Jack's Black: Osbourne junior to direct Black Sabbath film

Jack Osbourne is to direct his first feature film, Black Sabbath, according to reports.

Not to be confused with Mario Bava's 1963 Italian portmanteau, from which the band fronted by Jack's father, Ozzy, took their name, Black Sabbath will be an original horror film featuring the group's music.

While this will be Osbourne's first directing job, it is not his first foray into the world of film; he co-produced concert documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, which premiered at the Tribeca film festival last weekend. Osbourne Jr is again joining forces with producer Marc Weingarten, who co-produced the recent documentary. Shooting is to begin by the end of the year.

Plot details have yet to be released but it is thought the film may be the same project that Sabbath's lead guitarist, Tony Iommi, was linked to a few years ago, along with Texas Chainsaw Massacre producer Mike Fleiss, who directed God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Whether Iommi is involved this time is not clear, though he was to score the original project and was the only member of Black Sabbath to be present throughout all of the band's personnel changes.

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Alan Partridge film to shoot next year in Norwich

Steve Coogan has told interviewers that a big-screen version of Alan Partridge is set to shoot next year. Speaking at the Tribeca film festival, where a feature-length version of his BBC series The Trip is screening, Coogan said Borat's Pete Baynham and In the Loop's Armando Iannucci were currently working alongside him on the screenplay.

"We left it behind for a while, but we came back to it because we got a few ideas," Coogan told The Playlist. "We're writing it right now, going to shoot it next year. Don't know who will direct it."

Partridge began life on the BBC Radio 4 comedy programme On the Hour in 1991, graduating to the series' TV iteration The Day Today in 1994. He also had his own show, Knowing Me, Knowing You ... with Alan Partridge on Radio 4 and that series also transferred to TV in 1994.

Iannucci refuted suggestions that the new film might be set – Borat-style – in the US. "We don't see Alan, for example getting Simon Cowell's spot on American Idol and going over there. That's too good for Alan,' he said. "Alan's future is always brighter in his head than it is in the real world."

He later tweeted: "The Partridge news is that we've now agreed a story for the film. It's NOT Alan goes to America."

The Playlist said the film would be set in Norwich, the city where Partridge was working during his last TV outing, I'm Alan Partridge, two series of which screened in 1997 and 2002. The DJ then worked for the fictional Radio Norwich, but may be forced to find new employment this time around: on 29 June 2006, a new radio station for Norwich, owned by the Tindle Radio Group, launched under the name of 99.9 Radio Norwich.

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Fast and Furious 5 blazes a trail to the top of the box office

Over the past couple of weeks, distributors and cinema owners have been quick to blame the sunshine for the depressed box office. But this column has always maintained that if there's a film audiences really want to see, they will forego the pleasures of a sunny afternoon or a warm summer evening for a couple of hours.

Fast & Furious 5Production year: 2011Country: USACert (UK): 12ARuntime: 130 minsDirectors: Justin LinCast: Chris Ludacris Bridges, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Vin DieselMore on this film

The latest film to storm the box office despite an unseasonally warm Easter is Fast & Furious 5. The latest entry in the popular cars-and-crime franchise took a stonking £5.33m including £1.32m in Thursday previews. Add in Easter Monday takings, and that figure rises to £6.37m over five days.

The figures are in line with the opening of fourth picture, Fast & Furious, over the Easter 2009 weekend. That took £4.93m over the Friday-Sunday period, and £6.01m including Easter Monday. At the time, no previous entry in the F&F franchise had debuted above £3m, the best result being 2 Fast 2 Furious' £2.75m including previews of £321,000, in June 2003. The original The Fast & the Furious was relatively lacklustre in the UK, since it had the misfortune to open in September 2001, three days after 9/11.

Given Russell Brand's popularity at home, the UK might have expected to prove a bright spot for the actor's remake of 1981 hit Arthur. Sadly, for distributor Warner Bros, that has not proved to be the case. A US debut of $12.2m indicated a UK opening around £1.2m, whereas in fact the comedy achieved £764,000 over Friday-Sunday, and just over £1m including Easter Monday takings. The contrasting results of Arthur and Fast & Furious 5 would seem to indicate that, while sunshine may prove a small handicap for a must-see title, sunny skies do deter audiences when their interest is moderate and non-urgent. The danger for Arthur is that its audience will soon face rival temptations: Thor is hardly direct competition, but its arrival on Wednesday may nevertheless push Arthur further down people's Want To See lists. In other words, your opening weekend is your best shot, and it only gets tougher going forward.

Beastly, starring Alex Pettyfer and Vanessa Hudgens, landed in fifth place with a mediocre £553,000, and £655,000 including Easter Monday. On closer examination, it's much worse than that, with a hefty £268,000 coming from previews, meaning that the film in fact earned just £285,000 from the three-day weekend period, ie ninth place. Red Riding Hood, another example of Hollywood's current vogue for fairytale reinvention, debuted with a much stronger £842,000 the previous weekend. The industry is rife with rumours that Pettyfer has already developed major movie-star attitude – a status that, as far as box office is concerned, he has yet to earn.

Two new 3D documentaries both landed in the top 15. Isle of Man motorbike flick TT3D: Closer to the Edge, bravely going up against the scripted testosterone thrills of Fast & Furious, opened with £313,000 from 79 screens, boosted by extensive previews totaling £182,000. Thanks to those previews, it achieved the second highest screen average of any film on release, £3,962, behind Fast & Furious, of course. The third highest site average belonged to fellow 3D documentary Pina, about the Pina Bausch dance troupe, which debuted with £72,000 from 19 screens, including modest previews of £10,000. The films could hardly be more different in subject matter. Following the success of Werner Herzog's cave painting doc, Cave of Forgotten Dreams (£500,000 to date), it's clear that audiences of many different stripes have an appetite for non-fiction in 3D.

TT3D's opening number is the biggest for a documentary since Justin Bieber's Never Say Never in February. Leaving aside concert films, it's ahead of the debuts of strong performers such as Waltz With Bashir (£113,000), Man On Wire (£99,000) and Touching the Void (£115,000), but behind the bar-setting opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 (£1.30m).

Now that the Easter holiday is over, the industry is carrying out a postmortem on the family-film offer. It was, in a word, disappointing. Despite its status as top title, biggest letdown is surely Twentieth Century Fox's Rio, with £8.33m so far (after 18 days), and just £1.23m over the four-day Easter weekend. OK, it's not quite over yet for the picture, but when you compare with the recent Tangled (£20.33m), Despicable Me (£20.04m) and Gnomeo & Juliet (£15.51m), it's a serious under-performance. The result is even more troubling when contrasted with the top performers in the Ice Age franchise, from the same director and animation studio. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs maxed out at £35m, while second entry The Meltdown managed just shy of £30m. The original Ice Age grossed just over £15m.

Also failing to set tells ringing is Hop, from Universal's Illumination Entertainment, which got off to a flying start with Despicable Me. Hop's £6.12m to date is a big step down from that earlier picture. Hop's mix of animation and live action makes Alvin & the Chipmunks a fairer comparison, but the last one of those exceeded £23m.

Then there's Disney's Winnie the Pooh, with £402,000 so far, and Mars Needs Mums, with £268,000. Regarding the latter calamity, kindest thing to say is: look away, people, look away, nothing to see here.

Every holdover title on our chart fell by at least 40%, but the wooden spoon goes to James Franco medieval stoner-comedy Your Highness, which falls out of the top 10 after just one week, with a drop of 68%. With a screen average of just £504, the picture is likely to lose many of its sites and showtimes from Friday.

Following seven consecutive weekends when box office lagged the 2010 equivalent frames, in many cases by significant amounts, the good news is that, at last, weekend takings are up on 2010. Of course, the equivalent frame in 2010 did not benefit from the boost of Easter traffic, since the holiday that year fell 2-5 April. Exactly a year ago, cinemas were already suffering a post-Easter comedown, with new entrant Date Night leading a weak field. A week later, Iron Man 2 arrived to inject box-office Viagra, and cinemas will be hoping for a similar effect this weekend from Marvel adaptation Thor, which has already picked up a handy sum in Easter Monday previews, and has more preview slots on Wednesday and Thursday. Competing against Thor are horror flick Insidious, which has done well in the US, and indie comedy Cedar Rapids.

1. Fast & Furious 5: £5,332,096 from 437 sites (New)

2. Rio, £886,669 from 519 sites. Total: £8,017,662

3. Arthur, £764,468 from 434 sites (New)

4. Scream 4, £730,963 from 415 sites. Total: £4,046,069

5. Beastly, £553,069 from 250 sites (New)

6. Hop, £466,676 from 492 sites. Total: £5,940,142

7. Red Riding Hood, £345,421 from 404 sites. Total: £1,901,603

8. Source Code, £331,988 from 346 sites. Total: £5,276,549

9. TT3D, £312,998 from 79 sites (New)

10. Limitless, £282,879 from 309 sites. Total: £7,685,395

Dum Maaro Dum, 67 screens, £91,711

Pina, 19 screens, £71,809

Adèle Blanc-Sec, 28 screens, £29,869 + £10,546 previews

Ko, 15 screens, £27,103

Dharti, 8 screens, £13,420

How I Ended This Summer, 10 screens, £8,005 + £3,635 previews

Island, 1 screen, £2,253

Taxi zum Klo, 7 screens, £1,743

Sweetgrass, £263 + £765 previews

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Pinewood backs Peel takeover bid

Pinewood Shepperton, the studios where films including the latest Harry Potter movie and the James Bond franchise were shot, has given its backing to an improved takeover offer from Peel Holdings following rival interest from former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed.

Peel, the commercial property group which leased part of Salford's MediaCityUK site to the BBC, upped its original bid by around £8m, valuing the business at £96.1m. It already owns 29.8% of Pinewood.

The board of Pinewood, led by former ITV executive chairman Michael Grade, said Peel had been a supportive shareholder and the takeover proposal provided the business with the "long-term stability it needs to build on the success of the past few years".

"In the context of increasing illiquidity in the trading of Pinewood shares, the Pinewood independent directors believe that this stable time in a volatile industry offers shareholders an opportune moment to realise value," Grade said.

"Peel has been a most supportive shareholder, committed to our strategy and vision for the group. The board is satisfied that the long-term future of these assets, which make such a contribution to the growth of the UK's creative industries, will pass into safe hands."

Peel will pay 200p in cash per Pinewood share, up from an offer of 190p per share on 7 April. Al Fayed confirmed last week that he was considering making a bid for Pinewood.

Pinewood shares, which have gained more than quarter in value since Peel's initial offer, were down 1.4% at 210p at 8.25am on Wednesday.

The 75-year-old business is planning an ambitious £20m Project Pinewood expansion at its studios in Buckinghamshire that will see it build new facilities and sets on a par with Hollywood.

Its television studios have shot Dancing on Ice, Dragons' Den, My Family, Piers Morgan's Life Stories and Ant & Dec's Push The Button.

Peel said it expected Pinewood to operate independently of its own media assets, which include the new home for the BBC, ITV, Coronation Street and the University of Salford at the MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays.

The group invests in infrastructure, transport and real estate in the UK and has nearly £6bn of assets. It recently sold the Trafford Centre to Capital Shopping Centres for £1.6bn and is chaired by billionaire investor John Whittaker.

"Peel is a long-term investor in Pinewood and the wider media sector through its MediaCityUK investment and looks forward to supporting the Pinewood management in growing its operational business and developing its unique Project Pinewood proposal," Whittaker said.

"Peel represents a long-term strategic partner for Pinewood in continuing to grow and develop the business."

Grade added: "For 75 years the names Pinewood and Shepperton have been iconic in the global screen industries.

"The current management has advanced the business, investing to re-establish it as a world-class centre for all creative industries and expanding internationally with Pinewood representation now in five key regions around the world.

"We have developed a digital infrastructure to support our UK studios and Pinewood is planning for the next 75 years with innovative schemes such as Project Pinewood."