It may not be a celebrity story to rival the endless coverage of Michael Jackson's death, but actor Rupert Grint, who plays ginger-kid Ron Weaseley in the Harry Potter films, is reportedly recovering from a mild case of swine flu.

Grint's management said that he took a few days off from work on the adaptation of the series' final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which will be released as two movies. The next flick in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince hits theaters on July 15.

Swine flu aside, it must be something of a relief for Grint -- along with fellow Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson -- to be finally seeing the end of the J.K. Rowling gravy train. While the massively popular film series gave the trio instant celebrity and all the opportunities that brings, they've been chained to the Potter films for half their lives. Grint, who was 13 when he made the first film, turns 21 in August, and seems to have made solid choices so far in building his career. Along with a fair amount of British radio and TV voiceover work, he was praised for his role in 2006's Driving Lessons opposite Laura Linney and Julie Walters.

Seems like a small war is starting to brew between Michael Bay and Megan Fox, after the latter said some unflattering things about Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, telling the Early Show recently that she still doesn't understand the movie and that it's apparently made for geniuses. Bay, of course, is not one to take criticism lightly -- especially from some girl who was nobody until he dropped her into the first Transformers movie.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal about the situation with Fox, he says, "Well, that's Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she's 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, "Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it." But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn't a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in "Armageddon." Shia LaBeouf wasn't a big movie star before he did "Transformers"-and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from "Bad Boys." Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in "Transformers." I like to think that I've had some luck in building actors' careers with my films."

We shouldn't worry whether this war of words will hurt either person's involvement in a third Transformers movie because according to Bay that's not happening anytime soon. On a third Transformers film, he says, "I just want to take some time off. It's been almost three years that I've devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough-and I literally carried this movie on my back. ... I don't know who [would] want to take on my shoes with this franchise. We might just take a year down."

Hopefully some of you are old enough to remember the classic Atari video game Asteroids, where the object of the game was to navigate this space ship through an asteroid field and shoot down whatever crazy flying object got in the way. That was it -- no storyline, no insane graphics -- just a bunch of glowing dots on a screen. Obviously the cinematic possibilities are endless (ahem, sarcasm), and so that's why there was a four-studio bidding war (!) for the film rights. Yup, four studios fought to win the film rights for Asteroids. That's where it's at right now in Hollywood ...

Read the rest at SciFi Squad

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost aren't the only ones getting to take a road trip with Seth Rogen. He's gotta move, gotta get out, gotta leave this place, gotta find some place. Some other place, some brand new place ... with Barbra Streisand. (I know, I can't believe I know those lyrics either.)

HitFix has the scoop that Rogen is developing a comedy called Mother's Curse, and while it's one of an estimated 300,000 projects the unlikely A-Lister is working on, this one has Streisand. Mind you, she's not even officially attached, and the movie doesn't even truly exist. Curse's storyline is under tight development wraps, and the script is still in the process of being written. As Drew McWeeny notes, "When I asked Seth about the film, he referred to it as 'one of the many projects I may or may not do in the next fifteen years,' which is a fair description. So keep in mind... I'm not saying this will or won't happen ... just that it could." It's a pet project of Paramount's new head of production Adam Goodman, so that alone could get it made under that fifteen year mark.

Just the names of Rogen and Streisand together is pretty delightful though, isn't it? I like this new trend of mature, Oscar-loaded actors being game for just about anything. It's like we went back to the Golden Age of screwball comedies when it was ok for everyone to cut loose onscreen, and comedy wasn't just Meet the Spartans schlock.

With his film due out in a couple of weeks, Harry Potter is beginning to make some waves. First up is an update on the Potter IMAX delay. Long story short, Half-Blood Prince won't be arriving on IMAX screens the same day the film hits conventional theaters because of a deal IMAX made with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for an exclusive four-week run. However, three theaters will be getting Harry Potter in IMAX on opening day, July 15th, but if you don't live in New York, Los Angeles or Chicago, you're out of luck. Collider tells us those three theaters are as follows: Century City IMAX (Los Angeles), Henry Crown (Chicago), and AMC Loews Lincoln Square (NYC). The first 12 minutes of the movie have been converted to IMAX 3D, and so I'm sure it's worth the trip for those who live in the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, everyone else will have to wait another two weeks.

Read the rest over at SciFi Squad

A mere week after Sony canned Steven Soderbergh's Moneyball, another big-budget film may have bitten the dust. Fox is putting the breaks on Tony Scott's next project, Unstoppable, over budget concerns, and may can the project altogether.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film was set to begin shooting in fall, and Denzel Washington and Chris Pine were attached to play the leads. But none of the acting deals have been officially closed, and not even Scott is definitively signed to the project. Fox is growing more and more concerned about the cost of production on the thriller, which would be quite high -- after all, it centers around a runaway train loaded with toxic chemicals, and it's being stopped by the $20 million dollar Denzel Washington. While the film isn't in as much production peril as Moneyball, its budget is definitely a roadblock, and fat will have to be trimmed somewhere. Maybe they can make a smaller train, or just have it be an unstoppable semi-truck, or maybe some of the A-Listers can take a pay cut ... something like that.

This summer has seen a lot of big-budget films falter at the box office, so studio hesitations are understandable, and budget trimming has been a long time coming. Though I do love a good action flick, I'm neither here nor there about the plot of Unstoppable, but it would be a shame for Pine to lose his next big role, and kill his Captain Kirk Buzz. So let's hope they figure out how to cut some corners.

Guy Pearce just doesn't do enough movies for my liking. It's not as though he's vanished, but he seems to maintain a fairly low profile every time he blows everyone away with a big, meaty part like L.A. Confidential or Memento. But he has a lot of great projects coming up (the most exciting of which has to be The Road), and he's added a very intriguing one to his slate: the remake of 1973's telepic Don't Be Afraid of the Dark.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pearce and Bailee Madison have joined Katie Holmes in Troy Nixey's remake. It's a fairly loose adaptation of the 1973 original, which was centered around a couple, Sally and Alex, who inherited an old mansion from Sally's grandmother. Sally accidentally uncovers a hellish portal that allows a bunch of demons to escape and wreck bloody havoc. Naturally, no one believes her, and is convinced she's having a nervous breakdown thanks to all that home repair. Because it was the 1970s, it didn't even end well for Sally who just wanted a new fireplace. For those tired of seeing "remake" tacked onto everything, and for fans of the original, you'll be happy to know that the new Dark isn't so much a remake as a story "inspired by" those demonic creatures of old.

Check out the rest of the story at The Horror Squad

While the world mourns the loss of Michael Jackson, Vanity Fair has cooked up a somewhat controversial (and fairly random) look back at Heath Ledger's final days, with quotes from his agent, his vocal coach, director Terry Gilliam and Doctor Parnassus cinematographer Nicola Pecorini. The article, published in part on Vanity Fair's website, is broken into different paragraphs with titles like "How chronic insomnia may have led to his death" and "How his relationship failed." Did the world -- not to mention Ledger's fans, friends and family -- really need all these old wounds dug up and scraped for a little extra attention? Probably not.

Of all the quotes, the most fascinating seem to be the ones which talk about The Dark Knight, and how Ledger's pay-or-play deal allowed him to do whatever he wanted with the role of Joker seeing as he was to still receive a paycheck regardless of whether he remained in the movie. According to Pecorini, Ledger was actually hoping his performance was way too out there and that he'd get fired, allowing him to take a nice, long paid vacation. Ledger's agent, Steven Alexander, sort of backs up the statement with this one about the actor's attitude toward big summer movies, saying he "was always hesitant to be in a summer blockbuster, with the dolls and action figures and everything else that comes with one of those movies. He was afraid it would define him and limit his choices."

The article also delves into Ledger's rampant drug use, eventual sobriety and just how rough his break-up with Michelle Williams was. It also links off to a 2000 photo spread featuring the actor in some, um, interesting poses. Definitely an odd piece, and I'm sure some will be critical of Vanity Fair for running it. Check it out over here and let us know what you think.

[via The Playlist]