Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie strut through Michael Bab’s “Pain & Gain,” the weekend’s top box office draw
Credit: Paramount Pictures

Another box office heavyweight, Robert Downey Jr., scored big overseas with the international debut of Marvel superhero sequel “Iron Man 3.”

“Pain & Gain” took in $20 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters over its first three days, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. Cruise’s sci-fi thriller, “Oblivion,” slipped to second place with $17.4 million.

“Iron Man 3″ hauled in $195.3 million in 42 international markets, distributor Walt Disney Co said, a total that surpassed the international opening of “The Avengers.” The movie arrives in the United States and Canada on Friday to kick off Hollywood’s lucrative summer blockbuster season.

Receipts for “Pain & Gain” beat pre-weekend forecasts for a debut of at least $15 million. The film is based on the real-life story of Miami bodybuilders who kidnap a wealthy deli owner and plan to steal his fortune. When their plot goes awry, the criminals scramble to escape being caught.

“We were estimating high teens, so anything with a two in front is good,” said Don Harris, president of domestic theatrical distribution at Paramount Pictures, the Viacom Inc unit that released the movie.

Paramount Pictures produced “Pain & Gain” for $26 million. Dwayne Johnson stars alongside Wahlberg in the film, which is directed by Michael Bay of the blockbuster “Transformers” series.

“Oblivion,” a post-apocalyptic drama about the last humans on Earth, brought its two-week total in North America (the United States and Canada) to $64.7 million. Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures estimated international sales through Sunday at $134.1 million, bringing the film’s worldwide total to $198.8 million.

Baseball drama “42,” about Jackie Robinson’s debut as Major League Baseball’s first black player, finished in third place with $10.7 million domestically.

In fourth place, new romantic comedy “The Big Wedding” earned $7.5 million. Despite a big-name cast including Robert DeNiro, Susan Sarandon and Katherine Heigl, the movie was ravaged by critics. Only 6 percent of reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes website recommended the film.

Lions Gate Entertainment Corp distributed “The Big Wedding,” and Millennium Films covered most of the $35 million production cost.

In the No. 5 slot, animated Stone Age comedy “The Croods” grossed $6.6 million.

North American ticket sales for all movies this year reached nearly $2.9 billion, running 11.8 percent behind sales at the same point in 2012, according to the box office division of Hollywood.com.

The release of “Iron Man 3″ next weekend is expected to jump-start domestic sales. Boxoffice.com is projecting $151 million in North American receipts over the film’s first three days, which would rank as the biggest opening so far this year.

Disney’s executive vice president for motion picture distribution Dave Hollis declined to make a prediction for the film’s U.S. opening, but was optimistic based on the overseas numbers.

“To say that we are encouraged by these results is an understatement,” Hollis said.

“Oblivion” was distributed by Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp. Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros studio released “42,” while “The Croods” was produced by Dreamworks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

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Tom Cruise’s post-apocalyptic thriller “Oblivion” wiped out the box office competition, racking up $38.2 million in weekend ticket sales during its U.S. and Canadian debut.

The debut of “Oblivion” knocked baseball movie “42″ into second place. The drama about Jackie Robinson, the first black player in the Major Leagues, earned $18 million from Friday through Sunday after leading the charts a week ago.

In third place, animated Stone Age comedy “The Croods” earned $9.5 million during its fifth weekend in theaters, according to studio estimates. Global sales for the Dreamworks Animation production were estimated at $429.4 million through Sunday, according to distributor Twentieth Century Fox International.

“Oblivion,” a story set in 2077 about the last humans on Earth, opened a week earlier to strong results in overseas markets. The North American (U.S. and Canadian) results exceeded pre-weekend forecasts for debut sales in the low- to mid-$30 million range, and earned Cruise his biggest opening since the “Mission Impossible” films.

In “Oblivion,” Cruise plays a man who repairs the drones that monitor the nearly empty Earth while its last human inhabitants search for a new home. Morgan Freeman co-stars.

Nikki Rocco, president for domestic distribution at Universal Studios, said that Universal was “very happy” with the opening, and credited the marketing team as well as the timing of the film’s release for its strong results. Universal Studios is a unit of Comcast Corp.

Combined with international receipts, the movie’s global sales stood at $150.2 million Sunday. The movie cost about $120 million to produce.

No other movies were released nationwide over the weekend.

Rounding out the top five, horror spoof “Scary Movie 5″ grossed $6.3 million, and action sequel “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” took in $5.8 million.

Overall, movie ticket sales for 2013 reached $2.76 billion, running 11.2 percent behind the same point last year, according to the box office division of Hollywood.com.

The summer blockbuster season, when studios release their big-budget, effects-filled action movies and sequels, kicks off May 3 with “Iron Man 3″ from Walt Disney Co’s Marvel studio.

Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp, released “Oblivion.” Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros. distributed “42.” “The Croods” was produced by Dreamworks Animation and distributed by News Corp’s 20th Century Fox. The privately held Weinstein Co released “Scary Movie 5.” Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc, released “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.”

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‘Oblivion’
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Stars: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko
Rating: PG-13
3 (out of 5) globes

It’s not clear when sci-fi and comics culture — once solely the realm of nerds — became the dominant pop culture product. Real fans can take solace that most of these products emphasize two things about which they could (hopefully) care less: mindless spectacle and emotion. The mega-budgeted “Oblivion,” starring plucky comeback kid Tom Cruise, holds our hands as it guides us through a twisty, almost hard sci-fi premise concerning a post-apocalyptic Earth. And like “Inception,” it ultimately wants to appeal to touchy feelings, not sterling brain power. It’s also sometimes rather dumb.

“Oblivion” is the kind of sci-fi that opens with an amusingly protracted opening narration. Cruise is a mysterious worker mysteriously working on a mysterious project reaping what resources remain from the now-barren Earth. (Cue shots of a collapsed Pentagon and the Washington Monument leaning over a miserable moat. The latter also took a beating in another recent blockbuster featuring Melissa Leo, “Olympus Has Fallen.”) Cruise admits that he’s had his mind wiped, but he has stray memories of hanging atop the Empire State Building with a woman played by Olga Kurylenko, which are, alas, not outtakes from “To the Wonder.”

There are revelations en route, none of them worth spoiling, involving the true nature of Cruise’s superiors (embodied by Oscar winner Leo, seen entirely on an unaccountably discombobulating scene that makes her look like Max Headroom). There’s also the issue of a group of leftover humans skulking about in caves, led by a cigar-chomping Morgan Freeman (in a glorified cameo). And are we sure we know much about this Cruise fella? Even playing a cipher in a far-flung future, Cruise plays the classic Cruise rebel: a cocky smart aleck who takes risks but remains consummately serious when need be, much to the consternation of his rational killjoy co-worker/hottie ladyfriend (Andrea Riseborough).

What follows is not exactly original, and it calls to mind films one wouldn’t want to recall. The armed-to-the-teeth, probably not-so-good drones (insert topical joke here) resemble the boxy floating robots from “The Black Hole.” Meanwhile one plot point is that the moon has been destroyed —wasn’t that the Deceptacons’ plot in the second “Transformers”? Director Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy”) is a clean and patient director, a perfect fit for a film in non-3-D IMAX and for a screenplay that takes its time in laying out its game plan, wisely recognizing that the journey is superior to the far-too-pat destination.

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Justin Timberlake is coming under fire for a joke video played at his $6.5 million wedding to Jessica Biel that featured Los Angeles homeless people offering the happy couple well wishes, according to Gawker. The eight-minute video, “Greetings from Your Hollywood Friends Who Just Couldn’t Make It,” was produced by Timberlake friend Justin Huchel, a realtor, and features glassy-eyes and toothless men offering, “Justin and Jessica, I haven’t seen you for a long time. I hope the wedding goes fine for you. My gift is in the mail.” Huchel’s attorney insists it’s all in good fun, telling the Web site, “Mr. Huchel made [the] video to be used and exhibited privately at Justin Timberlake’s wedding as a private joke without Mr. Timberlake’s knowledge.”

New light is being shed on Britney Spears‘ infamous 2007 head-shaving meltdown. Former manager Sam Lufti — who is suing Spears and her family for libel, defamation, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and breach of contract — claims that the singer had been using hard drugs at the time and was worried a judge might request a test of her hair, possibly leading to her losing custody of her young children, according to the Daily Beast. “She told me she wanted to get clean, but she was struggling with it,” Lufti said on the stand this week. “I told her she needed to do it. I explained to her that society is not going to tolerate a mother with two kids abusing drugs.”

Jessica Simpson‘s parents, Joe and Tina Simpson, are splitting up, with Tina filing for divorce from Joe in Texas last month, citing “discord or conflict of personalities,” according to People magazine. The news comes as the National Enquirer is also reporting that Joe has recently come out of the closet as gay to his family. “It is an amicable split and there is no third party involved,” a rep for the couple says. “Any other related allegations are completely false.” But amicable might not be the right word. In his response to the divorce filing, Joe reportedly requests that Tina get nothing in the split.

It looks like Bobby Brown’s rehab stint in August didn’t take, as the troubled singer was arrested for driving under the influence near Los Angeles this week, according to CNN. This is Brown’s second DUI arrest this year. Police on the scene reportedly detected “a strong scent of alcohol” on Brown and conducted a sobriety test. He was later released on bond. Brown’s stay in rehab over the summer was part of an agreement following his March arrest for driving while intoxicated.

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Some members of the Church of Scientology of bristling at the special treatment they believe Tom Cruise is receiving in the wake of his split from Katie Holmes, according to Radar Online. “They have bent the rules or Tom. If Tom was any other Scientologist — including lesser celebrities — he would not be allowed to continue seeing and maintaining communication with Katie or Suri,” former Celebrity Center president Nancy Many tells the Web site. “When every other person that I have known of leaves Scientology, which Katie did without speaking of it directly, they are instantly shunned.”

Shakira, who announced two weeks ago that she’s having a baby, has gone a step further and revealed she’s going to have a son. “Yes, it’s going to be a boy,” the singer announced  during an interview with German TV station RTL. “When the baby is born I want him to know he’s helping change the world,” the philanthropic pop star added. This will be the first child for Shakira and Spanish soccer star Gerard Pique.

Maybe this will help take his mind off the whole Kristen Stewart cheating scandal thing: “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson has been named the Sexiest Man Alive by Glamour U.K. for the fourth year in a row. The Brit-heavy list awarded “Avengers” star Tom Hiddleston the No. 2 spot, while Johnny Depp, Michael Fassbender and “Sherlock” star Benedict Cumberbatch rounded out the top five.

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Lindsay Lohan‘s recent hospitalization for a pesky chest infection she can’t seem to shake was due to the stress of her most recent arrest, friends of the actress insist, according to TMZ. Sources insist getting picked up for allegedly striking a pedestrian with her car outside a New York hotel and then hurrying inside caused her pre-existing walking pneumonia to flare up again. Lohan is currently taking antibiotics for the infection, according to he father.

After so much attention was paid to her recent weight gain last week, Lady Gaga is baring all. She posted a stark photo of herself in yellow lingerie on her Little Monster Web site with a caption that reads, “Bulimia and anorexia since I was 15.” And over the weekend, Gaga took to Twitter to inspire her fans with a quote she attributed to Marilyn Monroe: “To all the girls who think you’re ugly because you’re not a size 0, you’re the beautiful ones. It’s society who’s ugly.”

Don’t expect Miley Cyrus and fiancé Liam Hemsworth to rush down the aisle anytime soon. “I already feel married. I know we are forever. I don’t need the paper right now,” Cyrus tells Us Weekly. “I don’t know when we will get married yet. We are still enjoying being engaged. I’ve got so much planning to do with the tours and getting my record out. First I have my movie, then my record — then I’ll do my wedding planning.”

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After almost a year together, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively are still going strong, according to People magazine. The happy couple was spotted in New York City last week celebrating Lively’s 25th birthday with an indulgent treat at Serendipity 3. “They were very attentive to each other, sitting close and very into each other,” an eyewitness says. “They were oblivious to what was going on around them.”

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie squeezed in a little late-summer vacation time, taking four of their six kids to the coastal town of Le Touquet, France, over the weekend, according to People magazine. Pitt and Jolie treated daughters Zahara, Shiloh and Vivienne along with son Knox to pizza before letting them loose on a local toy store Jolie had visited before. “I wasn’t notified of their visit. I didn’t expect it. I didn’t even recognize them. I said ‘bonjour,’ like I do to all my clients and then I saw Brad Pitt,” an employee of Culture Kid tells the magazine. “Since Angelina was here with her son last year, the shop has moved — but they found us.”

Looks like John Mayer really was in the mood for some major change. After reportedly breaking up with Katy Perry following a few weeks of dating, the singer unveiled a new, shorter haircut, ditching the curly locks he’d been sporting for a while, according to Us Weekly. And while Mayer seems to be moving on, Perry is reportedly not taking the split very well. “She’s really upset about it,” a source says. “She is making it seem like it wasn’t serious with John, but she is hurt.”

Despite the mega-success of the “Twilight” film franchise, Kellan Lutz kind of misses the good old days. “My favorite moments were during the first movie, before any of this craze happened. We were just ourselves, no one really knew who we were yet,” Lutz tells Us Weekly. “We haven’t changed per se, but we were able to get away with a lot more.” And while some members of the cast have dealt with the spotlight better than others, Lutz insists the series’s popularity caught them all off guard. “I don’t really like to comment on everyone else’s process, but I think we’ve all done the best we could with this,” he says. “It can be surreal sometimes. I don’t know if we all knew what we were fully getting into on all fronts.”

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Two months after a bottle-throwing brawl erupted between their entourages at a New York nightclub, Chris Brown and Drake find themselves slapped with a $16 million lawsuit for being responsible for the fracas, according to the New York Daily News. A lawyer for Entertainment Enterprises Ltd., which has ties to the club, says the two R&B stars are ultimately responsible for their followers’ behavior. “It’s their posse, and they’re in charge, and to the extent that they could have controlled or dissipated whatever was going on, we don’t believe they did,” he tells the newspaper.

It turns out Justin Theroux hedged his bets when proposing to Jennifer Aniston by doing it on his birthday, according to People magazine. “He’s been dying to do it,” a friend of the actor and screenwriter says. “His friends knew it was coming.” The moment came while the pair was enjoying a day in New York City, and after Aniston’s heartfelt “yes,” they reportedly rushed to share the news with their families and close friends. “Everyone is really excited for them,” the source says. “It’s amazing to see how happy Justin makes Jen, and everyone was always hoping that he would propose.”

Fans are speculating which ex-boyfriend Taylor Swift wrote her new single, “We are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” about, but at least one is taking himself out of the running. “I can tell you it’s not about me,” Joe Jonas, who dated Swift in 2008, says during an interview with Washington, D.C. area radio station 94.7 Fresh FM. “I can say it’s not about me because I don’t think we ever tried another time.”

Former “Blossom” star Mayim Bialik was hospitalized after being involved in a traffic collision with a car full of Chilean tourists in Hollywood Wednesday, according to TMZ. Eyewitnesses say that after the “extremely loud” collision, Bialik was “crying really hard” and there was “blood everywhere.” The actress’ hand was reportedly wrapped in a towel in an effort to stabilize a wound to her finger. “Her finger was almost completely severed,” a source says. “It was just hanging there.” Bialik was rushed to a nearby hospital, where the finger was able to be saved. Later that afternoon, she tweeted that she “will keep all my fingers.”

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The lawyer for Katie Holmes has reported that she and soon-to-be ex-husband Tom Cruise have reached a settlement in their divorce.

The details of that settlement are under wraps, though a statement released by the couple today makes it clear that their 6-year-old daughter, Suri, was the top priority.

“We are committed to working together as parents to accomplishing what is in our daughter Suri’s best interests,” the statement said, according to CNN. “We want to keep matters affecting our family private and express our respect for each other’s commitment to each of our respective beliefs and support each other’s roles as parents.”

The settlement comes just 10 days after news broke that Katie Holmes, 33, filed for divorce. There have been reports that the couple was divided over the 55-year-old Cruise’s Scientology beliefs and his desire to raise Suri in the church.
 
“We are thrilled for Katie and her family and are excited to watch as she embarks on the next chapter of her life,” Holmes’ attorney Jonathan Wolfe said.

Great. So what are we supposed to talk about now?

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With Cruise in the news, the paps are suddenly interested in Nicole Kidman, his ex, again. They caught her having—gasp!—dinner with her husband, singer Keith Urban, at a Florida restaurant, according to Us Magazine. The 45-year-old divorced Cruise in 2001, after an 11 year marriage.

Victoria’s Secret Angel Miranda Kerr, wife of Orlando Bloom, knew she wanted to have their baby without drugs; she gave birth to son Flynn Christopher back in January. “I had made a decision that I wanted to do it [naturally],” she says in the August issue of Harper’s BAZAAR UK. “I had been watching all these baby bonding videos and [without an epidural], when the baby comes out it goes straight onto the breast. it was a long, arduous and difficult labour,” she continued, “but Orlando was with me the whole time supporting and guiding me through it. I could not have done it without him.”

The Bourne Realty? Jeremy Renner, star of the new “Bourne Legacy” film, has a side job flipping houses in Los Angeles, according to an interview in the new Esquire. He’s renovated more than 15 homes since 2002, reports the magazine, including a mansion he may be about to list for $25 million.  “I’m very lucky,” Renner told the magazine. “I could have pretty easily been driving a forklift.”

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TomKat was off to an annoying start with their inappropriate PDA and lovey-dovey interviews. Their courtship is not our fondest memory of them and we can’t help but go ahead and bring up now, after the news that they are divorcing. Actually, their entire union kind of left a weird taste in our mouths, given, you know, how weird it was.

Here are the things that TomKat initially ruined for us, that we now may enjoy again, in peace.

Couches

Motorcycles

Dawson’s Creek

War of the Worlds

First Daughter

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People magazine is reporting that Tom Cruise and his much-younger, yet less famous, wife Katie Holmes will be getting a divorce.

The couple share the most fashionable child in Hollywood, 6-year-old daughter Suri. Holmes reportedly filed for full custody of Suri.

“This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family,” Jonathan Wolfe, Holmes’ attorney, said. “Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.”

TMZ reports the couple did sign a pre-nup before their 2006 nuptials at an Italian castle, which came after a whirlwind courtship that made headlines for Cruise’s bizarre proclamations of love for Holmes.

The rumor mill has been churning for years that the couple’s marriage was a sham from the start — a binding contract Holmes’ agreed upon for money in exchange for helping conceal Cruise’s alleged homosexuality.

Guess we’ll see. Bets on who will land the first post-divorce interview?

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