Exclusive: NBA Finals Kidnapping Thriller in the Works at Skydance Sports From 'Notorious' Director

Happy Sunday, folks!

Last night, I visited the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, where an all-female four-string quartet played Metallica’s greatest hits for an hour — and it was fucking awesome. I highly recommend checking out Candlelight Concerts, as they play all over the world.

This morning, I hit Barry’s Bootcamp, where I ran into fellow Movie Trivia Schmoedown alum Abby Freel, who is now an editor for New Rockstars. I hit Barry’s because I needed my ass whupped into shape, as it’s almost beach season here in Los Angeles, where it should start to get pretty hot pretty soon.

Speaking of which, there’s been a lot of chatter about Heat 2 lately, but the only chatter I’ve heard has concerned whether Leonardo DiCaprio will actually sign on for the sequel, which strikes some as a bad idea — especially since the book was a mixed bag.

DiCaprio is well known for engaging with various projects, only to walk away — he literally just did it with Damien Chazelle’s planned Evel Knievel movie — so while I do think he wants to work with the great Michael Mann, who is 83 years old, and I do think this pairing will ultimately come to fruition, I won’t exactly be shocked if it doesn’t.

But Mann needs a major star like DiCaprio to justify the budget here, so I still think Leo does the maestro a solid and winds up playing Older Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer’s character in the original 1995 classic). But I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that the simple fact that Leo is still “in talks” for the sequel and hasn’t decided what role he wants to play has to be cause for concern. To be fair, reps for both Amazon MGM and DiCaprio have denied that the actor has gotten cold feet, despite industry chatter.

Elsewhere, it was another big weekend at the box office, where Backrooms surpassed Marty Supreme to become A24’s highest-grossing movie of all time; Obsession became the highest-grossing feature in the history of Focus Features, in addition to posting the biggest 4th weekend ever for a horror movie, topping The Blair Witch Project; and Michael became the highest-grossing movie in Lionsgate’s history as it approaches $900 million worldwide. Oh, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie became the first movie of the year to pass the billion-dollar mark at the global box office. Yahoo!

Meanwhile, Paramount’s R-rated comedy Scary Movie posted the biggest opening weekend in franchise history with $55 million at the domestic box office, where He-Man’s Power Sword failed, as Amazon MGM’s Masters of the Universe failed to crack the $30 million mark. Surely, The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act took some of the wind out of its sails, as it opened above expectations with $21 million — another YouTube hit. The revolution is upon us, folks…

Tonight, I’ve got a hot scoop involving the NBA Finals — sort of.

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