'Harry Potter' scores $58.4 million on its opening day, real-life race-car driver (and actor, of course) Patrick Dempsey gets behind the wheel on the big screen, the Ukraine bans 'Bruno,' and more of today's top movie headlines. It was quite the magical opening day for 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince': The film started Wednesday by smashing the record for the biggest midnight box office opening ever with $22.2M from those screenings alone ('The Dark Knight' had held the record with $18M) and went on to take in $58.4M for the day. For those keeping score at home, that's $14M more than 'Order of the Phoenix' grossed on its opening day two years ago. 'Prince'-ly indeed. [Variety]




Real-life pro race-car driver (and, yes, 'Grey's Anatomy' star) Patrick Dempsey is getting behind the wheel for 'The Art of Racing in the Rain.' Based on the best-selling novel by Garth Stein, 'Racing' is driven by the ruminations of Enzo, the philosophical family dog, who reflects on his life through the lessons learned by his owner, race-car driver Denny Swift (Dempsey). [Variety]


In the latest controversy to involve Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Bruno,' Ukraine has banned the film due to what the country's cultural ministry calls an "artistically unjustified exhibition of sexual organs and sexual relations, homosexual acts in a blatantly graphic form, obscene language, sadism, [and] anti-social behavior which could damage the moral upbringing of our citizens." That's all? [The Hollywood Reporter]


Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard will star opposite James Marsden in the reimagining of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 thriller 'Straw Dogs,' which starred Dustin Hoffman. In the film, a Hollywood screenwriter (Marsden) and his actress wife (Bosworth) move to her Mississippi hometown, where they come into bloody conflict with the locals, including Bosworth's ex (Skarsgard). [Variety] | [The Hollywood Reporter]


Willem Dafoe is taking a trip to 'Mars.' The veteran actor will star in the Disney fantasy adventure 'John Carter of Mars,' an adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs book series about a Civil War soldier (Taylor Kitsch) who is transported to the red planet and finds himself caught up in a war between two races for control of the planet. Dafoe will play Tars Tarkas, an anti-war Martian and ally of John Carter, while Lynn Collins has been set to portray the Princess of Mars. [The Hollywood Reporter] | [Variety]


Christine Baranski is set to star as Jennifer Aniston's mother in the romantic comedy 'Bounty Hunter,' which stars Gerard Butler as a bounty hunter tracking down his ex-wife (Aniston), who has skipped bail. [Variety]


Scott Speedman, Bruce Greenwood and Macha Grenon have joined Paul Giamatti, Dustin Hoffman and Minnie Driver in the the indie drama 'Barney's Version.' The film centers on the reckless life of Barney (Giamatti), who has had three marriages, two kids and is labeled as a "person of interest" in the mysterious disappearance of his best friend (Speedman). [Variety]


'Taken' director Pierre Morel has been tapped to helm 'Pursuit,' a thriller based on the early life of conflict photographer Jason Howe, who fell in love with a woman while on in assignment in Colombia and soon discovered she was an assassin. Bummer. [Variety]


Jesse James Hollywood, the ringleader of a group of teenage drug dealers whose crimes inspired the 2006 film 'Alpha Dog,' has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of kidnapping and murder last week in California. 'Dog,' in which Emile Hirsch played the Hollywood role, portrayed the 2000 kidnapping of Ben Markowitz and the murder of his younger stepbrother Nicholas over a drug debt. [EW.com]


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