Harvey Weinstein is one of the truly larger than life figures in Hollywood. The former head of Miramax is one of the most aggressive self-promoters in the industry. The guy gets at least one movie nominated for Best Picture every year through sheer aggressive marketing. He knows how to launch a prestige picture better than anyone in the business. Unfortunately he’s not quite as good at launching blockbusters and at the moment The Weinstein Company is on the brink of financial disaster if they don’t produce a serious hit.

Fortunately Harvey Weinstein has his best buddy Quentin Tarantino lending a hand this summer with his Brad Pitt war flick Inglorious Basterds. Weinstein is banking on the movie being a big hit that will flood his production company with the loose cash he so desperately needs. In a recent interview with GQ, Weinstein even revealed that hopes are so high for the movie that he, Tarantino, and Brad Pitt are already talking about a prequel. That’s right, the movie isn’t out yet and there are already plans to turn Inglorious Basterds into a franchise.

“Brad wants to do Inglorious II. We all want to do it. And the movie hasn’t even come out yet! But unfortunately I cannot give away the plot,” says Weinstein. Apparently Tarantino developed so much material for the script over the years that there are more then enough deleted scenes floating around to make a couple sequels. In fact, Weinstein claims that at one point the plan was to turn Inglorious Basterds into a HBO miniseries instead of a movie just too keep all of the plot threads intact.

“He had so much stuff mapped out, we could have done like three movies. It was just epic,” says Weinstein. “I was begging for the movies, but Quentin wanted to do the TV series, Bob [Harvey’s brother and business partner] wanted to do the TV series, so it was like two against one, you know? And I was getting outvoted all over the place, so I just figured, All right, forget it, I’m not gonna be a loser, I’ll jump to the winning side.’ And then Quentin turns it into one movie. Go figure.”

While the online hype for Inglorious Basterds is undeniably intense, we’ll have to wait until August to see if audiences respond well enough for the film to be expanded into a franchise. People seem excited, but then there was a lot of excitement for Grindhouse as well and we all know what happened there…

Bale Talks About His New Movie And The Future Of The Batman And Terminator Franchises

Christian Bale is a busy man these days, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. The guy has been laying low since that tape of his hysterical hissy fit on the set of Terminator Salvation leaked to the internet. Studios are so concerned about the audience backlash against Bale that they are starting to pretend that the actor isn’t appearing in their upcoming movies to avoid controversy. Bale’s face was kept to a minimum on the Terminator posters and he’s virtually been edited out of any of the trailers or marketing material for Public Enemies (which I saw last night and it is absolutely fantastic. Sure to be one of the best movies of 2009). It’s pretty damn odd considering the fact that the guy played the title role in one of the most successful movies of all time last summer! But hey, that’s the power of the internet.

Though he’s stayed away from the press recently for obvious reasons, Bale granted an interview with Collider to promote Public Enemies and spilled the beans about what’s going on with his career (minus the infamous tape of course), including the upcoming film The Boxer that he’s making with Mark Wahlberg and another angry internet sensation David O. Russell, as well as the future of the Batman and Terminator franchises. Here are some highlights:

Bale on the future of Batman: “I really cannot tell you if there will ever be another ‘Batman’ movie right now. Chris [Nolan] has obviously done an incredible job with it. He’s devoted to the movie that he’s on right now. I’m none the wiser about we’ll ever be revisiting Gotham or not.”

Bale on the possibility of doing another Terminator: “Really, no. No conversation has been had about that at all.”

Bale on The Fighter: “It’s a true story of two incredibly gifted boxers who were half brothers. The one, Dicky Ecklund, who fought Sugar Ray Leonard at a very young age, when he was twenty one, was an incredible natural talent. He lived a very hard life. Then he came to train his brother, Irish Mickey Ward, to the world title.”

A Little Boy/Bear Love

And finally, what better way could there be to kick off the weekend for all you noble readers out there than by sharing a trailer. No, I won’t be sharing the trailer for a new blockbuster with y’all. Instead, I thought I’d pass along the trailer for Gooby, aka one of the worst children’s movies ever made. It’s your basic Calvin And Hobbes/E.T. knock off, but with a twist. The low budget production scored a couple of soft rock love songs for the soundtrack, but unfortunately it makes the movie look like it’s some sort of twisted and disturbing love story between a young boy and a grown bear. Michael Jackson would have loved it (too soon?).