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Robert Downey Jr., left, and director
Shane Black on the set of "Iron Man 3."
(Zade Rosenthal / Marvel Entertainment)

By Gina McIntyre / LA Times

By mid-April, "Iron Man 3" was beginning to look like the surest of sure things. Three weeks before the film was to arrive in U.S. theaters, early reviews and box-office tracking suggested that the latest installment in the adventures of Robert Downey Jr.'s charming superhero Tony Stark might rival or even surpass the $2-billion success of last summer's hit "The Avengers."

But on a Monday afternoon just days before "Iron Man 3" was set to premiere in London, the film's director and co-writer, Shane Black, wasn't taking anything for granted.

"If the movie's a huge hit, I'll pump my fist in anticipation of the fact that I'm still viable," Black said, sitting on a rolling chair in a dusty, sparsely furnished office at the corner of Hollywood and Vine. "The fact that I have a chance to come in and do a job that other people would sell their left arm for is not something that escapes me."

Coming from another director, the modesty might ring false. But Black, 51, understands the fickle nature of movie fame as well as anyone.

The Pittsburgh native sold his first script for $250,000 at the age of 23. "Lethal Weapon" announced him as a singular talent whose gift for pairing kinetic repartee with eye-popping spectacle reinvented the modern action film.

For the next decade, Black remained one of the mostly highly paid, sought-after writers in Hollywood, commanding top dollar for screenplays including 1991's "The Last Boy Scout" and 1993's "Last Action Hero." His streak ended when 1996's "The Long Kiss Goodnight" bottomed out at the box office.

By then, Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Williamson arrived with their own brand of chatty, violent, postmodern genre movies, and Black faded from view.

Read more: 'Iron Man 3': Shane Black returns Tony Stark to 'real world'

By Tim Schooley/Pittsburgh Business Times

The Pittsburgh region and the state have lost out on $90 million movie studio and entertainment facility projected to create 1,000 jobs to Effingham County, Ga., according to a news report in today's Savannah Morning News.

The company pushing the studio plan is called Medient Studios Inc., which also considered Savannah and Atlanta within Georgia as well, along with New York state, according to the report.

'Spring Breakers' grossed $270,000 from three

theaters in New York and Los Angeles

By Pamela McClintock/The Hollywood Reporter

Harmony Korine's dark, hedonistic comedy expands nationwide March 22; the indie film stars James Franco, Selena Gomez, Ashley Benson and Vanessa Hudgens.

When upstart distribution outfit A24 decided to open the R-rated Spring Breakers in only three theaters in New York and Los Angeles -- the standard practice for an arthouse title -- it knew it was taking a risk.

From renegade filmmaker and artist Harmony Korine, the dark, hedonistic comedy is far from being a typical specialty title, considering its younger-skewing subject matter and commercially appealing cast, led by James Franco and Disney-raised stars Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens, as well as Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars). Rachel Korine, the director's wife, rounds out the cast.

But the maneuver worked. Spring Breakers grossed $270,000 from three theaters in New York and Los Angeles to land the top location average of 2013 ($90,000), as well as one of the best of all time for the first three months of the year. It was the No. 1 film at ArcLight Hollywood in Los Angeles and Regal Union Square Stadium 14 in New York and the No. 2 title at AMC Empire 25, likewise in Manhattan and the busiest theater in the country.

"What this weekend proved is that Harmony's film has definitely hit a nerve. The audiences loved it," says A24's Nicolette Aizenberg.

Read more: 'Spring Breakers' Scores Top Limited Opening of 2013, But Big Challenge Lies Ahead

'Spring Breakers' Review: Harmony Korine's Most Accessible Movie Entertains and Enlightens [SXSW 2013]

By Germain Lussier/SlashFilm

Oddly enough, everything you need to know about Spring Breakers is represented by its two credited music composers: Cliff Martinez and Skrillex. Martinez is a veteran, a regular Steven Soderbergh collaborator who recently did the score to Drive. He's known for pulsing, tense, dramatic scores. Skrillex is the world's best known dubstep DJ, known for grimy, catchy party anthems infused with a certain soul and savagery. Those two sounds, traditional and modern, are Spring Breakers in a nutshell. It's a wild, entertaining and vibrant movie with an underbelly of tension and purpose.

At times Spring Breakers pops with energy and excitement. It then dives into much more intense drama. The tones, like those of the score, sometimes clash. But often the oddfellows mesh beautifully, making us question why this film is the way it is: a fever dream of drugs, sex and violence. The answer brings to light some tough questions about society's core beliefs.

Written and directed by Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers stars Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine as four college girls who'll do anything to get out of their mundane lives for a few days. They're dying to head to Florida for spring break. To them, spring break is their opportunity to be something different. Something better. Yet the method by which they get there already sets them on the wrong path.

Read more.

THE DEADLINE TEAM

George Lucas was asked by Bloomberg Businessweek if the three members of the original Star Wars cast would return for Episode VII. His response -- "We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison--or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, 'Look, this is what's going on.' " Pausing, he said "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them." 

Read more Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamil On Board for 'Star Wars: Episode VII'?