Physically unable to remove his foot from his mouth, Brett Ratner is having a very bad week. The Tower Heist director came under scrutiny for crudely bragging that he “banged” Olivia Munn a few times but didn’t remember who she was, when responding to a passage in Munn’s recent book that described a highly unflattering encounter she once had with the director. He then apologized for his claim, saying that he actually lied about having relations with Munn (excusing himself by exclaiming “She’s hot!”). Then, he came under intense fire for responding to a Q&A question about his directorial style by saying “Rehearsal is for fags.”

So it’s no surprise that Ratner has now stepped down as producer of the upcoming Oscar telecast. There’s no word on what this means for Eddie Murphy’s involvement as host, but I’m hoping he stays onboard. As for Ratner, he was a strange choice to begin with and the ignorance and overall asshole-ness of his comments have actually made him an even less appealing human being. Tom Sherak, president of AMPAS said in a statement: “Words have meaning, and they have consequences.” Hit the jump to read an open letter of apology to Hollywood from Ratner himself.

I was trying to figure out a way to find a more backhanded compliment than Brett Ratner‘s “Tower Heist is surprisingly not terrible,” but I came up empty.  At first glance, it should be the poster child for everything that’s wrong with mainstream American cinema.  Ben Stiller has been playing the same character, his co-star Eddie Murphy doesn’t seem to care about acting anymore, and Ratner is an unimpressive journeyman director.  And yet Tower Heist is kind of an entertaining movie.  Stiller plays against type, Eddie Murphy shows he can deliver when he’s not phoning it in, and Ratner keeps the film upbeat.  There are a mind-blowing number of obvious plot-holes, and the crappy screenplay relies heavily on coincidence, but the movie never comes off as insulting or offensive.  Tower Heist is like a sweet child who draws a terrible picture of your house, but he doesn’t know any better and just wants you to be impressed.

With Brett Ratner’s comedy Tower Heist opening this weekend, I was able to chat with the busy director on the phone when he was in New York City promoting the movie.  Starring Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Gabourey Sidibe, Téa Leoni, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsch, Michael Peña, and Alan Alda, Tower Heist centers on a group of disgruntled employees who decide to rob a white-collar criminal living under house arrest in their high-rise after he scams them all out of their savings.

During our wide-ranging conversation, Ratner talked about how he got involved in the project and who was originally going to star in it, the test screening process, deleted scenes, improv, what will be on the Blu-ray/DVD, and what it was like to work with Eddie Murphy.  In addition, Ratner talked about producing next year’s Oscars, future projects like Movie 43, 39 Clues, Hercules, Hong Kong Phooey, Beverly Hills Copy 4, Rush Hour 4, the Woody Allen documentary that he’s producing, and a lot more.  Hit the jump for the interview and audio.

A sci-fi action project by director John Heffernan may not have a title yet, but it does have a writer. Variety reports that John Glenn, the writer behind Eagle Eye, has been tapped to re-write the script. The project, previously known as Abducted, was picked up by Paramount in June of this year and is set up through Mary Parent’s Disruption Entertainment. Parent and Cale Boyter are producing the pic, pitched as “Die Hard on an alien spaceship.”

Brett Ratner’s next directorial project has itself a writer and a title. Ann Peacock (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) has been tapped to write Hunting Eichmann, an international thriller based on true accounts. Deadline reports that the project follows Israeli agents in their journey to Argentina to capture Adolph Eichmann, one of the major Nazi organizers behind the Holocaust. Ratner and Anthony Bregman (Our Idiot Brother) will produce for Cathy Schulman at Mandalay Pictures.

We’ve been provided with eight clips from director Brett Ratner’s upcoming comedy Tower Heist. The film centers on a group of disgruntled employees who decide to rob a white-collar criminal living under house arrest in their high-rise after he scams them all out of their savings. The all-star cast includes Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Gabourey Sidibe, Téa Leoni, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsch, Michael Peña, and Alan Alda. Tower Heist opens November 4th.

Brett Ratner is a very busy guy at the moment.  He’s currently preparing for the release of his latest directorial effort Tower Heist, which features an all-star cast that includes Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, and Alan Alda, and he’s also gearing up to produce the Academy Awards.  In addition, Ratner is juggling a number of other projects.  Steve recently got the chance to talk to Ratner and the conversation covered a wide range of topics.  In addition to talking about his plan for the Oscars and getting Eddie Murphy as a host, Ratner also spoke about Tarsem Singh’s Untitled Snow White Project which he’s producing, a comprehensive documentary about Woody Allen (which sounds awesome) that he’s also producing, a miniseries on Sidney Korshak, and much more including updates on Beverly Hills Cop 4 and Hong Kong Phooey.  Hit the jump to check out the full conversation.

A new trailer for Brett Ratner’s Tower Heist has gone online.  The film centers on a group of employees working in a high-rise who decide to rob a white-collar criminal after he fleeces them out of their savings. After viewing both trailers, I stick by my conclusion that it will be a popular movie featuring the kind of safe humor that makes a crummy show like Two and a Half Men the #1 show on comedy.  However, it looks like we might finally get another funny performance from Eddie Murphy.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer. The film also stars Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, Téa Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, Casey Affleck, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsch, Michael Peña, and Alan Alda.  Tower Heist opens November 4th and hits VOD in select markets three weeks later.

Steven Spielberg will be giving audiences a one-two punch this December when he releases the 3D motion-capture film The Adventures of Tintin on December 23rd and follows it five days later with the drama War Horse.  He’ll follow these two films with his star-studded biopic Lincoln.  Spielberg tells the Orlando Sentinel [via The Film Stage] that the film, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, will focus on the last four months of the 16th president’s life.  Furthermore, the drama won’t be a “battlefield movie”, but “there are battles in it, and being in Virginia, we have access to those historic battlefields. It is really a movie about the great work Abraham Lincoln did in the last months of his life.”  I hope the film begins with Lincoln being super-excited for that new play coming to Ford’s Theatre.

The film stars Daniel-Day Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens, David Strathairn as Secretary of State William Seward, Walton Goggins as congressman Wells A. Hutchins, and Lee Pace as New York City mayor Fernando Wood.  Spielberg says Lincoln “will be purposely coming out AFTER next year’s election. I didn’t want it to become political fodder.”  Hit the jump for details on The 39 Clues.

It seems like the Academy is making a serious effort to makes the 2012 Oscars somehow worse than last year’s clusterfuck.  First, they hired Brett Ratner whose name inspires confidence in no one except for Brett Ratner.  Then last week we learned that Ratner wanted his Tower Heist star Eddie Murphy to host the ceremony.  Now Deadline is confirming that Murphy will MC next year’s show and I am confirming that I have somehow found a way to be even less interested in the Oscar telecast.

I have multiple problems with Murphy.  First off, he hasn’t top-lined a good film since Bowfinger.  Second, he hasn’t taken a chance since his dramatic supporting role in Dreamgirls didn’t win him an Oscar.   He doesn’t really try to give comic performances any more and phones in awful family comedies.  Finally, and this one is just a personal preference, I think an Oscar host should have the ability to do self-deprecating humor to balance the jokes he or she is going to make at the audience’s expense.  That’s never been Murphy’s style.  The only upside to this news is that we get to see how Murphy does stand-up on a big stage a scant 24 years after Raw.

See, there may be some good to from Brett Ratner’s stewardship over the 2012 Oscars after all.  Ratner and co-producer Don Mischer are scheduled to meet with Tom Sherak after Labor Day to discuss potential hosts.  According to THR, star Eddie Murphy tops the list.  It’s not a done deal, as Humor Mill first suggested yesterday.  But Ratner has a good shot at landing Murphy based on the relationship they built filming Tower Heist, and the move would be great for both Murphy and the Oscars.  The Academy gets one of the world’s most dynamic movie stars, who launched his career on the live stage.  Murphy gets the welcome career boost in a year where the only expectation is to be more energetic than James Franco was.  More after the jump:

Alcon Entertainment is developing a live-action/animated adaptation of the 1970’s Hanna-Barbera cartoon Hong Kong Phooey, and Mr. Eddie Murphy has been tapped to voice the lead character. If you’re unfamiliar with the series, it centered on a dog named Penry who is granted the ability to walk, talk and do kung fu after stumbling into a mystic ceremony that grants him powers. Penry works as a janitor at a police station by day, but patrols the streets at night as Hong Kong Phooey in his “Phooeymobile” with the ever-handy “Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu” manual at his side.

Say what you will about Murphy’s career as of late, but he always delivers great voice work. His fast-talking Donkey was one of the highlights of the Shrek series, and he was memorable as the dragon Mushu in Disney’s Mulan. Alex Zamm (Tooth Fairy 2) is directing Phooey, which presumably will feature an animated title character interacting with live-action actors. Family Guy executive producer David Goodman wrote the script, and Alcon co-founders and co-CEO’s Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove will produce alongside Jay Stern and Brett Ratner. Hit the jump to read the full press release.

Over the past few years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has tapped one prominent filmmaker to produce the Oscar telecast with a partner.  Bill Condon (Dreamgirls) in 2009.  Adam Shankman (Hairspray) in 2010.  Bruce Cohen (Milk) in 2011.  In 2012, the big name is Brett Ratner; he will co-produce the 84th Academy Awards with Don Mischer, who will direct the telecast for the second year in a row.

Ratner is a punching bag around these parts and most of our peer sites, reputed as a hack who can deliver a slick product with little nuance.  The ideal Oscar ceremony puts on a big show with all the bells and whistles, filled to the brim with glitz and glamor — nuance be damned!  Ratner is plenty qualified for the job, and the James Franco Debacle of 2011 probably wasn’t Mischer’s fault.  This is not an exciting hire by any means, but there are other lenses to view this news through than “Brett Ratner sucks.”  The show will take place on February 26, 2012.  Read the official announcement after the jump.

I know I should have zero interest in Tower Heist.  It’s directed by Brett Ratner, it has Ben Stiller playing a straight man, and Eddie Murphy hasn’t done a good comedy this century, but I have to admit that the trailer got a couple laughs out of me although they weren’t from Stiller or Murphy.  The movie’s got a great supporting cast that includes Michael Peña, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, and Alan Alda, but the biggest laugh in the trailer comes from watching Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) hit on Murphy.  I also have to mention that this and Horrible Bosses share the message that if you’re interested in committing a crime, ask a black guy (preferably one who was in Dreamgirls).

Hit the jump to check out the trailer as well as the new poster.  Tower Heist opens November 4th. [Update: We've added five new images from the film and replaced the poster with a hi-res version]

Director Brett Ratner (X-Men: The Last Stand) has been tapped to direct the live-action adaptation of the Scholastic young-adult book series, The 39 Clues. According to Deadline, Ratner will once again collaborate with scribe Jeff Nathanson on the project which DreamWorks initially envisioned as a directing vehicle for Steven Spielberg (a studio can dream, can’t they?). Ratner and Nathanson have previously collaborated on Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3 and most recently on Ratner’s upcoming action/comedy Tower Heist. That film is due out later this year on November 4 and stars Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, and Tea Leoni.

As for The 39 Clues, the popular book series/online game/card collection recently published its eleventh installment which focuses on the Cahill family (a.k.a. “the most powerful family in the world”). For more on the series, hit the jump to check out a synopsis for the book’s first installment, The Maze of Bones.

Brett Ratner is in talks to direct Hercules: The Thracian Wars for MGM. As you may recall, last summer Ratner was rumored to be circling the director’s chair for another Hercules movie for producer Avi Lerner (The Expendables).  However, Ratner never signed on that project and The Thracian Wars is a different script.  Vulture reports that the script for this new Hercules project is based off Radical Publishing’s comic book by Steve Moore.  Ryan Condal, who recently penned the script for Alex Proyas’ adaptation of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, will handle the screenplay for Hercules.  Hit the jump for a synopsis of the comic.

Ratner’s latest film, Tower Heist, stars Ben Stiller as a building manager who attempts to exact financial revenge on a Bernie Madoff-like tenant (Alan Alda).  The film also stars Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Tea Leoni, Casey Affleck, and Michael Peña.  Tower Heist opens November 4th.