Opening this weekend is director Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects.  Written by Scott Z. Burns (Contagion, The Informant!), the film is about “a successful New York couple (Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum) whose world unravels when a new drug prescribed by Emily’s psychiatrist (Jude Law)—intended to treat anxiety—has unexpected side effects.”  The film also stars Catherine Zeta-Jones.

At the recent Los Angeles press day I landed an exclusive interview with Jude Law.  During our wide ranging conversation we talked about old projects like Gattaca, eXistenZ, and A.I., how he got involved with Side Effects, what it was like to work with Soderbergh again, how he prepares for a role, and more.  In addition, we also talked about future projects like Sherlock Holmes 3, the new Wes Anderson movie The Grand Budapest Hotel, Dom Hemingway, Queen of the Desert, his thoughts on the comic book genre and whether he’s interested in doing one, and a lot more.  Hit the jump to either read or listen to the interview.

We recently spoke with Jude Law at the press day for his upcoming film Side Effects, and he provided some brief updates on his upcoming projects plus details about his role in Wes Anderson‘s Grand Budapest Hotel.  Regarding his minor updates, Law says that the script for Sherlock Holmes 3 is still in development, but he hasn’t heard anything yet.  “But you know what it’s like, it’s going to be about scheduling, it’s going to be about the right time for the studio and it is about keeping the bar raised,” says Law, “you know, coming up with something that’s really smart and making sure it keeps getting better.”

Hit the jump for what Law had to say about Queen of the Desert, Dom Hemingway, and Grand Budapest Hotel.

Opening this weekend is director Ruben Fleischer’s (Zombieland) Gangster Squad.  The movie is set in 1940s Los Angeles and stars Sean Penn as real-life gangster Mickey Cohen, who became the target of special task force known as the “Gangster Squad” made up of Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, and Robert Patrick.  The film also stars Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, and Mireille Enos.  For more on the film, be sure to check out our set visit coverage here, and watch six clips.

At the Los Angeles press day, I landed an exclusive interview with producer Dan Lin.  During our wide ranging conversation we talked about making Gangster Squad, editing, the test screenings, improv on set, and more.  In addition, with Lin producing a number of other projects, I got updates on Sherlock Holmes 3, The Lego Movie, Suicide Squad, the ACME movie, Brotherhood, Moses, and much more.  Hit the jump for the interview.

Today only, Amazon is offering 22 movies you can download to own for $5 each in HD, and $4 each in SD.  Per Amazon, “Purchased videos will be stored in Your Video Library where you can access them whenever you want; watch on your PC, Kindle Fire, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, or more than 300 HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and set-top devices.”  Hit the jump for the list of films (which includes titles such as The Dark Knight, Casablanca, The Goonies, 300, The Town, The Departed, The Shawshank Redemption, and The Matrix) or click here for the full list on Amazon.

For a 125 year old, Sherlock Holmes is a pretty popular guy.  The character is currently being portrayed on two different television series (the BBC’s Sherlock and CBS’ Elementary), and Warner Bros. has a very successful Sherlock Holmes film franchise on their hands.  Director Guy Ritchie’s 2009 period take, Sherlock Holmes, struck a chord with audiences thanks to the electric chemistry between Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law and Ritchie’s interesting visual approach to the story, and its worldwide gross of over half a billion dollars spawned a sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Game of Shadows saw Ritchie and Co. tackle the classic Arthur Conan Doyle villain Moriarty (played by Jared Harris), and again grossed over $500 million worldwide.  Back in October of 2011, Warner Bros. unsurprisingly hired Drew Pearce (Iron Man 3) to start working on a screenplay for Sherlock Holmes 3.  Steve recently got the chance to interview producer Dan Lin in anticipation of the upcoming crime drama Gangster Squad, and Lin provided a promising update on the status of SH3.  Hit the jump for what he had to say.

Box office rankings were frozen in time this weekend as the top three films remained unchanged for a third straight frame. Once again, top honors went to The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, closely followed by Skyfall.  Spielberg’s Lincoln claimed third. There were also two new releases, though neither hailed from a major studio. The Weinstein Co.’s Killing Them Softly had the most promise, but not even Brad Pitt’s presence could push the drama to $10 million on this notoriously low-grossing weekend.

Opening tomorrow is director Joe Wright’s adaptation of the classic Leo Tolstoy novel Anna Karenina.  The film takes place in late 19th century Russian society and stars Keira Knightley as an adulterer who questions her happiness.  In true Wright fashion, this isn’t exactly a straightforward adaptation; the director has set much of the film in a lush theater that uses over 100 interconnected sets to allow the action to move fluidly through a door and into a separate setting entirely.  The film also stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Matthew Macfadyen, Kelly Macdonald, Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, and Olivia Williams.  For more on Anna Karenina, here’s Matt’s review, five clips, and all our previous coverage.

At the press day, I spoke to Jude Law.  We talked about what it was like to collaborate with Joe Wright and his unique camera angles, how he found out Wright wanted to tell the story in an unconventional way, the status of the 3rd Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr., and a lot more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Though Robert Downey Jr. is currently busy shooting the third installment of his Marvel franchise Iron Man, he has another popular series that’s poised to get the threequel treatment at some point in the near future.  The success of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (it grossed over $540 million worldwide) spurred Warner Bros. to get working on another entry in the action sleuth series, as the studio hired Iron Man 3 scribe Drew Pearce to handle the screenplay last October.

Word on the project since then has been quiet, but Steve recently sat down with Jude Law at the Toronto Film Festival to talk about his upcoming romantic drama Anna Karenina.  Towards the end of the conversation, Law provided a brief update on Sherlock Holmes 3, expressing his excitement at the prospect of reuniting with the Sherlock team for another go-around.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

After surprising us on Friday with its first-place debut, Think Like A Man has surprised again with its estimated $33 million haul from 2,015 locations.  That is the best per-screen average of the week (wide releases) and it nearly doubles expectations for the comedy. In second place, The Lucky One earned a solid $22.8 million and then there’s The Hunger Games… not sick of hearing about that one yet, are you?

A couple weeks ago, we told you that Jonny Lee Miller has been cast as Sherlock Holmes in the pilot for Elementary, CBS’ New York-set contemporary spin on the world’s most famous detective (next to Batman). It made sense; he’s British and has been bouncing around American airwaves the last few years, with a starring role on ABC’s Eli Stone and a juicy Big Bad turn on season five of Dexter.  A slightly less intuitive choice: casting Lucy Liu (Charlie’s Angels) as Holmes’ trusted companion Dr. Watson. But that’s exactly what exec producers Robert Doherty, Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly have done, according to The Live Feed. Hit the jump for more.

Because of the unique release pattern of this year’s holiday offerings, we are posting the weekend box office numbers one day later than usual.  Yesterday’s estimates for the three-day period did not include War Horse, which needed only one day in theatres to earn almost as much as We Bought a Zoo did in three.  Please note that the chart below includes separate estimates for Friday-Monday that are NOT in the same order.  I just couldn’t come up with a better way to present what has turned out to be a very confusing Christmas at the box office.

Looks like holiday cheer was not enough to pull the box office out of its recent slump.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows came out on top with $40 million from 3,703 locations while Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked claimed second with $23.5 million from 3,723.  Needless to say, neither sequel was able to meet the expectations their predecessors set on Christmas weekend back in 2009.  Meanwhile, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, took in $13 million from just 425 locations – making Tom Cruise the big winner of this weekend’s box office derby.  It’s like a little Christmas miracle.

Kieran and Michele Mulroney are the husband and wife writing team behind Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Tackling the task of writing a sequel and making it more compelling than the original was a challenge, but one that they had a lot of fun with.

During this exclusive interview with Collider, Kieran and Michele Mulroney talked about the challenges that come with writing a sequel when you didn’t write the first film, the changes that were made throughout the process of developing the story, how they came up with the backstory for Moriarty, even though they decided to cut it out of the script, and getting to use efficient warfare and more modern weapons. They also talked about currently working on adapting the Victor Hugo classic, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Josh Brolin attached to star and produce, wanting to remain faithful to the story while doing some new things with the character of Quasimodo, and also adapting the young adult novel Matched, which is set in the future. Check out what they had to say after the jump:

Admittedly, I have fallen off of the beaten path with regards to checking out awards season contenders in the theaters this year. That said, I’m hoping to begin turning all of that around this afternoon as a matinee of director Jason Reitman’s Young Adult is currently on my Saturday itinerary. While I can’t claim to be a huge Diablo Cody fan (I tend to think her characters all sound the same…as in, exactly like Diablo Cody), I’m almost always happy with Reitman’s work. Moreover, Charlize Theron looks to be in rare comedic form (an arena she doesn’t always find herself in, but one she undoubtedly has the chops to pull off). All in all, here’s to hoping that my Young Adult screening is just the tip of my awards season iceberg. In the meantime…

…In this week’s “Top 5″ installment, you’ll find a slew of interviews for Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, a number of new assets from director Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man, a recap of this crazy week in trailers, a rundown of the 69th Annual Golden Globes nods, and a light musing regarding Bridesmaids‘ awards season chances. Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each of the above.

In Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, actor Jared Harris plays iconic villain Moriarty, with the perfect blend of menace and charm. He is the intellectual equal of the world’s most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.), but without a moral compass, allowing his capacity for evil to be endless.

During this exclusive interview at the film’s press junket, Jared Harris talked about how he ended up playing Moriarty, how daunting it is to play a genius criminal mastermind, the importance of keeping the character’s motives mysterious and unexplained, that he loves  a good fight scene, and how he’d love to revisit the role, if they ask him back for another film. He also talked about taking on the historical figure Ulysses S. Grant for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, working with Daniel Day Lewis, who stays in character throughout the shoot, currently filming the next season of Mad Men, and his return to Fringe. Check out what he had to say after the jump: