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C'mon. The Quick and the Dead was a massive hit!

Kim Hollis: Body of Lies, a Ridley Scott movie starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio, grossed only $12.9 million from 2,710 venues. Given its reported $70 million budget, how big a disaster is this for Warner Bros.?

Scott Lumley: This is nothing. This will make its money back in the long run, and Warner Bros will just try even harder to get Nolan and Bale signed for the next Batman movie. In short, it's a minor aggravation for them, and it's good for us.

Sean Collier: I'm going to digress for a moment, because I'm a new prophet, and haven't had a chance to voice an opinion of mine on the site as of yet. That opinion goes like this: Hey, you know who's really, really bad at acting? Russell Crowe.

That being said, the new rule for your international/geopolitical thrillers seems to be this: can you make a commercial that actually explains to us what your film is about? If the answer is "no," you're screwed. Audiences don't want to slog through a big political mess just because it has recognizable faces; we've seen dozens of examples of this over the past few years. Sell the film, not the actors.

Shane Jenkins: Yeah, good call Sean. I can't even make it through a review of this movie without becoming bored and confused. This is Ridley more in 1492 mode than, say, that of Black Hawk Down. You're very talented, Mr. Scott, but from where I'm sitting, it's been seven years since you directed a great movie, and I can't imagine your upcoming Crowe vs. Crowe Robin Hood flick is going to reverse the trend. Maybe it's time to stop answering Russell's calls.





Kim Hollis: Ooh, Sean. We are so sympatico on this. I have never liked Crowe much. I've found him acceptable at times (with LA Confidential being the only occasion where he really shines for me) but for the most part, if I see his name above the title, my first thought is "Pass." With that being said, though, I sort of love DiCaprio, so I'm at least a little bit surprised that their combined draw didn't mean more.

Jason Lee: I, for one, was extremely surprised by this. I thought that the trio of Scott, DiCaprio and Crowe would at least bring in $20 million opening weekend. I think John nailed it in his Weekend Wrap-Up by comparing the film to Blood Diamond, but the problem with using that film as a yardstick is that Blood Diamond didn't have anything else going for it other than DiCaprio. Here, you have two other bankable Hollywood names . . . color me surprised by its debut.

Brandon Scott: Reviews are critical to sell this sort of pic and there were too many poor ones given to help this along. The Middle East angle, though hidden as best as possible in the trailers, can't help either. How tired are pics based in war torn countries right now?

Tim Briody: I think the fact that this underperformed is a referendum on Russell Crowe. That's the only way to explain how this could miss that badly. On paper, this should have been tops for the weekend with ease.

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