Here’s a rundown of some of Hollywood’s smoothest escapes.

The Italian Job

Anyone can just hop in a Mustang and speed over a rising drawbridge to make their escape. But if you want to get away with style, you need a fleet of stupid looking Mini Coopers, the ability to control traffic lights, and exploding streets. Playing chicken with a helicopter adds style points as well.

Quick Change

Now this is a cool plan. Bill Murray dresses up like a clown. Robs a bank and takes hostages. Then he alludes police by simply removing his clown makeup. And despite a lot of setbacks, it works, too. It’s brilliant.

Inside Man

This one lacks the coolness factor of dressing up like a clown, but does have a smooth getaway along the same lines with the disguised bank robbers blending in with the hostages. However, one man builds a little apartment and walls himself in with the loot before casually walking out during business hours a few days later.

Pennywise

Easily one of the scariest evil clowns in fiction to this day, Pennywise wasn’t content to just kill children, he emanates fear and horror into others thereby stripping them of a normal life. Taking the horror up a notch, this clown also appeared as a giant spider that combined two phobias into one for the audience. Pennywise even affected the idea of drainage as many who have viewed the television movie It came to fear storm drains for a very long time if not still to this day. A clown that oozed menace and death with every word, Pennywise did more for clown loathing than any amount of balloon animals could wash away.

Captain Spaulding

Captain Spaulding smiling

Give Rob Zombie some serious dues as he created a clown and an environment in House of 1000 Corpses that feels real to anyone who has taken a long road trip through rural areas. Captain Spaulding takes any and all horrors as just another part of reality and then mixes in logic and a dark intelligence to the recipe of his personality. His delight in all atrocities magnifies the fear throughout the movie thus adding to the importance of his role.

Shakes the Clown

Shakes being restrained by clown

Bobcat Goldthwait is an alcoholic clown with serious depression in Shakes the Clown, and if that doesn’t terrify you then you have probably never needed a night light in your life. Sure he isn’t running around covered in blood, but a sad clown is twice as scary and evil as a happy clown. Add in a murder and the tribal mentality of performers like mimes and you have a movie that speaks of a hidden culture out beyond your door. The exact door you’re now thinking about buying new dead bolts for.

The Joker

The Joker holding the joker

A psychopath with a sense of humor, albeit a twisted sense of humor, just needs a clown visage to be truly terrifying and that’s what you get in The Dark Knight with the Joker. With a panache and talent for bloody mayhem that propels him into the category of  evil clowns, the Joker keeps his enemies and his allies on their toes as there is no understanding of what will set him off next. Heath Ledger took the Joker to new heights with his portrayal of the mania behind the unwavering smile and brought a new generation into the clown fearing fold.

Pogo the Clown

Pogo the Clown waving

With the large majority of evil clowns safely locked away behind the screen, Gacy shows that there’s plenty to fear from clowns in reality as well. A true beast in every sense of the world, Gacy’s penchant for performing as a clown makes for one of the scariest evil clowns that humanity has ever known. A solid lesson that it’s the man and not the makeup that hides the monster.

J.J. Abrams is going out with another show. He has partnered up with the younger NoBro, Jonathan, to shop a new crime show around to the networks. With names like J.J. Abrams and Jonathan Nolan attached, and work like "Lost," Dark Knight, and Inception under their collective belt, I’d think it’s only a matter of time before this gets picked up. Especially if Joaquin Phoenix can sell footage of the guitarist from Spacehog pooping on him. They’re just giving development deals away out there in California!! (EW)

Iron Man 2 opened in first place on Friday night, earning an estimated $52 million, easily surpassing Alice in Wonderland with the biggest debut of 2010. But when it comes to superhero movies, Batman still reigns supreme at the box office.

While weekend projections for IM2 are an impressive $135 million, it’s a far cry from the $158.4 million brought in by The Dark Knight, which holds the all-time first weekend record.

I guess this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Batman could clearly bea Iron Man in a fight. Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne are both geniuses and millionaire playboys, but Bruce Wayne is motivated by an unquenchabl thirst for vengeance. And as we all know, vengeance is a powerful motivator. Just ask my old high-school nemesis, Joseph Sinclair. I showed him…him and that wife of his. (Collider)

Charles Roven and Atlas Entertainment have just dropped anchor on their next project, a big-screen adaptation of Gilligan’s Island. The producer of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight has picked up a script by Yogi Bear‘s Brad Copeland to bring the iconic castaways to theaters. There’s no word yet whether the film will veer toward hacky, slapstick comedy or if it will take a gritty, more serious approach to Gilligan’s first year as a bumbling, accident-prone crewman.

Series producer Sherwood Schwartz is also onboard as executive producer and, though no cast or director are in place, feels that terminally typecast actor Michael Cera is a shoe-in for the role of Gilligan. Expect Avatar‘s Joel David Moore‘s aggressive campaigning for the role to begin in 5… 4… 3… 2…

(Variety)