-humans comedy from the makers of "Shrek"; and "The Da Vinci Code," reuniting Tom Hanks with director Ron Howard.
A globe-trotting mystery, the adaptation of Dan Brown's best-seller follows a symbologist (Hanks) and cryptographer (Audrey Tautou) racing to uncover clues about the murder of a member of a shadowy society harboring deep secrets about Christianity.
The film was shot at churches, cathedrals and landmarks around the world, including the Louvre in Paris, where the story begins.
"It was an almost out-of-body experience filming there," director Howard said. "The building itself is a monument, and you're surrounded by the works of so many of the great masters.
Being there at 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning to film eerie, suspenseful scenes in this environment, it was one part heaven and the other part kind of almost haunted house. You didn't want to wander away from the rest of the film crew, let me put it that way.
"I did have a moment all alone with the Mona Lisa in the wee hours, and that was pretty fantastic."
After stumbling out of the gate last year, when summer movie attendance fell 12 percent to its lowest level since 1997, Hollywood seems to have a more crowd-pleasing lineup to lure audiences back to theaters
A look at key summer releases:
LOOKING FOR ACTION: Tom Cruise's first two "Mission: Impossible" capers were heavy on action and style. "Mission: Impossible III" director J.J. Abrams, creator of TV's "Lost" and "Alias," said he aimed to balance action with character interplay in the spirit of the television show on which the movies are based.
"The thing I loved about the show is watching these incredibly accomplished operatives seamlessly working together to pull off a very specific goal," Abrams said. "I honestly felt that as entertained as I was by the first two `Mission' films, they didn't embrace that aspect, which to me was the fundamental thing of the series."
Wolfgang Petersen is back on the water with "Poseidon," starring Kurt Russell, Richard Dreyfuss and Josh Lucas in a remake of the 1970s disaster flick about a luxury liner overturned by a tidal wave.
"It was a chance to do a film reflecting our phobias today, our fear of terrorism or disaster, like 9/11 or whatever nature can do to us," Petersen said. "A natural disaster like this is sort of a metaphor for the impossible and most disastrous thing you can imagine, and what would we do when it hits?"
Also returning to the water: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley and director Gore Verbinski with "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the follow-up to their 2003 blockbuster.
"Dead Man's Chest" has Depp's woozy pirate Jack Sparrow trying to weasel out of an old debt his soul, which he owes to the sea devil Davy Jones.
Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell star in "Miami Vice," written and directed by Michael Mann, creator of the 1980s cop show and Foxx's director on "Collateral" and "Ali." Farrell and Foxx take on the roles originated by Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas, playing undercover cops who infiltrate a South Florida drug ring.
The TV show was known for glitzy fashion and hip music, but Mann's new take is a grittier glimpse of cops on the street, Foxx said.
"It's heavy," Foxx said. "Heavy in a way that there's a real sense of danger, a real sense of what these guys go through as undercover cops. Tempted either to work for the other side or get caught up in the different characters they create."
SUPERHEROES ON PARADE: Fighters for truth, justice and the rights of Mutant-Americans are back, led by "X-Men: The Last Stand," the third installment in the franchise about the gang of super freaks, and "Superman Returns," with the Man of Steel suiting up for his first big-screen adventure in almost 20 years.
Bryan Singer, who made the first two "X-Men" movies, directed "Superman Returns," which introduces Brandon Routh as Krypton's favorite flyboy.
Co-starring Kevin Spacey as villain Lex Luthor and Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, the movie has Superman back on Earth after a prolonged absence. Though not a sequel to the Christopher Reeve "Superman" flicks, the film borrows from the look and mythology created in that series.
Routh said he fashioned his performance to match, injecting his own personality into the character while trying to stay true to Reeve's Superman.
"Chris did such an amazing job. You can change things, but if you do it could be horrible," Routh said. "When somebody does something so great, there's certain things you can tweak, but to change it just to change it sometimes is dangerous."
The "X-Men" sequel, directed by Brett Ratner (the "Rush Hour" movies), reunites all key cast members, including Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Rebecca Romijn and Famke Janssen.
Driving the action this time is the discovery of a "cure" for mutancy. Jackman said the movie will wrap up the "X-Men" trilogy, though another film is in the works centered on his Wolverine character the bushy-haired mystery man with metal claws and rapid healing powers.
"He's that reluctant hero, and he's a fairly classic version of it," Jackman said. "He reminds me of characters I always liked, Mad Max, Dirty Harry, Han Solo, where there's more going on than what they're letting on."
Summer also offers superhero comedies. Ivan Reitman's "My Super Ex-Girlfriend" stars Uma Thurman as the ultimate woman scorned, a superhero who uses her powers to exact revenge on the boyfriend (Luke Wilson) who dumped her.
"Zoom" stars Tim Allen and Courteney Cox in an "Incredibles"-like tale of a former hero gone soft.
"Tim plays a retired superhero, and I play a kind of comic-book-obsessed, nerdy scientist. We're trying to find people to train kids to become the next round of superheroes," Cox said of her first big-screen leading role since she and her "Friends" gang called it quits.
SEPT. 11: Nearly five years after Sept. 11 comes the first major wave of big-screen films dealing with the terrorist attacks.
"United 93" mostly features a cast of unknowns in a gut-wrenching docudrama about the passengers who fought back and lost their lives during one of the Sept. 11 hijackings. Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center" stars Nicolas Cage in the story of two policemen trapped in the rubble of the collapsed towers.
On a smaller scale, "The Great New Wonderful" features Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tony Shalhoub and Olympia Dukakis in a sketch of five New Yorkers a year after the Sept. 11 attacks.
ANIMATION MANIA: Featuring the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Bonnie Hunt, "Cars" is the latest from computer-animation pioneer John Lasseter, who directed the "Toy Story" movies. The film follows a haughty race car (Wilson) who learns to slow down and make time for friends after he's stranded in a sleepy town.
Summer's animated tales also include "Barnyard," a farm fable featuring the voices of Kevin James, Courteney Cox, Danny Glover and Andie MacDowell; the bug story "The Ant Bully," with Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep among the vocal cast; and the spooky-building adventure "Monster House," with Steve Buscemi, Nick Cannon and Maggie Gyllenhaal providing voices.
Led by voice stars Bruce Willis as a rascally raccoon and Garry Shandling as a cautious turtle, "Over the Hedge" is the story of a family of critters coping with new neighbors humans.
How did Willis find his inner raccoon?
"I found that a lot of David Addison bled into the character," Willis said, referring to the crafty private eye he played on TV's "Moonlighting."
"Wily and intrepid and a loner and gets a pretty big kick out of life. It's only when in this particular film that he is confronted with a family situation that he starts to find himself on shaky ground."
JUST FOR LAUGHS: In the comedy "You, Me and Dupree," Owen Wilson's the house guest from hell, who takes up permanent residence with his newlywed pals (Matt Dillon and Kate Hudson).
Vince Vaughn, Wilson's "Wedding Crashers" comrade, and Jennifer Aniston star as ex-lovers living in hostile territory when neither will move out of the condo they share in "The Break-Up."
"Click" features Adam Sandler as a family guy who finds the remote control of his dreams, giving him magical power over his work and home life until the device starts acting up.
Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly hit the NASCAR circuit in "Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby," playing a duo that almost always finishes first and second in races until an upstart comes along.
"My character holds the record for most second-place finishes in the history of NASCAR," said Reilly, who also co-stars with Garrison Keillor, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan and Woody Harrelson in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion," a fanciful look at Keillor's radio show.
CREEPY AND CRYPTIC: Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has made late summer a Halloween prelude with such eerie hits as "The Sixth Sense," "Signs" and "The Village."
Shyamalan is back with "Lady in the Water," the tale of an apartment manager (Paul Giamatti) who discovers a water nymph ("Village" star Bryce Dallas Howard) living beneath his complex's pool and trying to escape creatures preventing her return to her own world.
"Lady in the Water" began as a bedtime story Shyamalan made up for his children, but it grew to an epic that took a month to tell and a year to retell as the kids asked to hear it again and again.
"That one was so vivid," Shyamalan said. "It became this kind of haunting story that stuck with us as a family. The movie is very original for the story being told, because it's so absurd and not like anything you've heard before."
Also on the fright front: "The Omen," with Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow and Liev Schreiber in an update of the 1970s Antichrist tale, and "An American Haunting," starring Sissy Spacek and Donald Sutherland in the story of a 19th century family tormented by a supernatural presence.
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Suit Alleging Abuse by Jackson Dismissed
Michael Jackson
A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed against Michael Jackson by a man who claimed that the pop star molested him more than 20 years ago.
The alleged victim claimed he repressed the memory of the assault until 2003.
U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon dismissed the suit brought by Joseph Bartucci Jr., who claimed he was lured into Jackson's limousine during the 1984 world's fair in New Orleans and held for nine days, during which he was both sexually and physically assaulted. The lawsuit sought unspecified damages.
"We're pleased with the results," Jackson spokesman Brian Oxman said Monday. "It's time to get on to new and better things."
The judge's order was dated Thursday and posted Monday on the court Web site. His reasons for the dismissal were not immediately released.
"I'm basically shocked," said Bartucci's lawyer, Louis Koerner.
The lawsuit was filed in 2004. There is a one-year statute of limitations on filings in such crimes when victims are adults. Bartucci, who was 18 in 1984, had argued that the statute applied only from 2003, when he says he recovered a memory of the event.
Bartucci alleged he was sexually assaulted by Jackson and battered, held at gunpoint and cut with razor blades by the singer's bodyguards during a drive to California and back.
Bartucci claimed he remembered the incident only when he saw a TV show about child molestation charges brought against Jackson in California. Jackson was acquitted in that case.
Koerner had argued that Bartucci was so badly injured by Jackson's bodyguards including having his head slammed on the pavement that the trauma caused him to blank out all memory of it.
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Julia Roberts Set for Broadway Debut
Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts, Movie Star, officially becomes Julia Roberts, Stage Star, when the Oscar winner opens Wednesday on Broadway in a revival of Richard Greenberg's "Three Days of Rain."
Not that her marquee status was in doubt during the play's three weeks of sold-out preview performances at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre.
Each night, as the performance ends, fans gather behind barriers and across 45th Street from the Jacobs to catch a glimpse and get Playbills autographed.
The theater's security team has set up an exclusive pen for ticket holders, who can line up on one side of the stage door.
Last Thursday, for example, a few hundred people had gathered on either side of the stage door and across the street. A half dozen police officers patrolled the area, shouting, "Off the streets! Everyone up on the sidewalks, now!"
But the crowd grew as passers-by joined in. When traffic stopped a bus directly in front of the theater, the crowd across the street broke into loud boos and catcalls, which coincidentally greeted Roberts as she finally emerged from the theater.
She signed a couple of programs in haste and jumped into a black SUV.
At least one fan forgave Roberts for her brevity. "To be honest, she would have been trampled had she stuck around since people were jumping in front of the bus to get a look," said Erin Rosa. "Julia waved from the van that's good enough for me."
Those demanding more than a quick look at Roberts have pretty much purchased all the tickets for the play's entire run, which ends June 18.
The show, which also stars Paul Rudd and Bradley Cooper, could possibly extend for a few more weeks.
The theater's next tenant, "Martin Short Fame Becomes Me," begins previews July 22 and opens Aug. 10.
For Broadway, Roberts' appearance during one of the theater's busiest springs in years, has been a huge event and a public-relations blessing.
"A major film or TV star appearing on Broadway, or in any theater for that matter, brings with them a number of assets," said Howard Sherman, executive director of the American Theatre Wing. "First and foremost, there's the talent that has lofted them into the position of being a star.
"But they also bring with them the often-staggering press attention afforded to celebrities in those other mediums, which is vastly greater than the time and space typically afforded to theater.
And, of course, they bring a huge fan base which is national and even international, all of whom are eager to see their favorite star in the flesh."
That eagerness created a frenzy during the play's first few previews, in which reporters and even one critic purchased tickets to see the show.
At Roberts' first performance March 28, it was breathlessly reported that when a prop tomato accidentally fell off a table, the actress broke character and displayed her endearing toothsome grin.
Roberts herself has been relatively mum about her Broadway debut, turning down a parade of interview requests, including The Associated Press.
However, she did agree to a few TV appearances and did tell the New York Post in an interview last week, "I love being an actor, but sometimes doing this I feel as though I've gone back to square one."
For Greenberg, the Tony-winning author of "Take Me Out," this new production is an opportunity for "Three Days of Rain" to reach a wider audience.
Commissioned and first performed by South Coast Rep in Costa Mesa, Calif., it tells of a brother and sister who unravel family secrets.
New York first saw the play at off-Broadway's Manhattan Theatre Club in 1997 with a cast that included Patricia Clarkson, Bradley Whitford and John Slattery. Elizabeth McGovern starred in the London production two years later.
Roberts came aboard for the revival after she read the play at the urging of director Joe Mantello and producer Marc Platt, an old friend who had heard she was interested in doing theater.
Greenberg doesn't think that Roberts' presence throws the play. "Because she is a star of such magnitude coming to Broadway, there has been a lot of wacky attention," he says. "But the play itself has stayed really well balanced."
Celebrity star power on Broadway is nothing new and it does carry risks.
For the past two seasons, for example, major names have appeared in shows for limited yet profitable runs.
In 2004, rap mogul Sean Combs appeared in a revival of Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun." Although Combs didn't get great notices, he drew crowds to the theater.
It was his two co-stars, Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald, who received the critical praise and won Tonys.
The following year, Denzel Washington, who does have a theater background, came to Broadway in a vaguely modern-dress revival of "Julius Caesar."
Again there were crowds and sold-out houses. But Washington's portrayal of Brutus was bested by Colm Feore, a veteran of Canada's Stratford Festival, who portrayed Cassius.
"It's funny. `Three Days of Rain' is a very quiet play, and this has been a very noisy event," Greenberg said with a laugh. "But the great thing is that ... it hasn't affected the production."
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Director Pleads Guilty in Wiretap Case
John McTiernan, left, director of such hit movies as "Die Hard" and "The Thomas Crown Affair," departs federal court Monday, April 17, 2006 in Los Angeles with his attorney John Carlton. McTiernan has entered a plea agreement with the government in a case tied to a ballooning Hollywood scandal over alleged wiretaps, his attorney disclosed Monday at the filmmaker's arraignment.
A somber "Die Hard" director John McTiernan stood before a federal judge and said he made "knowingly false" statements to an FBI agent about Anthony Pellicano, the celebrity private eye he admitted hiring to wiretap a business associate.
McTiernan, who pleaded guilty Monday to making false statements, faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced July 31.
He is the highest-profile figure yet to plead guilty in the investigation of Pellicano, who is accused of bugging phones and bribing police to get information on celebrities and others.
Pellicano has pleaded not guilty.
Asked by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer on Monday if the statements he made to the FBI agent were false, McTiernan replied: "They were knowingly false, your honor."
McTiernan, director of "The Thomas Crown Affair," "The Last Action Hero" and other films, sketched out a scenario that began with a phone call to his home on Feb. 13 from a person identifying himself as an FBI agent.
He said he told the agent the only time he used Pellicano's services was in his divorce.
"He asked me if I had hired him in any other area, and I said, `No, I didn't,'" McTiernan told the judge.
Actually, McTiernan added, "I had hired Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Charles Roven in the summer of 2000. ... But I never received a report or specific information."
Roven worked with McTiernan on the 2002 box-office flop "Rollerball." Roven was a credited producer and McTiernan directed and produced the film.
McTiernan said he paid Pellicano $50,000 for the illegal wiretap, and in the end, "I paid him off and fired him."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders asked the judge to seal the plea agreement documents, and he refused to answer questions outside court about whether the government had agreed to make a recommendation for leniency in sentencing.
Fischer allowed McTiernan to remain free on bond until sentencing.
The speed with which McTiernan entered his guilty plea came as a surprise after an arraignment earlier in the day in which his attorney told another judge there was a plea agreement. No details were announced and another hearing was scheduled for next week.
But McTiernan's lawyers sought a speedy resolution, and Fischer, who is presiding over other Pellicano-related cases, agreed to take the case.
Allegations against Pellicano, 62, include tapping the phone of actor Sylvester Stallone and having police run the names of comedians Garry Shandling and Kevin Nealon through a government database.
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Zellweger takes "Case" of thriller
Renee Zellweger
Renee Zellweger has signed to star in the horror thriller "Case 39," playing a social worker who saves an abused 10-year-old girl from her parents only to discover that things are not as they appear.
The project is set up at Paramount Pictures, which is looking for a director. Zellweger recently dropped out of another Paramount project, "The Eye," which was set up at Tom Cruise's production company and has now been shelved.
"Case 39" is scheduled to begin shooting July 31 in Vancouver.
Zellweger has been absent from the horror scene since 1994's "The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre," made before she became a star.
The actress, who won an Oscar for her supporting role in 2003's "Cold Mountain," is filming the Beatrix Potter biopic "Miss Potter."
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