Thanks to some unfortunate incident called Charlie’s Angels, the regrettably named McG has been tarred with the same brush as his peers Brett Ratner and Uwe Boll.

In fact, his handle on the Terminator story turned out to be a surprisingly decent entry into the muscular Arnie franchise.

McG knew he had much to prove, this would be an Arnie-less sequel for a series he owned from the moment his naked buttocks walked in front of the lens. So, with Bale serving as the ‘name’ on the banner it may come as a surprise that he actually has far less to do here than expected.

Sam Worthington – star of the upcoming Avatar – stands front and centre in this as Marcus. It’s no big spoiler to say that he is a machine – an early model that’ll lead to the hulking Schwarzenegger T-800 we love. Marcus’ mysterious backstory and handle on his own creation fortunately works as a compelling undercurrent to the main story – much of what makes this film enjoyable is Worthington’s performance and his ability to flip from tough action hero to tortured robot.

The film definitely relaunched the franchise from its slightly camp third instalment and instilled it with a grittiness clearly inspired from the likes of Scott, Cuarón and even a generous portion of the excellent reinvention of Battlestar Galactica. It is helped in no small way by Marcus’ journey which serves as a meaty introduction to the apocalyptic landscapes that Cameron could only tease us with in the neon-struck 80s.

Bale does disappoint. We have watched John Connor grow up and here he is trying to become the leader he feels he was born to be. At no fault of Bale he is given little to do here apart from formulate plans and turn in the odd action scene. The most compelling part of Connor’s life seems to have taken place between Nick Stahl’s impish incarnation in T-3 and Bale’s grizzle-toned skinhead here.

This film was meant to serve as a first entry into a new trilogy that would explore the resistance’s uprising against the machine onslaught, and Connor – much like other members of the support cast. – clearly had a lot of room to grow. Bryce Dallas Howard is criminally underused as John’s wife Kate and only shares a few scenes here. What we do get a lot of is Kyle Reese – a perfect capturing of Michael Biehn’s performance from T-1 and here by Anton Yelchin – whose obsession with Connor forms an interesting relationship, given he is his father pre-conception (try to keep up!).

There are nods to the previous entries and McG packs in plenty action spectacle that serves as much popcorn wallop as one would hope. There are a few ingredients that don’t quite mix well; silent child Star only acts as a homage to Newt from Aliens but serves no real purpose. Also, the big cameo towards the end is all too brief and not as well implemented as it could have been.

This film is leagues ahead of T-3 and, given time to expand the story, then a sequel could do for Salvation what T-2 did for T-1. McG may have tarnished his name with his bland CV but with this reinvention of the franchise he has delivered a film that stands alongside its predecessors with ease. It isn’t quite the level of Cameron ingenuity but McG delivers a sequel that makes you barely notice the absence of the Govenator.

The Blu-ray also gloriously ups the ante with the action, providing plenty of bang for your buck in HD. Also, there are plenty of features packed into the discs including a picture in picture commentary from McG and a slightly extended cut which features female heroine’s (Moon Bloodgood) breasts. A director’s cut surely to be as revered as Scott’s Blade Runner!

Hecklerspray rating: 4/5

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It had it all – a furious star, a nonsense story, an oddly-named director – but now Terminator Salvation has more.

That’s right – Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sort of. Even though it opens next month, Arnold Schwarzenegger still doesn’t know if he’ll be in Terminator Salvation or not. He might be, but only if producers insert footage from the first Terminator into the new film.

Which is rubbish. We want Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Salvation in real life, perhaps as a demonstration of the time Skynet got drunk and made a murderous robot that looked like a fat old man for a laugh.

There’s nothing that anybody likes more than a third sequel to a 25-year-old film where you’re asked to completely disregard its entire TV spin-off series, most of what happened in the second sequel and the alarming realisation that in the future all embittered leaders of resistance movements against armies of unstoppable machines hellbent on the eradication of mankind will have accents that lurch indiscriminately between London, LA and borderline offensive comedy Pakistani.

And therefore, there’s nothing that anybody will like more than Terminator Salvation. Hype is already at fever pitch over Terminator Salvation, having been drummed up by a fairly impressive trailer and that tape of the angriest man in all the word bellowing “AH DA DA DA DA!” at a subordinate. But you know what would be the robot cherry on the cyborg cake? Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has played such a big part in all the other Terminator movies – he was the unstoppable villain in the first one, the underdog hero in the second one and the embarrassing shadow of his former self in the third one – that it wouldn’t feel right if he didn’t have a part to play in Terminator Salvation.

And now there’s a fighting chance that he might. In a way. In a really crappy way. The LA Times reports:

Warner Bros. is exploring whether it can insert images of Schwarzenegger from the original “Terminator” movie into the new film starring Christian Bale, directed by McG and slated for release May 21…  In the film, a prequel to the original, Schwarzenegger would be in a brief scene in which the main character encounters him as a “future Terminator,” according to the governor.

As potentially rubbish as that sounds, the description is a little vague. We imagine this means that Terminator Salvation will feature a scene where Arnold Schwarzenegger time-travels back from the future to try and kill Christian Bale, but Christian Bale gets all “YOU’RE A NICE GUY, YOU’RE A NICE GUY, BUT THAT DOESN’T FUCKING CUT IT!” on him, so Arnold Schwarzenegger decides it’ll be easier to time-travel back even further and just kick his mum in the stomach when she’s pregnant with him instead.

If that’s the case, we’re sold. Someone book us a ticket.

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But we warned, the trailer does give away some pretty important Terminator Salvation plot details – like the bit where Christian Bale realises that the only way to beat the invincible machine army it to loudly berate it for trashing his scene, mock the way it walks by screaming “AH DA DA DA DAH” at it and then inform it that he’s finished with it professionally. So, you know, watch it at your own peril.

How can any thespian be expected to respond in a reasonable way when faced with the choking, all-consuming pressure that comes from having to play characters that either dress up as bats or battle evil futuristic robots?

Christ, it’s pressure like that that makes a guy want to:

a) wear a diving bell

b) allegedly assault his own mother, or

c) go absolutely apeshit over a DP’s unacceptable, um, walking.

That’s why, having now heard the infamous rant in which Bale reamed out Terminator Salvation’s Director of Photography Shane Hurlbut for walking into the shot, we all need to first pause and reflect on the truly horrible conditions that Christian Bale has to suffer through every stinking day of his life. That poor, poor bastard.

That understood, we do admit that the on-set blow up aimed at Hurlbut was indeed regrettable, and now it seems Christian Bale thinks so too. Taking to the airwaves on L.A.’s KROQ on Feb. 7, Bale apologised for his behaviour:

“The thing that disturbs me so much is that I’ve heard a lot of people saying that I seem to think that I’m better than anyone else. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I’m a lucky SOB. I never forget that and that is why I put so much into what I do I was out of order beyond belief. I was way out of order. I acted like a punk. I regret that. And there is nobody that has heard that tape that is hit harder by it than me.”

Christian Bale, you complete us.

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9 – Christian Bale: the Stephen Colbert response – Comedycentral

8 - Guitar Hero players: you will never, ever be as good as this 14-year-old boy – NYT

7 - Futurama voice actors at work - YouTube

6 - A picture of a live cow that was struck by lightning? Why certainly – Dailymail

5 - A request from Stuart Heritage: please click on this link to my dad’s flycasting blog so that all the traffic freaks him out – Michaelheritage

4 - That awful ‘25 things about me’ Facebook meme gets mentioned in TIME. TIME, for christ’s sake. We’re all doomed - TIME

3 - Warner Bros want to make five more Batman films, the idiots – /film

2 - For the hell of it, here’s Barack Obama swearing. A lot – Thatjohnzillasite

1 - Possibly the best thing ever – a Russian anti-Coke calendar - Englishrussia

9 - Here’s the man Christian Bale went mental on. Now we can sort of understand why – Kodak

8 - Get a tan from your computer - YouTube

7 - Headline: Man Caught With Pigeons In His Trousers – Metro

6 - Here’s a newsreader doing the most spectacular live faint that we’ve ever seen – I Am Bored

5 - Surprise of the week: Facebook makes you depressed – Readwriteweb

4 - Want to make a sausage zombie? OK! – Instructables

3 – Ten things men should never do in public – Askmen

2 - Kids, don’t do drugs. Seven-year-old kids, definitely don’t do drugs - YouTube

1 – LIL’ O’REILLY! HOORAY! – Funnyordie

But what’s also fact is it’s not universally loved. The sad truth is that some saps can’t take pleasure from a recording of a prick being a prick to a prick. And, inevitably, most of those people are famous.

So far, Whoopi Goldberg and Terry Crews have stood up for Christian Bale, building hopes that there’ll soon be an all-star charity concert to raise awareness of the rights of unbearably dickish actors with indeterminate accents so. Fingers crossed it’s called AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH-Aid.

Look, we know it might cause unimaginable harm to his career as an actor, but we never want this Christian Bale rant stuff to end. Really, we don’t.

It’s so perfect that we want it to follow him everywhere for the rest of his life. We want Batman 3 to be about Christian Bale being driven into geographically nonspecific madness when an Alfred The Butler keeps trashing his scene and walking about ah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah like this even though he’s a nice guy.

When Christian Bale dies, we want his Oscars ‘In Memorium’ photo to be accompanied by the sound of him shrieking “DO NOT SHUT ME UP! NO! NO!” In short, we are in love with Christian Bale’s Terminator rant and we want to marry it.

But that’s going to be an uphill struggle, not only because getting married to a recording of Christian Bale’s abusive voice is both unlawful and probably a sign of a deep psychiatric disorder, but also because several people are doing their best to brush Christian Bale’s obviously dickish behaviour under the carpet. Yesterday a Terminator Salvation assistant director called Christian Bale’s rant a ‘non-event’, and now other celebrities are leaping on the bandwagon as well.

First came Whoopi Goldberg. Whoopi can totally relate to Christian Bale’s predicament, partly because of the time she got so angry on the set of Star Trek that she ended up biting Worf on the forehead, and secondly because her day-job involves sitting on a table with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a job which would leave anyone teetering on the edge of a violent meltdown. On The View, Whoopi said:

“We don’t know if this (incident happened) at the end of the day, we don’t know how many hours (he had) been working. It’s tough. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I too have gone off on people, because if you’re a professional, you know what you’re not supposed to do.”

And then Terry Crews, who is apparently an actor, decided to step in for Christian Bale as well, saying:

“I’d get mad too if I was the number one star in the world and people started to mess with me. He is a class act. He is one of the greatest actors ever. You can catch anyone on a bad day.”

Where we go from here is anybody’s guess. Although it looks like the movie world is already starting to rally around Christian Bale, there are also murmurs that his career could be badly affected by his outburst.

All we do know is that Christian Bale and Shane Hurlbut – the man on the receiving end of his tantrum – are through, professionally. Which is a real shame – as well as Terminator Salvation, Bale and Hurlbut had previously worked together on the Samuel L Jackson Shaft movie, meaning that Hurlbut’s career in the spectacularly badly thought-out remake/sequel business is all but over.

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But you probably didn’t realise that. And that’s all thanks to yesterday’s glorious tape of Christian Bale unloading both barrels of his sweary idiot-gun at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set.

But, according to a Terminator Salvation assistant director, Christian Bale’s tantrum was a “non-event”. Rumours that he said this while whimpering on his knees while Christian Bale held a knife to his throat and cackled like a maniac are unconfirmed, but probably true.

Now, we’re not saying that Christian Bale is an angry man as such, but we wouldn’t really like to be in the same room as him today. Remember that Christian Bale is the sort of person who, if you tell him that he’s the above-the-title star of the second-biggest movie in cinema history, will get arrested for assaulting his own mother.

And that’s Christian Bale on a good day. So just imagine what sort of prick he’s being today, now that the infamous tape of Christian Bale ranting at a Terminator underling has hit the internet.

You’ve no doubt heard the tape already, so you’re fully aware of the majesty contained within. The swearing. The egomania. The deployment of at least 36 different regional accents. The immortal line “Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?” The inescapable sensation that Christian Bale is the world champion of being a swaggering, self-important prick to almost everyone he meets. It is golden, and we’re not even slightly exaggerating there.

However, that hasn’t stopped any number of party-poopers from rushing up and widdling all over our strawberries by bleating that “oh, but the tape was taken out of context,” and “but Christian Bale is a professional,” and “you don’t understand what it’s like to be an actor.” And to those people we say this: “DO NOT SHUT US UP! Do not… NO! NO!”

Sadly, one of those people is Bruce Franklin – an associate producer and assistant director on Terminator Salvation – who has come scampering to Christian Bale’s defence, probably because he’s terrified that he’ll end up with a screwdriver poking out the top of his skull if he doesn’t. E! Online reports:

“If you are working in a very intense scene and someone takes you out of your groove…It was the most emotional scene in the movie. And for him to get stopped in the middle of it. He is very intensely involved in his character. He didn’t walk around like that all day long. It was just a moment and it passed. He is so dedicated to the craft. I think someone is begging to make some noise about this, but I don’t think it’s fair.”

Actually, we do see Bruce Franklin’s point here. Christian Bale was working on a very emotional scene. The most emotional scene in a movie full of emotional scenes, in fact. Wait, did we just say ‘emotional scenes’? We meant ‘utterly clueless scenes of Christian Bale running away from a load of angry robots’. Our mistake.

Whether Bruce’s defence of Christian Bale helps is another question, though. Some are already saying that Bale’s career might be affected by this tape, with producers being reticent to hire such a notorious hothead for their movies. But even if that’s the case, we’re sure that Christian Bale will still find work. True, that work will be limited to being the holiday cover for Bill O’Reilly, but a job’s a job.

But anyway, if the Christian Bale rant tape and all its reprecussions have taught us anything, it’s that we really need to build a time machine and travel back to see what the set of 3:10 To Yuma was like. Seriously, you can’t employ two actors as obviously mental as Christian Bale and Russell Crowe without someone having their jaw ripped out.

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Seriously, Alec should send Christian Bale a cookie basket. Because Christian Bale has made sure that Alec Baldwin’s insane ‘ignorant little pig’ rant at his daughter has been relegated to only second most brilliant recorded tantrum in history.

A recording of Christian Bale screaming at a Terminator Salvation DP has hit the internet and, if you do one thing today, you must hear it. It’s not just Christian Bale’s fury, you see – it’s the fact that he rants in about 13 different accents.

There’s a lot to like about Christian Bale – the fact that he’s not quite as good at acting as he thinks he is, the way he gave his Batman the most bewilderingly incoherent voice in cinema history, his, um, hair – but nothing even comes close to the way that Christian Bale promotes his films. When it comes to that, the man is a stone cold genius.

Upon the release of The Dark Knight, you’ll remember that Christian Bale got arrested on suspicion of assaulting his own clown mother in a hotel room. That’s dedication for you, and it worked – the film went on to become the second-biggest of all time. And it’s clearly a trick that Christian Bale wants to reproduce for his next movie Terminator Salvation.

What makes us so certain? Why, only a recording of Christian Bale going absolutely batshit at a director of photography on the Terminator Salvation set that’s just hit the internet. There are literally no words to tell you how amazing the tape is. It’s actually brilliant. We’re not overstating it one bit. Listening to Christian Bale going potty-mouthed berserk at a man who probably doesn’t even make a tenth of the money that he does is the best thing we’ve listened to all year.

Listen to Christian Bale’s incredible Terminator rant here

See? How incredible is that? We’ve found it so completely impossible to pick our favourite part of Christian Bale’s meltdown, so here’s a cluster of them for you. Oh, and by the way, you should take it as a given that the way Christian Bale’s voice lurches from LA drawl to gobby cockney to Nu Yawk screech to Welsh to borderline offensive comedy Pakistani during the rant is one of the best things about it. Because it is. Anyway, in no particular order:

“Do I walk fucking walk around the… NO! Do not shut me up, Bruce! Do I walk… No! NO!”

“Why the fuck are you walking right through? AH-DAH-DAH-DAH-DAH like this?”

“Do you want me to go and trash your lights? DO YOU WANT ME TO GO AND TRASH ‘EM?”

“You’re a nice guy. YOU’RE A NICE GUY! But that don’t fucking cut it.”

“I don’t need any fucking walking. He needs to stop walking. I AIN’T THE ONE WALKING!“

Genius. There’s, we’ve said. Christian Bale is actually a genius. Obviously he’s a gigantic self-important prick of the absolute worst kind and spending a second in his company must be like spending three eternities getting kicked in the jaw by an angry horse, but Christian Bale is a genius as well.

According to IMDb, Christian Bale’s next movie is the Michael Mann film Public Enemies. Lord alone knows how he’s going to promote that one, but we’d wager that it’ll involve a tank of petrol, a lighter, a box of puppies and some sort of tribal dancing.

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While we all thought we would have to live in a world where no other films would ever get anywhere near The Dark Knight – a world where daily recitals of The Joker’s best speeches were made to be recited every morning in our schools, where every car is replaced with a Batmobile and where Morgan Freeman is elected King of Everything (with Christian Bale as his alleged muscle, obviously) – we have been proven wrong.

We worried for a while, but fortunately the ‘Greatest Film of All Time(tm)’ has been dethroned by Ben Stiller, Jack Black and a blacked-up Robert Downey Jr. And it’s sure to make the latter quite happy about it.

It would appear that controversy and notoriety really does help the fortunes of a cinema release these days – there were the obvious little numbers coming about before and after the release of The Dark Knight. It can’t be denied that the often-mentioned death, car crashes and alleged assaults had a positive effect on the fortunes of Nolan’s Batmasterpiece, and Tropic Thunder seems to have used the same technique to dethrone the four-week king.

Yes, there has been a lot of hoo-ha in recent weeks about the usage of the word ‘retard’ in Stiller and the gang’s Vietnam-movie comedy movie. Movie. Some people don’t like the word, and it’s apparently used quite liberally through the film.

But, of course, instead of looking into it and forming some kind of reasoned argument or debate about the issue, people just went and picketed screenings of the film, thus bringing it far more press coverage than it would have got without protests. And it would have got a lot of coverage without them anyway.

Throw on top of the pile the fact that one actor plays a blacked-up white man and you have another pile of outrage for the public to jump on. Shockingly though, this fell by the wayside with only a handful of comments being raised about the questionable portrayal. Possibly because they realised there was some satire at work there.

Either that or the blacked-up protesters couldn’t be heard over the legions of retard protesters. That’s as in protesting the use of the word, of course – we’re not calling them retarded for protesting the use of a word in a movie that is meant as a light-hearted comedy and a satire of the world of movies we are surrounded by today. Oh no. Not us.

Anyway – regardless of the retarded, blacked-up reasons that can be thrown around the fact remains – Tropic Thunder has dethroned The Dark Knight at the box office, raking in $37 million to the Baler and company’s $16.7 million.

If Tropic manages to gross more overall than Batman and chums then… well, frankly we’ll eat four gallons of testicle juice. Because that isn’t going to happen, even with all the controversy in the world.

The sequel to the Best Film Ever(tm) that has made more money than the GDP of many African nations combined, The Dark Knight, will get a sequel at some point. On one hand, who would blame the studio? It’s a licence to print money. On the same hand but slightly tilted, the vast majority of people who have seen the first two films actually want a sequel, seeing as both Batman Begins and the more recent helping were utterly brilliant.

Oh, plus Christian Bale isn’t going to be put in the slammer for three hundred years, or thereabouts.

But David S. Goyer, writer of the screenplay for both films, has other things to do for quite a while, so you plebians are going to have to wait a while for your next hit of Gotham’s favourite vigilante.

No, it would seem that in the great scheme of things, Goyer has what we sometimes like to call ‘a life outside Batman’. Hard to believe, but true nonetheless. His writing credits stretch far and wide, so as much as you out there in people land want a quick follow up to The Dark Knight, it ain’t gonna happen for a while.

Speaking to MTV, Goyer moved his lips and made some vibrations, which produced sounds of a certain type, conducted in a certain order. On paper, they look like this:

“I’m writing a new version of ‘The Invisible Man’ for Universal. I’m in the process of doing ['Invisible Man'] right now, and I’m working with some conceptual artists in tandem with writing the script. I’m actually working with one of the artists from ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘The Dark Knight.’”

David continued this strange and mystical feat of producing language through his oral cavity, informing MTV of how he saw his version of The Invisible Man taking shape:

“My take is kind of an extrapolation. It actually deals with a nephew of the first character…It involves Scotland Yard getting their hands on the current Invisible Man and basically saying, ‘Wow, you’d be a really good secret agent to send into Imperial Russia right now’. It starts off from there… I don’t want to give too much away, but I took what being invisible could mean to the next logical extreme. We do a lot of crazy things in it that are sort of far beyond what anyone’s done with it yet.”

But it doesn’t stop there – well, his words did, but his career didn’t – with Goyer also in line to write and direct the second installment of X-Men Origins, this one being about everybody’s favourite metal-bending oldie Magneto.

So it would seem that one of the main creative forces behind The Dark Knight won’t be returning to the franchise for a while. That’s okay, we can accept that. In fact, it gives us all the chance to see what happens in the meantime – in the space of a few years we can see how the ‘curse’ of the movie affects the cast and crew. More death? More car crashes? More probably-not-actually-pushing-your-mum?

The possibilities are endless. Well, not literally endless, but there are a lot of possibilities. And hopefully David S Goyer will see sense and dumb down Batman 3, for Robert Downey Jr’s sake.

The Welshman, who no one seems to realise is Welsh, has been recommended to receive a caution by the Crown Prosecution Service for his alleged actions, should he plead guilty to charges next month. If, however, he pleads not guilty then he could be looking at more severe penalties, all according to the bastion of truth, honour and glory that is The Sun newspaper.

Though, let’s be honest here – he probably wouldn’t be looking at any really severe charges. A fine, a slap on the wrist and a bruised ego, leaving the Baler ready to take on Terminator 4 and Batman 3. Unless the authorities were to decide on making an example of him and imprisoned him for life – alledgely pushing your mum and sister about is no laughing matter, after all.

Especially when they apparently want money from you.

Last month saw Christian Bale arrested on suspicion of assault, and while everyone went mental thinking the guy had beaten some evil-doers to death with their own shoes, we soon discovered it was allegedly for getting mad and pushing his family about a bit. Not that we condone that kind of behaviour, but it was a bit of a let-down.

He didn’t even do it in his Batman costume, allegedly.

After being released on bail, Bale bailed from the UK to get back to work. That sentence was pretty unnecessary, but hecklerspray enjoys using the same word three times in a row, so hush down.

Anyway, rumours were flung around about the reasons for the alleged assault, until it was generally accepted that the row came about over money. Being rich and all, Bale was apparently expected to give over a fair wodge of cash for his sister’s kids, simply for sharing blood ties with these people. And he allegedly wasn’t happy, so he apparently made his feelings clear with some shouting and a push.

He didn’t, as some had hoped, beat up his clown sister. In his Batman costume. While on fire. Upside down. Such a let-down, honestly.

And now, bringing this whole debacle to an end, hopefully, we are greeted with the news that the only thing that will befall Christian Bale – should he plead guilty to the alleged assault – is a caution. All this news, all this coverage, all the speculation over the ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight and he’s getting told ‘don’t do it again’.

Maybe Robert Downey Jr can provoke a better reaction from the Baler after his non-too flattering comments about Batman, and we can get some genuine controversy going. A fistfight. In public. With both actors in full costume.

It’s not like Iron Man or The Dark Knight need any more publicity, it’s just that we need something exciting to happen that isn’t death, attempted murder, countries getting invaded or some crap sporting event in a country where people don’t exactly enjoy what you would call ‘freedom’. You know – just to keep us going.

Please?

So we may have been a little sceptical about the whole ‘curse’ thing ever since the term started getting bandied around, but on this evidence it’s hard not to think that maybe, just maybe there are nefarious forces at work. Just days after having a serious car accident, Morgan Freeman and his wife of 24 years are to get a divorce.

According to a friend of Freeman, the divorce had been in the works for a while before the accident even occurred – so don’t go accusing Morgan of having a relationship with Demaris Meyer, the passenger in his car during the accident, that was anything beyond platonic friendship.

We thought about it – purely for comedy effect, of course – but libel is too big a word.

No, this is something that has been around for quite a while in the world of Morgan Freeman and his soon-to-be-ex wife Myrna Colley-Lee, who have been separated since December of 2007. So fortunately it does look like it may well be the work of our old friend coincindence and circumstance – or ‘real life’ as it’s sometimes called – and not the frankly ridiculous notion of a curse on a film Morgan starred in.

While he may have known it was coming for a while, it still can’t be good for the old man, who was hospitalised with a broken arm, a broken elbow and neck injuries, and had to undergo an operation to make sure things healed up properly. Sitting, recouperating in hospital and seeing the news splashed all over can’t be a good feeling – so hey, Morgan, if you’re reading – we’ll try and cheer you up!

Isn’t it strange how utterly awful the film Evan Almighty was?

No, that’s not going to work…

Hey – the narration on March of the Penguins was utter balls compared to David Attenborough’s!

Ah, he wouldn’t like that either…

Ah, screw it. Hecklerspray isn’t the greatest medicine for aching bones, we can admit that much.

But it’s not all bad for Morgan Freeman – as his friend and business partner Bill Luckett told the press:

“The doctors have said it will be six months to a year before he plays golf again.”

So… hmm… at least that means he won’t have to play golf again for a while. That could be considered a good thing, if you don’t like golf. What do you mean Luckett said more?

“He hates that.”

Ah.

So you’ve starred in one of the biggest movies of all time, but have seen a co-worker die, another arrested for allegedly threatening his family then you yourself have been in a serious car accident requiring surgery, and it’s become public knowledge that you’re getting a divorce.

At least… people like your freckles? Sorry Morgan, we just can’t do this cheering you up thing – it’s too hard.

No, not struck down another member of the cast or crew with the ‘curse’, which is apparently floating around these days. The film has gone and broken the record for the fastest $400 million in box office history, making the money in a frankly ridiculous 18 days.

Imagine making four hundred million dollars in 18 days. How many tricks you’d have to pull to draw in that amount… it’s hard to take in. Though it would also be hard to take in if you pulled $400 million-worth of tricks, let’s be honest here.

But at least it shows that maybe, just maybe, Christopher Nolan’s film is living up to its reputation, even with the extra bits of accidental hype popping up here and there.

The previous record time in which the fabled $400 million mark was crossed – as you should all know too well – was a pathetic 43 days by Shrek 2. More than four hundred million for doing a crap Scottish accent? Ruddy hell.

But in less than half the time it took for a CG ogre voiced by an irritating comedy hack to reach the milestone – just over two weeks – The Dark Knight has taken its place in box office history, climbing up the highest US earners top 10 as fast as it’s cast can make headlines through their exploits, incidents and accidents.

Surely this means Hollywood will adopt the same technique for every new major movie release, pushing their leading stars into compromising positions for the sake of a few extra headlines. It worked very well here, and the world of film is surely cynical enough to see it as a viable strategy to affect the home lives of its stars.

Unless we’re being unnecessarily harsh here. Which we aren’t.

If the movie fatcats aren’t quite that cynical, they’ll probably just adopt a new film-making strategy to rake in the speedy $400 million. Said strategy will probably involve making every single big budget summer movie the most depressing, dark and downright unsettling thing known to man, while at the same time putting a welsh bloke in a weird costume and making him speak in a frankly ridiculous manner when wearing said costume.

It’s a definite recipe for success, if you simply follow the trail of facts staring you in the face.

We do have one real hope from all of this though, and that is to see The Dark Knight overtake Titanic as the highest grossing movie of all time. Meaning whenever we hear about the film that brought home the most clams we won’t have to be reminded of the time James Cameron went mad and made one of the worst films ever. Starring a sprout.

No – Morgan Freeman is the latest to be involved in the so-called ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, after he was involved in a car accident on Sunday night, which officials referred to as ’serious’.

The 71-year-old actor will require surgery on a shattered elbow, as well as time for other less serious injuries to his neck and shoulder to heal. While initial reports said Freeman was in a serious state, these have since rescinded and he is expected to make a comfortable, if slow, recovery from his injuries.

Morgan was travelling with an unnamed female companion when the crash occurred. Travelling eastbound on Highway 32, Tallahatchie Country, Mississippi, their car flipped several times before coming to rest. The name of the female passenger has not been released, but she is said to have suffered bruises as a result of the crash. The jaws of life were used to good effect and Freeman was airlifted around 90 miles for hospital treatment. He was upgraded from critical to serious condition, and more recent reports have left the actor with an even more positive prognosis.

Fortunately, both drugs and alcohol have been ruled out of the running for what caused the accident, meaning we don’t have to put up with another was-he wasn’t-he situation like young Shiny the Beef has had to contend with in recent weeks. Nor do we have to put up with possible insanity, like we did all those years back with Melvin. Obviously the wily old veteran that is Morgan Freeman would never be brash enough to take part in such an obviously stupid pursuit as driving under the influence.

Those young whippersnappers could learn a thing or three from God Himself.

But it would seem that the lord almighty can’t save himself from the ‘curse’ of The Dark Knight, which wild speculators (hello!) are claiming is the cause of Heath Ledger’s death and Christian Bale’s descent into alleged assault.

Now, let’s be honest here – Ledger’s death was a sad thing, unexpected and unwarranted. Bale’s case may have been his own fault, he may have been coaxed into it. Freeman’s crash is believed to have been as a result of falling asleep at the wheel, swerving and overcompensating. If this is a real curse then it’s a bit rubbish – none of your plagues on the family, eight arms on the first-born or evil gremlins turning up and wrecking your place up.

No, it’s an accidental overdose, some alleged shenanigans and an old man falling asleep at the wheel. These curse-makers really should go back to the drawing board and think up some new cursey goodness – or just stick with the classics. Doesn’t the bible have some good ones? Morgan Freeman should know about that, he is God after all.

Hecklerspray is sending you more get well beams through the internets, Morgan. Also some extra beams to help make sure the rubbish ‘curse’ doesn’t strike again. We have these kind of powers, you see.