Entertainment Express: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Teen Choice, Cate Blanchett, Gillian Anderson, Duran Duran

Howzit from New York! Hope you caught the Super Moon on Sunday night – the next chance will only come in about 30 years! 

* Despite its 19% score on Rotten Tomatoes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, still earned a hefty part of the box office this past weekend, more than was expected. The reboot made over $65 million in North America, $20 mill more than was expected, breaking Guardians of the Galaxy‘s stronghold. It really goes to show that critical acclaim doesn’t mean much in the face of a family-oriented action flick.

* The Teen Choice awards gave surfboards to The Fault in Our Stars cast, Pretty Little Liars, Demi Lavato, and Donald Sutherland as choice villain for The Hunger Games, among others. According to the show’s hosts, over 165 million votes were cast for the public-vote awards. Wonder how many of those were repeat votes?

* Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett is spending part of the US summer on a New York stage, for a limited run in the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of The Maids, by French playwright Jean Genet. From the sounds of things – and the $375 upwards ticket prices – Blanchett is dazzling, alongside French astar Isabelle Huppert and Elizabeth Debecki (who played Jordan Baker in Baz Lurhmann’s film version of The Great Gatsby).

* Actress Gillian Anderson will soon release her debut novel, A Vision of Fire, and of course, it’s a science-fiction one. The X-Files star has teamed up with best-selling author Jeff Rovin, to help kick-start a new imprint from Simon & Schuster publishing house that will focus on fantasy and stories of the supernatural.

* “An August moon surrenders to a dust cloud on the rise…” Duran Duran collaborated with Nile Rodgers on The Wild Boys (*clap clap*), among others, and now the British group is reuniting with the producer, as well as Mark Ronson, for their latest album. They had such success with collaborating in the past, so I’ll be happy if this partnership leads to another track like Wild Boys.

[Pic: Paramount Pictures]