Emma Watson tells ‘icky’ movie joke

Emma Watson tells the 'most icky' joke in This Is the End

The 23-year-old actress plays a fictionalised version of herself in the black comedy about a group of friends in the aftermath of a global apocalypse.

Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson and Michael Cera all star as themselves in the movie, with co-writer and director Seth praising Emma's unknown comedic abilities.

'We wanted to have some people nobody would expect to be with us and every time someone asks, ‘Why the hell is Emma Watson in the movie?’, that’s why Emma Watson is in the movie. We thought it was funny to have someone who was the last person you would expect to be associated with us. And she was great,' he gushed in an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph.

'On her first day I think she was a little thrown by how loose we are with our material because I don’t think they did a lot of improvising on those Harry Potter movies, but she very quickly got in the swing of it and was improvising as much as everyone else. One of her jokes is probably one of the most icky in the entire movie and she fully commits to it and it’s one of the biggest laughs.'

Seth has starred in a string of hit comedy movies including Knocked Up, Superbad and Pineapple Express.

The actor has revealed the secret to his success.

'We make movies for us. When we made Superbad we were like 18 or 19 years old and we were the people that the movie was intended for. Pineapple Express is about guys in their late twenties who don’t know what to do with their lives and that’s who we were when we made that movie. This movie is about guys in their thirties who are kind of stuck between their old lives and their new lives,' he said.

'So it’s important to us to make movies that are targeted towards us and not towards other people.'

Pakistan bans Indian Hindu-Muslim romance film ‘Raanjhanaa’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has banned an Indian film about the love affair of a Muslim-Hindu couple on the grounds that it could offend viewers in the conservative Islamic republic, officials said Friday.

"Raanjhanaa" was scheduled for release in June, but Pakistan's Film Censor Board refused to clear it for cinema showings.

"The censor board did not clear this movie because of its controversial story," Arshad Ali, a senior government official and chairman of the board, told AFP.

"The board recommended that the movie's storyline could offend the majority Muslim population in the country and a law and order situation could arise in response," he said.

According to press reports the film is the love story of a Hindu man and a Muslim woman.

While a huge array of Western and Bollywood films can be bought over the counter on pirated DVD in Pakistan, the censor board routinely bans productions deemed too sensitive for cinemas.

Pakistani movie distributors boycotted Hollywood film "Zero Dark Thirty" about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, who was killed by US troops in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 to the country's humiliating.

In 2012, Pakistan banned Agent Vinod, India's answer to James Bond in which an Indian secret agent thwarts Pakistani spies from detonating a nuclear bomb in Delhi.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence from British rule in 1947.

In 2010, censors also refused permission for Indian film "Tere bin Laden", which poked fun at bin Laden. The board claimed it would incite suicide attacks.

Pakistan's own film industry declined in recent years, finding itself unable to compete with the huge popularity of Bollywood productions. (AFP)

Cameron to release three ‘Avatar’ sequels

LOS ANGELES: Canadian director James Cameron is making three sequels to his film "Avatar," which will be released between 2016 and 2018, Fox Studios announced Thursday.

The 2009 film is the highest-grossing movie on record, having netted $2.8 billion at the box office worldwide.

Cameron had originally planned for only two sequels. "In writing the new films, I've come to realize that 'Avatar's' world, story and characters have become even richer than I anticipated, and it became apparent that two films would not be enough to capture everything I wanted to put on screen," Cameron said in a statement.

The movie featured Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana and told the story of a paraplegic soldier sent to the fictitious planet of Pandora, which is coveted for its natural resources.

The three sequels will be filmed simultaneously beginning in 2014, Fox said in a statement. They will be released in December of 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Cameron, who wrote "Titanic" and "Avatar" by himself, has taken on four screenwriters for the project. Josh Friedman ("War of the World"), Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver ("Dawn of the Planet of the Apes") and Shane Salerno ("Armageddon" and "Savages") will work on the sequels.

"We at the studio have no higher priority, and can feel no greater joy, than enabling Jim to continue and expand his vision of the world of 'Avatar,'" said Fox Film chief Jim Gianopulos in a statement.

According to trade magazine Variety, the budget for the three films could reach $1 billion.

Chennai Express’ smashes Indian box office records

MUMBAI: Bollywood movie "Chennai Express", starring Shah Rukh Khan, has smashed box office records in just 21 days since it opened to become the most profitable movie in India, data showed Friday.

The film, which has a typical Bollywood mix of action, romance and comedy, has overtaken previous record-holder "3 Idiots" which appeared in 2009 to collect at least 2.11 billion rupees ($30 million) domestically, according to trade weekly Box Office India.

The co-producers of "Chennai Express", Disney UTV, put the figure at a slightly higher 2.18 billion rupees.

In India, unlike Hollywood, there is no central data service for box office takings so there is often a discrepancy in the figures, but both estimates surpass the domestic collection of "3 Idiots", which made a net total of 2.02 billion rupees.

"'Chennai Express' has broken all records for domestic business and is still gong strong in its theatrical run. A good film, good timing and good luck have contributed to its success," Vajir Singh, editor of Box Office India, told AFP.

He said sales were buoyed by a number of public holidays in the first three weeks of release and a strong promotion effort by superstar Khan.

Also starring popular actress Deepika Padukone, the film tells the story of a 40-year-old man who gets embroiled in the dealings of a south Indian don when he rescues his runaway daughter from thugs aboard the Chennai Express train to southern India.

Directed by Rohit Shetty, the film was released in more than 3,500 cinemas in India -- more than double the number in which "3 Idiots" opened in 2009.

"We have pushed the film across language barriers into regions like Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala where Hindi is not the primary language. This film has been appreciated by families and has a repeat audience," said Gaurav Verma, director of Indian distributions at Disney UTV.

The film may also break international Bollywood records. It is reportedly the mostly widely released Bollywood film of all time, and has already made $16.8 million abroad in gross box office collections, according to the producers.

"3 Idiots", a coming-of-age comic-drama starring Aamir Khan, collected $23.90 million abroad, according to Box Office India, making it the Indian highest grosser abroad and overall.

In a recent interview with AFP, Shah Rukh Khan said he was not concerned with box office records.

"I cannot be going by that standard. I am the creative guy. I am an actor first and last, I don't think like that," he said. (AFP)

Diana film gets world premiere as Watts defends role

LONDON: "Diana", a biopic of the late princess of Wales who died in a Paris car crash, was set for its world premiere on Thursday with its star Naomi Watts already defending her involvement in the controversial film.

The movie follows Diana's romance with London-based Pakistani surgeon Hasnat Khan, whom many friends of the princess say was her real love and the man she allegedly called "Mr Wonderful".

Based on Kate Snell's 2001 book "Diana: Her Last Love", the film suggests that Diana started dating Dodi Fayed to make Khan jealous -- a claim challenged by many close to the princess.

Diana died with Fayed when the Mercedes in which they were travelling slammed into a pillar in a Paris road tunnel in 1997 while being pursued by press photographers.

Ahead of the premiere in London's Leicester Square, Watts, a British-Australian actress who came to prominence in "Mulholland Drive" in 2001, admitted that she was taking a risk by accepting the role of the "People's Princess".

She was asked if she felt the film would offend Diana's sons, Princes William and Harry.

"Hopefully if they get to see the film, they will feel that we have done it in a respectful and sensitive way," she told BBC TV.

"We try to honour the depiction of her character in the best possible way."

But on Wednesday, Watts stormed out of a separate interview with BBC radio, apparently because a question offended her.

The surprised presenter, Simon Mayo, tweeted: "A first for me... as Naomi Watts walked out of an interview! She seemed a tad uncomfortable with the questions. Shame."

The film has been officially ignored by the royal family although its producer Robert Bernstein claims the royals gave some help in allowing filming in Kensington Gardens, where Diana would go jogging.

Some critics have noted that Watts bears little physical resemblance to Diana, and had to wear a prosthetic nose for the film.

She is the only established movie star in the film -- Khan is played by British-Indian actor Naveen Andrews, best known for his role in the TV series "Lost".

Watts claimed in an earlier interview that she "found herself constantly asking for (Diana's) permission to carry on" in the film, which is directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

"I felt like I was spending a lot of time with her. There was one particular moment when I felt her permission was granted," Watts told the Mail on Sunday, before adding: "That won't sound right in print, I know."

Khan, who still works in Britain, said he did not intend to see the film.

As if on cue ahead of its release, new conspiracy theories about Diana's death have begun circulating after police revealed they were investigating claims that a member of Britain's special forces was involved.

Scotland Yard said in August that detectives were checking the "relevance and credibility" of information they had received.

Reports said the claims came from the estranged parents-in-law of a member of the elite SAS. The soldier in question gave evidence at the trial of a former colleague who was found guilty of possessing weapons illegally.

Official investigations into Diana's death have concluded that the chauffeur of the Mercedes, Frenchman Henri Paul, was driving under the effects of alcohol at the time he ferried the couple from the Ritz Hotel across Paris.

Film depictions of the British royals have traditionally received a distinctly mixed critical reception.

"The King's Speech" starring Colin Firth and "The Queen" with Helen Mirren as the monarch were garlanded with awards.

But a 2011 made-for-TV movie about the romance between William and the-then Kate Middleton was described by the Daily Mail as "truly terrible" and "shoddily cast, poorly executed, badly edited". (AP)