Holly to Bolly: Madea burns Inferno at box office, Tom Hardy to play Al Capone, and more

Plus: James Cameron says he’ll push boundaries with Avatar sequels, Lisa Haydon marries Dino Lalvani and search for bed in iconic Vincent van Gogh’s painting.

LONDON, ENGLAND - JANUARY 14: Actor Tom Hardy attends the UK Premiere of "The Revenant" at the Empire Leicester Square on January 14, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by John Phillips/Getty Images)

Tom Hardy to play Al Capone

According to variety.com, Tom Hardy is set to star as gangster Al Capone in upcoming movie Fonzo. The film is being directed by Chronicle director Josh Trank. Capone was a bootlegger and gangster in Chicago during the prohibition days in the United States. The federal government prosecuted him for tax evasion in 1931. He was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was released after eight years and died at age 48 in 1947. Fonzo is currently in pre-production. — variety.com

Madea burns Inferno at box office

The latest installment in Tyler Perry's Madea comedy franchise, Boo! A Madea Halloween, beat out Inferno to top the North American box office for the second weekend running. The movie, in which Perry reprises his role as a tough-talking matriarch, took in $16.7 million (Dh61 million) for a total of $52 million (Dh190 million). Inferno, the third instalment of Sony's Da Vinci Code franchise, which is directed by Ron Howard, fizzled during its debut weekend to take second place with $15 million (Dh55 million). Based on Dan Brown's bestselling book series, the film stars Felicity Jones and Tom Hanks — who returns to the lead role of Harvard professor Robert Langdon — this time seeking to stop an evil billionaire from killing off the world's population by releasing a deadly virus. -AFP

James Cameron says he’ll push boundaries with Avatar sequels

Filmmaker James Cameron says he will push innovation in the service of storytelling on his Avatar sequels. According to hollywoodreporter.com, Cameron made the promise as he accepted honorary membership in the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers during the society's black tie Centennial Gala. For the sequels to Avatar, which is the most successful movie ever made, Cameron said: "I'm going to push. Not only for better tools, work flow, high dynamic range (HDR) and high frame rates (HFR), the things we are working toward. I'm still very bullish on 3D, but we need brighter projection, and ultimately I think it can happen — with no glasses. We'll get there". Cameron says, for the sequels, he's working on "HDR, 4K for native stereo reduction, all the plethora of things we can do with CG that we couldn't do or were so difficult, I'm going need a lot of water (simulations), dynamics Sims. And merging water, air, fire, all that sort of stuff together into complex simulations is going to be essential for the Avatar films". - hollywoodreporter.com

Lisa Haydon marries Dino Lalvani

Actress Lisa Haydon has married Dino Lalvani after dating him for a year. Lalvani is the son of Pakistan-born British entrepreneur Gullu Lalvani. Haydon and fashion designer Malini Ramani posted wedding snaps on Instagram. In one picture, Haydon simply wrote, "Just Married". Ramani captioned a picture of herself with the newly-wed couple that read: "Its love ... Wedding bliss. Congratulations Dino and Lisa". Haydon wore an off-white gown with a long veil. The 30-year-old, who was last seen in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, announced her plans to marry Lalvani last month. — IANS

Search for bed in iconic van Gogh painting

A bed first made famous by Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting The Bedroom, may today still be lurking in a home or attic in a small Dutch town. Britain-based Van Gogh expert Martin Bailey said the bed on which Van Gogh slept while living in the city of Arles, in the south of France, may have ended up in a home in Boxmeer in The Netherlands after World War II. Bailey based his belief on his discovery of a letter written in 1937 by Van Gogh's cousin, Vincent Willem, in which he said he still possessed the bed of his famous uncle, who committed suicide in 1890. Bailey contacted Johan van Gogh, the elderly son of Van Gogh's cousin, who said "he actually, to my astonishment remembered the bed". Johan van Gogh, 94, said the bed stood in his father's house in Laren until 1945, when it was sent to Boxmeer, around 120 kilometres to the south, as part of a donation to help Dutch who lost their possessions during the war. "That was the last bit of the puzzle. There is no question that the bed ended up in Boxmeer," Bailey said. "Of course, the intriguing question is: where is it now?" he said, admitting the bed may have inadvertently been thrown away over the years. Van Gogh painted three versions of "The Bedroom". The 1888 version hangs in Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum, while two later versions painted in 1889, are on display at the Art Institute of Chicago and Paris' Musee d'Orsay. — AFP