Billboard: Warped Tour Kickoff Party

Kevin Lyman still employs an "old-school" method when it comes to picking bands for the Vans Warped Tour. "I stand outside the gate and watch to see what shirts the kids are wearing as they come in," Warped's founder and producer told Billboard.biz at Thursday's kick-off event at Club Nokia (LA Live) in Los Angeles. "I saw a lot of Memphis May Fire and Sleeping With Sirens shirts last year."

Accordingly, Memphis May Fire and Sleeping With Sirens were among the first few bands he booked for 2012, before he had secured a single main stage act. And while those bands weren't in the house at this year's kick-off event, plenty of other acts were. This included surprise sets from Yellowcard (who played acoustically) and The Used, as well as performances by Falling In Reverse, Matt Toka and Dead Sara. The bands were preceded by a short press conference and a screening of the Warped Tour doc "No Room for Rockstars." The VIP area was filled with a handful of veterans from the tour, which launched in 1995, as well as newer acts like Vampires Everywhere! and a myriad of industry people. CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: 'The Secret Circle' Recap: 'Sacrifice'

Some families have a skeleton or two in the closet. Cassie Blake's father has one buried in an old playground; literally.

Here are some of the things we learned during "Curse," this week's episode of "The Secret Circle": John Blackwell tried to summon some demons 16 years ago, some demons who wanted to possess the bodies of the old circle of parents (he says his plan was to use the demons to protect them from the witch hunters, but then the demons wanted to do the whole body-snatching thing instead); Eben is an even nastier villain than we'd have imagined; Blackwell has a skeleton stashed away. Whose skeleton is it? We don't know and we'll have to wait until at least next week to find out.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: 'Vampire Diaries' Interviews

The cast of "The Vampire Diaries" has endured a lot for their art: fast-paced stunts, fake blood, corsets, shower scenes, you name it. A crucial flashback episode coming later this season will require perhaps the most demanding training thus far: SCUBA lessons!

Having already shown us the 19th century, the '20s, "1912" and more, "The Vampire Diaries" will soon flashback to that fateful night when Elena (Nina Dobrev) lost her parents on the newly restored Wickery Bridge and was rescued by vampire Stefan Salvatore (Paul Wesley). We don't know who will be playing Grayson and Miranda Gilbert just yet. But we do know there'll be lots of underwater work.

CLICK HERE to watch my interviews with Paul Wesley and Nina Dobrev.

MTV: Box Office Report

Much like Katniss Everdeen herself, "The Hunger Games"' aim was true. When it comes to box-office records, it's hard to keep a good book down.

"The Hunger Games" beat all of the "Twilight Saga" movies and every single non-sequel ever with the third-biggest opening weekend of all time. The big-screen adaptation of the first novel in the massively popular young adult trilogy collected $155 million domestically, a figure that was just $3.4 million less than "The Dark Knight" opening in 2008. ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2" is still #1 with $169.1 million). Audiences gave the movie a CinemaScore of "A."

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

Movie Fanatic Round Table

I joined my second Movie Fanatic Round Table to talk about the crazy week in trailers, including which of the Snow White films we are most looking forward to seeing. Movie Fanatic Managing Editor Joel Amos, Roth Jennings of AMC.com, Don Kaye (who wrote some extremely influential heavy metal features back in the day!) of MSN.com and Gerrad Hall of thesevensees.com and yours truly: CLICK HERE TO READ.

MTV: 'Secret Circle' Recap: 'Curse'

Cassie and Adam are so committed to the Secret Circle they were willing to swallow a magical elixir they knew would wipe away their romance in order to save Jake, who they just found out is (or at least, was) a killer. While it was incredibly sad, tragic and noble of them, it was all for naught, because: They were being played! By John Blackwell!

Yes, the "Curse" from which last night's episode of "The Secret Circle" took its name was all a lie concocted by none other than Cassie's father. CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: 'The Secret Circle' Star Phoebe Tonkin

Brace yourselves, "Secret Circle" devotees: The Secret Sibling will soon be revealed.

Speaking Hollywood Crush by phone, Phoebe Tonkin (a.k.a. resident bad-girl Faye Chamberlain) told us that the biggest question she gets from fans on the street will be answered "in the upcoming couple of episodes." That's right, we won't have to wait until season two in order to find out the identity of Cassie's brother or sister. "[The cast] only found out a couple of weeks ago," Phoebe revealed. "And everyone was really happy with who they chose.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: Box Office Report

"21 Jump Street" arrested audiences over the weekend to the tune of a cool $35 million at the box office. The action comedy, which was the only widely released new film in theaters and the only movie in the top five to enjoy mostly positive reviews, easily took the #1 spot. A great marketing campaign, two well-liked stars and a familiar premise derived from the late-'80s cop show all contributed to the movie's success, according to industry watchers.

"The Lorax" was #2 with $22.8 million, officially passing "Horton Hears a Who!" with its $158.4 million haul. Disney's big-budget "John Carter" was #3, dropping 55 percent in its second weekend, earning $13.5 million for a total of $53.1 million. "Project X" was #4 with $4 million for a $48.1 million total. Eddie Murphy's "A Thousand Words" rounded out the top five with just $3.7 million for a $12.1 million total. The box-office bomb carried a startling 0 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes' "Tomatometer" at press time, meaning not a single critic has reviewed the film positively.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: 'The Secret Circle' Recap: 'Lucky'

Last night's episode of "The Secret Circle" made hay with that old saying about things that are both a blessing and a curse. You see, it turns out that star-crossed lovers Cassie and Adam (who closed the episode with some sexytimes so hot, an entire murder of crows started cawing over the roof) aren't "Lucky" to be in love so much as cursed. Yes, the whole "written in the stars" thing working against these two family bloodlines was just one of the many revelations that came courtesy of broody John Blackwell, Cassie's back-from-the-dead dad who also happened to drop some knowledge about who was behind the old-school boat fire and why.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: 'Vampire Diaries' Nina Dobrev

I'd talk about anything she'd like to talk about. At PaleyFest, we talked about tonight's episode, "1912," the season finale and more. Watch HERE.

MTV: 'Vampire Diaries' Star Candice Accola

To hear Candice Accola tell it, Klaus has saved Caroline Forbes from a life of wine coolers and cheerleading. Hollywood Crush caught up with "The Vampire Diaries" star and her cast mates at a PaleyFest screening of this week's episode, "1912," in L.A. While Klaus doesn't show-up in the flashback-driven episode (which focuses on the Salvatores' shared past), the recent steamy tension between everybody's favorite bad-boy Original vampire and the former Miss Mystic Falls has filled us fans with plenty of questions about where that may be headed.

CLICK HERE to read / watch my interview with Candice.

MTV: Box Office Report

"Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" was the #1 movie at the box office for a second consecutive weekend, but the bigger story was the film that came in at #2.

"John Carter," which Disney hoped would kick off a franchise based on the classic Edgar Rice Burroughs stories that inspired generations of sci-fi, opened with $30.6 million. In an article bearing the headline " 'Ishtar' on Mars," the New York Times reported that "John Carter" cost about $350 million to market and produce. Even with its $71 million overseas total, "Carter" is a long way from an estimated break-even point of $600 million. "Ishtar" is a 1987 film famous for how hard it flopped despite the presence of two A-list stars (Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman) and huge marketing.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

'John Carter' Interviews

I was fortunate enough to visit the "Mars" like environment of Arizona to speak with director and Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton and the cast of "John Carter," the latest adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs enduring sci-fi hero. After Lynn Collins talked with me about boxing, Julliard, gymnastics, Shakespeare and spirituality within the span of about 2 minutes, I believe I asked her to marry me. The screen grab above captures her immediate reaction to that.

CLICK HERE to watch my interviews with Stanton, Collins, Willem Dafoe (warm, smart, funny, chatty), Dominic West (ditto) and "John Carter" himself, Taylor Kitsch.

MTV: 'The Lorax' Sweeps Box Office

Along with its green environmental message, "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" saw a different kind of green with an estimated $70.7 million debut. Adapted from the 1971 Dr. Seuss classic, the 3-D animated flick had the biggest opening of 2012 so far. CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.

MTV: Lindsay Lohan's 'SNL' Comeback Gets Mixed Reviews

Following a week of self-deprecating promos and a cold open starring Jason Sudeikis as Mitt Romney and Andy Samberg as Kid Rock, Lindsay Lohan's monologue dove right on top of the white elephant inside New York's Studio 8H: her troubles. And while the crowd (and cast) was clearly supportive at the top of the show, the evening's sketches featured "SNL" regulars doing the comedic heavy lifting. Lohan's lines were noticeably few. When she did speak, she clearly read from cue cards. CLICK HERE to read the rest of my report.