The “King of the Monsters” Godzilla made a triumphant return to movie theaters this weekend, and it looks as though the monster is making his presence very known.  Director Gareth Edwards’ new film Godzilla scored a huge $38.5 million on Friday, which puts the film on track for an incredibly impressive $98 million debut.  That’s way above the pre-release predictions, and the film could topple the superhero debuts of Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($95 million) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($91.6 million) earlier this year.  Though some are inexplicably complaining that the film isn’t two hours of non-stop CG-overload, reviews for Godzilla are generally positive, and it appears that the excellent marking campaign brought in considerable interest.

Check out Friday’s full box office report after the jump.

One week before The Amazing Spider-Man 2 kicks off the official summer movie season, the box office was predictably underwhelming.  Three new titles debuted but only one, The Other Woman, left an impression.  Fox’s female-centric revenge comedy earned an estimated $24.7 million from 3,204 locations to easily lock down first place while fellow new releases Brick Mansions and The Quiet Ones struggled.

After three weeks on top of the box office, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been vanquished.  The Marvel hit passed Thor: The Dark World’s final domestic gross earlier this week and, on its fourth weekend in theatres, is expected to stay strong in second place.  That makes The Other Woman the new number one film in America.  The Cameron Diaz comedy earned an estimated $9.3 million from 3,204 locations on Friday, putting it on track for $25 million this weekend.  That’s less than the $31.6 million debut of Diaz’s Bad Teacher, in 2011, but well above the $17 million that was projected.

The Other Woman aside, Friday was a hard day for new titles.  The action-drama Brick Mansions, featuring the late Paul Walker, earned an estimated $3.6 million in fourth place, while the PG-13 horror title The Quiet Ones brought in a very soft $1.5 million at number six.  We’ll have complete details on this weekend’s box office tomorrow.

There are some actors and actresses who cause you to wonder why they aren’t bigger stars.  You wonder why you have to point out that person’s previous films and characters when your friends and family ask, “What would I know them from?”  These performers are too talented and too under-appreciated, and you know they’re the best when they turn middling material into a movie worth watching.  Leslie Mann is such an actress, and she single-handedly saves The Other Woman.  A mostly forgettable picture becomes memorable thanks to her cute, goofy, incredibly endearing performance that manages to elevate a not only a stagnant script but also one-dimensional characters.

The Other Woman is a romantic comedy with a refreshing twist centering on three women (Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton) who discover they’ve all been three-timed by the same lying, cheating SOB (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).  Their realization leads to an unlikely friendship as they team up to help each other get their lives back on track and teach him a lesson he’ll never forget.  Opening April 25^th, the female-driven revenge comedy directed by Nick Cassavetes from a screenplay by Melissa Stack also stars Taylor Kinney and Don Johnson.

At a recent press conference, Diaz, Mann, Upton, Coster-Waldau and Kinney talked about the unique appeal of the story, the fun physical comedy and chemistry that developed on set, how Nine to Five was a huge influence, Kinney’s struggle to keep a straight face as Mann kept throwing him curve balls, Mann’s spectacular drunk and her excitement at making out with the hot guy from Game of Thrones, Coster-Waldau’s bruising scene with Upton that got cut, Upton’s reaction to working with Diaz and Mann in her feature debut, and how Diaz and the filmmakers convinced the MPAA to give the movie a PG-13 rating. Check out the interview after the jump.

20th Century Fox has released the first trailer for director Nick Cassavetes’ upcoming comedy The Other Woman.  The film stars Cameron Diaz as a woman who discovers that her boyfriend (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is married and sets out trying to get her life back on track.  When she accidentally meets the wife he’s been cheating on (Leslie Mann) and strikes up a friendship, the two team up with yet another one of his affairs (Kate Upton) to plot their mutual revenge.  The film appears to be a bit of a spin on The First Wives Club, but Mann and Diaz both have solid comedic chops and Cassavetes is a pretty versatile director (his filmography ranges from The Notebook to Alpha Dog), so here’s hoping that translates to a solid revenge comedy.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer and check out the first poster.  The film also stars Nicki Minaj and Taylor Kinney.  The Other Woman opens on April 25, 2014.

Here’s the latest big screen casting news:

• Paul Giamatti (Sideways) will join the Bill Pohlad-directed indie Love & Mercy, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson biopic starring John Cusack and Paul Dano.
• Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) is in talks to lead Alex Proyas’ epic fantasy, Gods of Egypt.
• Don Johnson (Miami Vice) is in final negotiations to join The Other Woman, Nick Cassavetes’ comedy starring Cameron Diaz.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

Here are today’s casting updates:

• Kevin Macdonald’s (The Last King of Scotland) new feature Black Sea, a hot ticket item coming up for Cannes, has Jude Law set to star.  Focus Features has snapped up worldwide rights to the film.

• Nicki Minaj will jump from her American Idol hosting duties to the big screen, making her live-action debut opposite Cameron Diaz, Leslie Mann, Kate Upton, and Nickolaj Coster-Waldau in the Nick Cassavetes-directed The Other Woman.

• Julia Stiles (The Bourne Ultimatum), Scott Speedman (Last Resort), and Stephen Rea (V for Vendetta) will star in the supernatural thriller Out of the Dark, from Spanish director Lluis Quilez.

Hit the jump for more on each project.

We’ve got some new casting news:

• Kelly Reilly (Flight) has landed the female lead role in Heaven Is for Real, based on the book with the same name, about a young boy named Colton Burpo who comes out of an emergency operation with compelling stories of a visit to heaven.  Greg Kinnear will also star as Reilly’s husband in the film.
• Model and actress Kate Upton (The Three Stooges) is in talks to join Nick Cassavetes’s The Other Woman, which will also star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann.
• Tony Goldwyn (The Mechanic) has just joined director Neil Burger’s film Divergent, which is a futuristic thriller based on author Veronica Roth’s New York Times bestseller.  Divergent will also star Shailene Woodley (The Descendants), Theo James (Underworld: Awakening), and Kate Winslet.

Hit the jump for additional pertinent information on the casting.

Check out the latest casting announcements below:

• Jared Harris (Mad Men) will join Pompeii, the 3D action-adventure picture from Paul W.S. Anderson that stars Kit Harington and Emily Browning.
• Dimitri Leonidas (Animals) is the latest addition to writer/director George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, which stars Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Jean Dujardin.
• Leslie Mann (This Is 40) and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Mama) are in negotiations to join the Fox comedy The Other Woman, starring Cameron Diaz.

Hit the jump for more on each picture.

We’ve got a couple of director-related news stories to share this afternoon.  First up, Variety reports that Nick Cassavetes (The Notebook, Alpha Dog) has settled on 20th Century Fox’s The Other Woman as his next project.  The director intended to next helm the gritty actioner Cali, but star Kristen Stewart abruptly dropped out following Huntsman-gate her personal drama late last summer.  The Other Woman centers on a woman (surprise!) who, “after realizing she is not her boyfriend’s primary lover, teams up with the man’s wife to plot a mutual revenge.”

Cameron Diaz was previously rumored to star with Kristen Wiig in the mix for the other lead role, but those rumors were apparently premature as neither actress is attached at this time.  The studio wants to move quickly on this one, and they hope to have the leads locked up within the next week.  Melissa Stack is writing the screenplay.  Hit the jump for news concerning a director change on The Man in the Rockefeller Suit.

Cameron Diaz is looking to tackle another comedy.  The actress is now attached to star in Fox’s revenge comedy The Other Woman, which is apparently in the vein of a younger-skewing The First Wives Club.  The story centers on a woman who finds out she’s “the other woman” in a love triangle and meets up with the wife in order to conspire against the husband.  The Wrap reports that Kristen Wiig is under consideration for a role in the film, presumably that of the man’s wife.  No director is currently attached, but the pic has a script by Black List scribe Melissa Stack and the pairing of Diaz and Wiig could make for some fine comedy.

Diaz most recently filmed a role in director Ridley Scott’s drama The Counselor and will be seen opposite Colin Firth in the comedy caper remake Gambit in early 2013.  She’s next set to star in the action-comedy Agent: Century 21 alongside Benicio Del Toro.

Just the other day, we brought you the first poster for the Natalie Portman film The Other Woman. Today, the trailer for the film has been released online and shows the gifted Black Swan thespian at it again in another dramatic and poignant role. The film also stars Scott Cohen and Lisa Kudrow. Based on the Ayelet Waldman novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, the film tells the story of Emilia (Portman), “a Harvard law school graduate and a newlywed, having just married Jack (Scott Cohen), a high-powered New York lawyer, who was her boss – and married – when she began working at his law firm.” Directed by Don Roos, whose previous credits include helming The Opposite of Sex and writing the screenplay for Marley and Me, the drama is set to be released on Video On Demand by IFC on January 1^st, 2011, but will see a theatrical release on February 4^th.

Check out a synopsis of the novel, as well as the trailer after the jump:

New posters have gone online for The Other Woman, Rabbit Hole, and The King’s Speech.  Starring Natalie Portman, The Other Woman sees the actress make a turn as a newlywed lawyer who must deal with the loss of a newborn daughter.  The drama is based on the Ayelet Waldman novel Love and Other Impossible Pursuits and the poster on display here is solid enough while featuring a pastel colored Portman set against a hand drawn city backdrop.  As for Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart’s Rabbit Hole, while it’s not too hard on the eyes, I have to say that it pales in comparison to previous marketing efforts from the film (a top 10 studio poster of the year, if you ask Matt).

Finally, in regards to the latest offering from Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush’s The King’s Speech, my first reaction says that it lies somewhere in between the abomination that was this poster and the solid minimalistic approach found here.  To check out all three posters for yourself, hit the jump.  Rabbit Hole and The King’s Speech are currently enjoying limited theatrical releases whereas The Other Woman will premiere on demand on New Year’s Day prior to hitting theaters on February 4th.

In talking to filmmaker Eli Roth, one thing becomes immediately clear, he is equally passionate and knowledge about his chosen career path, which presumably accounts for his huge success in the film industry.

As the man behind Cabin Fever and Hostel (along with its sequel Hostel II), he proved that you can make films with a modest budget and no major stars that audiences will love. Now the producer of the documentary-style thriller The Last Exorcism, which he is bringing to the big screen with German filmmaker Daniel Stamm at the helm, he is focusing much more on psychological horror than gore, which is no less effective in its creepiness factor.

While promoting the film at the press day, Eli Roth talked to Collider about what drew him to this script, why he sees film as the perfect outlet to release your life’s fears and his desire to make a 3D feature. He also gave us updates on Man with the Iron First (which he expects to go into production in the Fall), The Other Woman (which he’s producing), Endangered Species (which he plans to direct) and a remake of Funhouse (which he plans to do in 3D). Check out what he had to say after the jump: