The Blog at Guess The Gross

TICKETS OUT: GUNSLINGERS DUEL AT THE BOX OFFICE

Which of the two bullet riddled action movies will top the weekend box office? It’s Russell Crowe and Batman (Christian Bale) versus Clive Owen and Paul “Sideways” Giamatti in a gun battle for box office supremacy. Meanwhile, Halloween looks to avoid the typical second weekend pitfalls of horror films past; The Brothers Solomon stumbles into limited release and what happened to Hatchet?

3:10 To Yuma is one of the best films of the year. The western, starring Crowe and Bale, previewed last weekend and is garnering terrific buzz. Critics have been showing the film love all week. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 89% positive. I saw it last weekend and was floored by how awesome Crowe is and how James Mangold has become a very good director.

The film has to overcome the resistance of modern audiences to westerns, a big hurdle. On the bright side, star power can be terrific tool at the box office. Though Crowe has been questionable at the box office, teaming with Batman star Bale eases the star power load. Bale has yet to show he can open anything without a cape and cowl, but he is rising fast and 3:10 To Yuma could be a box office proving ground for him.

Shoot’Em Up did have the early tracking advantage thanks to a smart, funny trailer that got out early. Unfortunately, the trailer hype may have peaked too soon. The film has faded behind 3:10 To Yuma in overall audience tracking. However, the Clive Owen-actioner does hold a slight demographic advantage. Younger males are going for Shoot’em Up over Yuma by a slight margin.

The difference maker could be the second weekend of Rob Zombie’s Halloween. All three films are R-rated and chasing similarly male audiences. If Halloween follows the pattern of most recent horror hits, the second weekend drop should be substantial, but even if it drops nearly 60% in its second week that is still some rich market share.

So which of the new releases has to share market with Halloween? Shoot’Em Up seems the likely victim of the scheduling gods. Similarly, young, urban and ultra-violent, Shoot’Em Up is splitting audience with Halloween and that will likely cost it the top spot as 3:10 To Yuma coasts on its older demos and what it can pull of the younger crowd.

The comedy The Brothers Solomon is a box office non-factor this weekend. Starring Saturday Night Live’s Will Forte and former Arrested Development star Will Arnett, the film combines Dumb and Dumber with a touch of Knocked Up, but without either of those films’ highly-appealing and box office proven stars.

Finally, this was supposed to be the weekend that Anchor Bay Entertainment went wide with the horror spoof Hatchet. However, with three high profile R-rated movies in the marketplace, Anchor Bay has smartly downgraded Hatchet to a platform release, opening on only 70 screens this weekend with hopes of expanding further in a few weeks. Next week looks a little more friendly; however Resident Evil: Extinction hits screens in two weeks.

TICKETS OUT: HALLOWEEN COMES EARLY

While I was unimpressed with the ad push for Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake, the tracking seems to say that Dimension Films has a hit on its hands. The film is moving the meters well enough among males 18 to 24 that an opening over $20 million is more than likely this weekend.

This will be director Rob Zombie’s biggest hit thus far and, sadly, a comeback for the torture porn genre that he has made his home. After the twin failures of Hostel 2 and Captivity, some had thought that, perhaps, audiences were rejecting hardcore, blood and guts exploitation. Halloween however, looks like it will reverse the trend.

Of course, the Halloween brand name has as much or more to do with this resurgence than Zombie or his hardcore violence. Even the dregs of this horror franchise have managed decent openings. 2002’s Halloween Resurrection opened to more than $12 million and before that 1998’s Halloween H2O, which returned Jamie Lee Curtis to the series, opened with more than $16 million.

In a massive blunder, Fox is opening James Wan and Kevin Bacon’s revenge thriller Death Sentence opposite Halloween. It’s not because I think Halloween is going to be a monster this weekend. The problem is that both films are going after the same audience and Halloween wins on name recognition alone.

Death Sentence is getting few favors from critics who have thrashed the film. The worst of it coming from McNews (USA Today) which delivered a high profile pan from lead critic Claudia Puig. On the bright side, a positive review from Roger Ebert might help sell a couple of tickets.

The film’s only hope against the younger skewing Halloween is to appeal to older males with positive memories of Charles Bronson’s vigilante heyday. If by some miracle the nearly non-existent ad push for Death Sentence managed to reach older men, the film has a chance not to be a complete disaster.

TICKETS OUT: LI & STATHAM VS. SCARLETT JOHANNSEN

The box office battle for number one is Jet Li and Jason Statham vs. Scarlett Johannsen? Indeed, War and The Nanny Diaries are battling for the No. 1 spot on the box office charts this weekend, though don’t count out week two of Superbad, which has had a terrific hold all week to go with great buzz. Superbad is a longshot; it only retains if Nanny and War underperform, but you can’t count it out.

The Nanny Diaries has the screen count advantage over War and will seek a larger potential demo as well -- women age 25 to 45. The reviews have not been great for the Scarlett Johannsen comedy, but having been based on a best-selling novel, the built-in audience is large and likely to turn out. The film is tracking well with its target demographic and the likelihood of opening No. 1 with a gross in the range of $15 to $18 million looks pretty good.

War has had a terrific campaign, but the demo is slightly more narrow than Nanny Diaries and with solid competition from week two of Superbad, War seems likely to come up short of what the studio had hoped would be a $20+ million dollar opening. On the bright side, the budget for War was relatively low, compared to similar action flicks and internationally the film is an almost guaranteed blockbuster with Li and Statham both solid draws overseas.

In other international news, Mr. Bean’s Holiday has already grossed over $100 million dollars outside the US, so, any money the movie makes here is just gravy for the Bean franchise. The film is G-rated and targeting family audiences, not a bad tactic but also not a winning tactic. Kids prefer cartoons and the live action kids movie market is spotty at best. Again, it doesn’t matter, the release of Mr. Bean’s Holiday is perfunctory, for once, the US market is the ancillary as opposed to the way we often treat Europe.

Resurrecting The Champ is one of those anomalous releases that don’t seem to fit on any weekend. The film is getting good notice from critics and is smartly targeted to older audiences. Unfortunately, the last minute choice to push the film as a wide release after initially offering it up as a platform release aiming wider in September, has left the ad campaign trying to catch up with the release. The film’s trailer has had little play on any of the major releases nationwide and the ad campaign has done nothing to clear up the narrative. Most audiences aren’t sure what the film is about, and that is a big problem.

The final new release of the weekend is September Dawn, a film that is relying on controversy as its selling point. The religious drama about the Mormon massacre of Christians in Utah in 1857 posits the theory that Mormon prophet Brigham Young was responsible for the massacre. The film is relying on religious audiences who have not been turning out for much of anything since Passion of the Christ. Though Hollywood still seems to think that they can reach this religious demo, movies like September Dawn will continue to prove that Passion was a once in a lifetime movie phenomena.
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TICKETS OUT: SUPERBAD LOOKS TO BE SUPER HOT

The movie to watch this weekend is the teen comedy Superbad from super-hot producer Judd Apatow and his Knocked Up cohort Seth Rogen. This comedy, in the classic tradition of Porky’s and American Pie, stars a pair of up-and-coming stars, Michael Cera and Jonah Hill, and is rated a very hard R for nudity and language.

Regardless of the rating and the highly ribald humor, critics have expressed nothing but love for Superbad which by Thursday evening was looking like it may end up as one of the best reviewed films of the year. The critics are stoking buzz that has helped turn around tracking numbers that had been lagging well below the expectations of producers who hoped to match the $20+ million dollar opening of Knocked Up and follow that film’s box office track to $100+ million overall.

Superbad has succeeded with help from critics as well as an ad campaign that in the last week began throwing off the reigns and playing up the R-rated humor. The first few weeks of ads were in heavy rotation were a little timid compared to the actual humor of the film. The turnaround came nearly two weeks ago when the studio released the so-called "Red Band" trailer.

The "Red Band" trailer is not often seen in theaters because it can only run in front of R-rated movies. Thus, it is a risky venture. However, in the new age of the Internet, the "Red Band" trailer has a new home on You Tube where the R-rated clip has gained heavy views alongside some 2-and 3-minute snippets of the film that reveal these characters and what the film is about without spoiling all of the film’s funniest jokes.

The turnaround of Superbad is one that will be watched closely by other studios as the film hits theaters and is likely to be copied in the future after this teen comedy turns in a $20+ million dollar opening.

The other major release of this weekend is The Invasion starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. This highly-troubled remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been re-shot almost completely after director Oliver Hirschbiegel completed and turned in a cut that studio executives didn’t feel was scary or exciting enough.

Turning things over to the V For Vendetta team of producers Andy and Larry Wachowski and director James McTiegue, the film was almost entirely redone with little of the Hirschbiegel cut left in. This too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen approach is likely what has critics trashing this picture with even positive reviews reading negative.

Take Owen Gleiberman’s allegedly positive take on the film in Entertainment Weekly: "The Invasion gets you rooting for the aliens to be defeated, but the film’s soul feels as if it had already been snatched". If the positive reviews read like that you can only imagine how nasty the negatives have been. Still, the studio seems somewhat committed to the picture.

The ad campaign has been pretty good with a decent trailer and well targeted ad buy. As big a problem as the behind the scenes issues and bad reviews is that the film will go head to head with the suddenly hot Superbad for the 18 to 24 crowd. The Invasion, like Superbad, carries an R-rating, so no advantage there. Thus the film will rely almost solely on Kidman and the reputation of the Body Snatchers to draw a crowd.

Kidman is a well-liked star but has never been much of a box office draw. The Stepford Wives, Bewitched, and Birth each bombed at the box office with Kidman on the topline. Her last film, the Diane Arbus-pseudo biography Fur, couldn’t even muster the box office juice to get beyond 200 screens nationwide. Her last hit was The Interpreter and that film can really only be called a modest hit having come up short of 100 million domestic.

The oddball element of the marketing of The Invasion is how little Craig shows up in the ads. Ask many moviegoers and they may not even recall that the new James Bond is even in The Invasion. Considering that Craig has been a part of two $100 million dollar domestic grossers in just the last two years -- Munich and Casino Royale -- it would seem prudent to focus as much of the marketing on Craig as on Kidman. What exactly is the studio trying to hide by keeping Craig in the background?

The last new release is the oddball of the week. The Last Legion is a period piece starring international star Aishwarya Rai and Colin Firth. The film has absolutely zero chance of making big bank in the United States and yet ,The Weinstein Company has put a surprising amount into the marketing of The Last Legion. No doubt trying to reach the older crowd, the ad campaign is well targeted but the tactical error of withholding the film from critics may cost the film a million bucks or two.

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TICKETS OUT: RUSH 3 NOT CHAN AND TUCKER'S FINEST HOUR?

The Rush Hour series has been stunningly successful. The 1998 original cost just $33 million to make and was profitable before the opening weekend on the strength of Chris Tucker’s motormouth comedy and Jackie Chan’s non-stop stunt work. Rush Hour 2 moved the action to China and doubled the opening weekend box office to over $67 million.

Now, more than six years later, with Tucker having disappeared from the screen since the last Rush Hour film, the series returns and the stakes are high for a big opening weekend. The salaries of Chan, Tucker and director Brett Ratner combined exceed the entire budget of the original film.

For Rush Hour 3 to be profitable, the film needs a solid opening weekend, somewhere in the $50 million dollar range. The last Rush Hour topped $67 million but with Tucker having disappeared from the screen for six years and Chan’s star diminishing as his ability to perform his own stunts dwindles, the prospects for Rush Hour 3 are dimmer than were those for Rush Hour 2.

Though some experts are still betting high, tracking shows there is not as much interest in this film as some seem to think. The film is not about to bomb, but don’t expect the number that Rush Hour 2 posted in 2001. A number in the high 40s would be a disappointment given the hype around this film, but that number is not out of the question. My bet would be a little higher than the low end expectations, though not much higher.

The returning competition from the much buzzed about The Bourne Ultimatum should cut into Rush Hour 3’s opening weekend, but there she be nothing stopping Rush Hour from reaching the top of this weekend’s box office. The trouble for Rush Hour 3 is in the long term perspective.

The other major league, 1000+ screen opening of the week is Stardust starring Claire Danes, Robert De Niro and Michele Pfeiffer. This fascinating fantasy romance from graphic artist Neil Gaiman has great buzz, but the ad campaign has been somewhat muted. Audiences aren’t quite sure what to make of the film. The period setting is opposed by the odd fantasy elements, leaving many to wonder if this is Monty Python or some kind of art picture.

Neil Gaiman has a small but loyal cult that will turn out, as should the film buff crowd. The key to a double figure millions opening for Stardust will be turning out women. Stardust is the top choice for women this weekend and if they turn out, it could be a very good weekend for the film.

The other new release of the weekend is the dead on arrival horror flick Skinwalkers. This werewolf picture from Lionsgate and After Dark Films is not getting much of any ad support and is not long for the theater lobby. Opening on just over 500 screens, the film is leaning on hardcore horror fans, a solid cult, who if they turn out could push the film to $3 or $4 million for the weekend.

On the platform front, Becoming Jane, the fictional take on the life of writer Jane Austen is moving out, almost wide, onto just over 400 screens. The film did big business in limited release last weekend,which gave the studio the courage to take the film out wider. The film will battle Stardust for the female moviegoers.

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TICKETS OUT: BOURNE RETURNS FOR THIRD TIME

Matt Damon returns to the role that made him a box office superstar and looks to become even bigger. The last Bourne outing opened to over $50 million dollars. The buzz this time is even bigger with tracking predicting an opening in the $60 to $70 million dollar range. The reviews have been off the charts with Supremacy on track to become the best-reviewed film of the year thus far. This could help the film get a little older and expand beyond the usual audience of 18 to 24 males.

If the positive reviews turn out older audiences and the cinéaste cult, that $60 to $70 million dollar number is assured and Bourne goes from solid franchise to full-on blockbuster.

With Bourne set to dominate the remaining field of three-and-a-half wide releases will battle for box office scraps.

Underdog, Disney’s live action adaptation of the boomer cartoon classic, looked like a potential family movie hit. However, with a disappointing ad campaign and The Simpsons and Hairspray dominating the family audience in their second and third week respectively, Underdog is looking... well... like an box office Underdog.

Hot Rod is a competitor with the teens who can’t get in to see Bourne. If one film will pick up the Bourne overflow this weekend it could be Hot Rod and that is a lucrative niche. The ad campaign has been strong in ubiquity but rather scattershot in content. We know the film is about a doofus stuntman and we know the tone is laid back slapstick but where is the one good hook, that one good joke that ties the whole campaign together? The Hot Rod trailers and ad campaign simply doesn’t have that hook and that could be the difference between an opening in the mid teens and an opening over $20 million.

The tween girl movie Bratz has pushed a strong campaign on MySpace.com that seems to have been quite effective with the target audience. However, there is little to no chance that this film will get beyond that minor niche. Not that Lionsgate is relying on this film to be a major hit; rather, the low budget comedy has the similar aim of 2004’s Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants: open in the high single digits, climb to the mid $20s or low $30s overall and land on DVD already in the black. It’s a solid plan but Sisterhood had the benefit of a tad more star power and far better critical reviews. On the bright side, the film needs only a $5 million dollar opening to almost guarantee profitability.

I mentioned earlier, three-and-a-half wide openings other than Bourne this weekend, the half is Jennifer Lopez’s return to the big screen: El Cantante. This biopic of the late salsa king Hector Lavoe is opening on just 542 screens, hence the half wide opening. Picturehouse, the indie arm of New Line Cinema, has given the film a good deal of ad support but with the film having sat on the shelf over a year, Jennifer Lopez’s star dwindling and Hector Lavoe long gone from the consciousness of pop culture; the film will rely heavily on a niche of Latino moviegoers.

TICKETS OUT: SIMPSONS HOPE TO TAKE HOME THE D'OH

The weekend is all about Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie as they culminate a 20 year journey from the small screen to the big screen. So how does the Simpsons’ change in screen size compare with similar properties? Tracking on the Simpsons places it well beyond the strong if not spectacular showings of its cable cousins, 1998’s Beavis and Butthead Do America and 1999’s South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut.

Both of those films came in under the $100 million dollar domestic mark despite loyal cult audiences. The Simpsons, having the advantage of being a network show, rather than a cable show, has a slightly larger following than either Beavis or South Park. The bigger differences however could be ratings. Homer and company, despite a cameo by Bart’s little Bart, has the somewhat family friendly PG-13 rating.

South Park went out with a hard R rating and managed an $11 million dollar opening and a total run of $52 million. Beavis and Butthead on the other hand did have the PG-13 which helped the film to a $20+ million dollar opening which lead to a $63 million dollar domestic run. The Simpsons hold another advantage over Beavis and Butthead however with its appeal to family audiences.

That will be the big difference. Has Fox managed to convince audiences that this is a family film? The marketing has not implicitly offered a family appeal message, preferring to let the volume of the marketing and the elements of the film itself to attract the audience. It’s a tough call whether mom and dad are convinced that The Simpsons is a movie they want to take the kids to.

If they are convinced then an opening weekend monster around $50 million. If not, the fan cult should still push the film to a strong $30+ million dollar opening. The film has the advantage of no other family appeal flicks opening this weekend and the returning competition, Harry Potter, Transformers and Ratatouille are weeks into their runs, (aside from Hairspray which, with a strong hold through the week, and great buzz could provide some competition.)

So what of the weekend competition for The Simpsons? Not one is likely delve beyond niche numbers. The highest profile new release aside from The Simpsons is the romance No Reservations starring Catherine Zeta Jones, Aaron Eckhardt and Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin. The film went out on several hundred screens last Saturday to little notice opposite the twin big releases Hairspray and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Zeta Jones hasn’t been on screen in nearly three years (The Legend of Zorro) and thus far in her career cannot claim an opening weekend success on her name alone. The same can be said of co-star Aaron Eckhardt who has audience goodwill as a character actor but is not yet a topline star. The biggest draw of the film could be Breslin who was beloved for her role in Little Miss Sunshine.

Unfortunately, it’s too much to ask a pre-teen girl to open a picture and no matter how much audience may have loved her Oscar nominated performance, the competition is way over the head of this picture which might have been better served with an August or September opening. As it is, the film will rely on older women to turn out, not a bad bet considering the lack of niche competition but this same niche audience just recently rejected Evening. No Reservation has given this audience no more reason than Evening did to turn out.

The controversial opening of the weekend is the new Lindsey Lohan film I Know Who Killed Me. The film famous for Ms. Lohan having taken pole dancing lessons for, she plays a stripper, is now entirely overshadowed and forgotten in the wake of the stars most recent meltdown. Lohan’s mugshot has been the films highest profile promotion and that for some reason hasn’t pushed interest in her new movie as much as it has increased traffic at the gossip website TMZ.com.

TMZ and other such outlets are likely to make more money this week than what I Know Who Killed me will in its opening weekend. With its R-rating, lack of niche appeal and Lohan’s complete and total overshadowing of the film with her personal problems, the only reliable audience for I Know Who Killed Me are perverts awaiting Lohan’s stripping scenes. Of course a good Internet connection and a Google search could likely satisfy that audience. My guess, an opening under $5 million.

Who’s Your Caddy? Who are you kidding? No one has heard of this film. Cynically it is being tossed out to appeal solely to African Americans starving for a movie with black lead actors or a predominately African-American audience. That niche likely won’t push the film past an opening weekend of maybe 5 million, more likely 3 or 4 million.

On the slow rollout front, Danny Boyle is stoking good buzz for his sci fi offering Sunshine. The film, starring Cillian Murphy has played strongly in major markets and moves this weekend to around 500 screens. The film’s national profile is quite low, but a strong internet campaign appealing to cinéastes and film lovers could help the film to a respectable opening for a film opening on fewer than 1,000 screens.

Also continuing a slow rollout with a similar niche appeal to Sunshine is Werner Herzog’s Vietnam movie Rescue Dawn. This is a film with strong critical support, a rising star in Christian Bale and an appeal to older males who live for a heroic military story.
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TICKETS OUT: CHUCK AND LARRY AND A FULL CAN OF HAIRSPRAY

Not a great weekend for right wing moviegoers. Not only is Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko moving to 1,500 screens nationwide, but that other enemy of the right wing, homosexuals, are getting not one but two high-profile, positive examples of gay cinema.

Now, I realize that when I say Hairspray is gay cinema, some of you recoil at my seeming employment of a stereotype but hear me out. Hairspray is an example of positive gay cinema because director Adam Shankman and producer John Waters (auteur of the original Hairspray) are both gay. Thus the success of Hairspray this weekend is a positive example of gay cinema. A gay director behind the lens of a big summer success is definitely a positive.

So how will Hairspray perform at the box office? The film is trending older and more female friendly than most of the competition. This is the perfect niche at the moment, demographically speaking. With Potter for the kids, Adam Sandler and Transformers for the boys, Hairspray has the femme demo almost all to itself.

If Hairspray can manage to wrestle even a small portion of the date crowd away from Chuck and Larry this could be the surprise opening of the summer.

As for I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry reviews are not great early on but most reviews do mention the film as being a positive for gay audiences. The movie, allegedly delivers a message of tolerance, love and acceptance behind its crude slapstick and could provide a real positive message to Sandler’s jock-ish fanbase. That is, if that fanbase will turn out to see Sandler play gay, even if he’s only faking it.

Playing up a nearly nude Jessica Biel in the ad campaign should help turn out the Sandler fans. The key then will be luring the date crowd and Chuck and Larry has a slight edge over Hairspray in that regard as guys just generally refuse to turn out for a musicals. Neither, Transformers or Harry Potter can be considered as date movies, so the date crowd is open for Chuck and Larry.

This time last year, Sandler opened Click to more than $40 million. That film had the advantage of a slightly less competitive weekend and a premise with wider appeal than the slightly more controversial Chuck and Larry. Does that mean that Chuck and Larry can’t open big? Of course not, but be prepared for an opening in the low to mid-30s and a second place finish behind week two of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Also this weekend, Warner Brothers is rolling out a sneak preview of the romantic comedy No Reservations starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhardt. The film opens next week and based on weak early ad buys and one of the weakest trailers of the year, this could be a make or break for the films opening next weekend. How many people will sample No Reservations this weekend? The film has to pull audience from Hairspray and that could be tough going.

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TICKETS OUT: CAPTIVITY

Why spend a column on a movie that people only really know because of a tasteless billboard? Maybe because it’s the only movie opening this Friday. Maybe it’s because Elisha Cuthbert is a stone cold fox. Whatever the reason, I find something about Captivity and the controversy that surrounds it that fascinates me enough to get me to ruminate on its box office potential and to delve into why what might just have been another horror-porn reject has become the subject of a nationwide discussion of censorship, misogyny and the state of the modern horror genre.

Captivity began life as just another horror movie idea until Oscar-nominated director Roland Joffe made the unlikely decision to direct this underwhelming genre piece. The director who leapt onto the Hollywood scene with back to back best director Oscar nominations for The Killing Fields and The Mission had fallen on hard times since those triumphs of the mid-1980’s.

Since The Mission’s multiple Oscar noms in 1986, Joffe has seen one failure after another, starting with the bloated epic Fat Man and Little Boy and the Patrick Swayze bust City of Joy in 1989 and 1992 respectively. Those modest failures were followed bizarrely enough by Joffe’s first diversion into the genre ghetto, an uncredited piece of touch up work on, of all things, The Super Mario Bros. movie.

Things only went further downhill from there for Joffe reaching their nadir with the disastrous Demi Moore remake of The Scarlett Letter and the oddball period piece Vatel, his most recent and least successful film to date. Thus we come to Captivity and a one-time, well-respected director seemingly desperate for work and a shrewd producer in need of a director with even a modest amount of credibility.

Meet After Dark films honcho Courtney Solomon, the brains behind last year’s surprisingly successful repackaging of several failed horror movies into "8 Films To Die For," a traveling horror movie festival for the less-than-discriminating horror movie fan. It was Solomon who had the bright idea to hire Joffe and it was this shyster marketing exec who thought it a fantastic idea to abandon Joffe’s more cerebral take on the material -- which was shown late last year in England -- in favor of a re-shot, re-cut version that played up the gore and the boobies.

Whether Joffe’s original vision was any good is in question given his recent track record. That Captivity is now positioned as yet another horror porn sleazefest may not in fact be his fault. That Solomon who issued the decree to the two time Oscar nominee to amp up the gore factor, is now irritated that his film has been painted with the horror porn label is either yet another oddball bit of marketing bluster or simple hubris from a producer feeling his oats after a few cheapie successes in the gutters of the lowball genre world.

This outrage of course comes from the same producer who feigned disbelief and then incompetence after the controversial billboard for the film appeared all over Los Angeles:The billboard that one advocacy group so adeptly described as a rape kit for dummies, features Cuthbert in four separate photos captioned Abduction, Confinement, Torture and Termination, so enraged the MPAA that the film was pulled from its original May release date, the result of the MPAA delaying the films ratings board hearing.

Oddly enough, posters for the film in international locations were surprisingly artful renditions of horror that likely would have been more effective than the shock approach that Solomon claimed was the mistake of an over-eager underling. That "mistake" has not precluded Solomon from playing into the controversy in order to sell the film. In Los Angeles, Solomon held a series of masochism themed premiere parties featuring dominatrices, strippers, and sideshow torture freaks.

What the parties did not feature were appearances by Cuthbert or Joffe. Neither has spoken out publicly about the film and it’s controversy, though Cuthbert has feigned support in her few media appearances. Joffe has been entirely mum on the film with not a negative or positive word other than what Solomon claims is his full support sent to him personally over the phone.

So how will this controversy play at the box office. Tracking numbers say that a majority of the country could care less about the film. The controversy peaked quickly over two months ago and with only a tiny marketing budget, mostly going to strippers and masochists in the Los Angeles area, Captivity seems destined to open under $4 million this weekend and disappear quicker than its more high profile genre sibling Hostel 2, the failure of which hopefully signaling the end of our fascination with the brainless torture of beautiful young women.

Captivity likely will not be the final nail in horror porn’s coffin, more like a footnote. A footnote in the history of an ugly film sub-genre and, if I may be slightly grandiloquent, in the history of America’s good taste in rejecting overt, detailed, and disturbing misogyny.

TICKETS OUT: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE EDITION

Another week, another early edition of Tickets Out. This time, we start the holiday week on a Monday with the premiere of Transformers, which is not only the film that is being predicted at guessthegross.com but also the first film to hit screens during this busy holiday week.

Director Michael Bay is nothing if not consistent, and his trademark extreme battle sequences and whiz-bang special effects are in full-effect mode in this film.

As someone who never saw an episode of the show when it aired in the 1980s -- by choice -- I’m not the target audience; however, after having seen the trailers, I admit a slight hankerin’ to see this puppy on the big screen.

I suspect that I’m not alone in that feeling. At the same time, I suspect that the majority of the audience will be male, which limits the film’s box office gross.

Expect a seven-day gross between $100 and $125 million (and yes, you’ll get my exact prediction prior to the close of the weekly contest.)

Don’t forget to make your guesses before 5:00 p.m. ET Wednesday, July 4 and check back on the blog for Kernan’s full Tickets Out column and the July edition of the summer movie preview.

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