Wolverine's "X-Men" Ryan Reynolds Dives In for Deadpool Spinoff

It's official: The mutants are taking over Hollywood. And we're not talking about the freaks running the studios.
Following the monster weekend for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and a day after announcing that a Hugh Jackman-powered sequel is in the works, 20th Century Fox has confirmed to E! News that Jackman's costar Ryan Reynolds will be given his own spinoff and potential franchise-launcher as the Marvel Comics antihero Deadpool.

The 32-year-old Canadian actor, otherwise known as Mr. Scarlett Johansson, will again star as Wade Wilson, a wisecracking, cancer-stricken mercenary who's cured of the disease after undergoing the same Weapon X genetic alteration as Wolverine.

But along with superhuman powers, enhanced strength and self-regenerating healing powers, the slightly unhinged Deadpool can absorb the abilities of dead and captured mutants.

Aside from Deadpool and the Wolverine sequel, Fox is also working on an X-Men spinoff focusing on Ian McKellen's villainous Magneto and another dubbed X-Men: First Class, which is being written by The O.C. creator Josh Schwartz.

Meanwhile, in other casting news:

• According to Variety, Will Ferrell is in negotiations to headline Neighborhood Watch, a comedy about a city guy who moves to the suburbs and stumbles upon a mammoth conspiracy. David Dobkin (The Wedding Crashers, Fred Claus) is in talks to helm.

• Rachel Weisz has climbed aboard the indie political drama The Whistleblower. Inspired by a true story, the film chronicles a female police officer from Nebraska serving as a peacekeeper in postwar Bosnia, who discovers a U.N. cover-up of a sex-trafficking scandal.

• Tom Hanks, who starred in Saving Private Ryan and produced Band of Brothers, wil serve as narrator and adviser of a 35-minute documentary that will debut this November as part of a $300 million expansion of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

• NBC has signed The Office's Mindy Kaling to a two-year, seven-figure deal that will see the writer-producer-star continue her role as chatty Kelly Kapoor on the hit sitcom, while developing another comedic vehicle that she would also headline.

• Peter Dinklage is reuniting with The Station Agent director Tom McCarthy for the HBO fantasy pilot Game of Thrones, described as an epic battle for power set in a vast and violent kingdom. Dinklage will play the outcast brother of the queen.

Source: movies.yahoo.com/

Weekend Box Office : April 17-19-2009

Published: April 20, 2009 - 8:02 AM

source: wizbangpop.com

USA Box Office Returns for the weekend starting 10-April-2009

Rank	Weekend Total	Weeks	Screens	Weekend screen avg.	Cumulative box office
1.	Hannah Montana: The Movie (2009)
	$32,324,487 (%)	1	3,118	$10,367	$32,324,487
2.	Fast & Furious (2009)
	$27,237,905 (-62%)	2	3,472	$7,845	$116,497,095
3.	Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
	$21,812,253 (-33%)	3	4,136	$5,273	$140,203,799
4.	Observe and Report (2009)
	$11,017,334 (%)	1	2,727	$4,040	$11,017,334
5.	Knowing (2009)
	$6,433,433 (-21%)	4	2,925	$2,199	$67,769,550
6.	I Love You, Man (2009)
	$6,280,790 (-19%)	4	2,643	$2,376	$58,865,219
7.	The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)
	$5,901,215 (-38%)	3	2,721	$2,168	$46,488,580
8.	Dragonball Evolution (2009)
	$4,756,488 (%)	1	2,181	$2,180	$4,756,488
9.	Adventureland (2009)
	$3,353,618 (-41%)	2	1,876	$1,787	$11,370,909
10.	Duplicity (2009)
	$2,995,850 (-28%)	4	1,965	$1,524	$36,847,445

source: imdb.com/boxoffice