BBC - Movies -news article - High Noon

		Shrek Grabs The Green Beating yesterday's estimates, the beancounters have made it official: the UK opening of Shrek The Third is the biggest ever for an animated film. Its $33.6m (£16.6m) weekend haul also makes it the third biggest overall debut behind Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. Execs had feared that terrorist alerts and the Concert For Diana (which drew in 15 million viewers at its peak) would keep moviegoers at home. Chris Hedges, the managing director of Paramount Pictures UK, put the success of the film down to "the powerful combination of the Anglo-Saxon humour and very strong UK cast involvement." Well, we're sure that's what Rupert Everett and Eric Idle like to tell themselves anyway.

		Stone Smeared As Satan Oliver Stone has been given the brush off by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The veteran director had been planning to make a documentary about him, but Ahmadinejad's spokesman Mehdi Kalhor returned the compliment, saying, "It is right that this person is considered part of the opposition in the US... part of the Great Satan." The director of World Trade Center gives his reply in a statement. "I have been called a lot of things," he says, "but never a Great Satan. I wish the Iranian people well and only hope their experience with an inept, rigid ideologue president goes better than ours." I think we can safely say this documentary is not going to happen...

		Allen: Love Reigns In Spain Woody Allen held a press conference in Barcelona about his latest film, which starts shooting on 9th July. Known only as 'Woody Allen's Spanish Project', it stars Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem. He said, "I hope I can present Barcelona to the world as I see it, the same way I presented Manhattan to the world as I saw it with my eyes." Then he went a little over-the-top, adding, "I want to write a love letter to Barcelona and from Barcelona to the world." As usual with Allen's films, no plot details have been released. Call us crazy, but we guess it has something to do with people falling in love in Barcelona - and joining hands around the world!

		Simpsons Sell In 7-Eleven A dozen 7-Eleven stores were turned into Kwik-E-Marts over the weekend. Fans of The Simpsons will recognise the latter as Springfield's favourite convenience store. Of course, this is all part of the hype surrounding the imminent release of The Simpson's Movie on 27th July. In another touch of life imitating art, those 7-Elevens and 6000 others in America will also be selling products like Buzz Cola, Krusty O's cereal and Squishees (the slushy drink favoured by Bart Simpson). "We thought if you really want to do something different, the idea of actually changing stores into Kwik-E-Marts was over the top but a natural," says 7-Eleven marketing bod Bobbi Merkel. "It shows they get the joke." Or that they want to milk this cash cow for all it's worth...? In the words of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, "Thank you, come again."