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David Mumpower: Since I couldn't care less about Sorority Row, let's focus on the more interesting discussion here. Would I go to the effort of walking across the street to spit on Spencer Pratt? Hmm, that's a tough call. Can I thumb him in the eye, too, or am I limited to spitting?

Kim Hollis: Spitting would be plenty satisfactory for me.

If we want to see snow, we'll watch the Weather Channel

Kim Hollis: Whiteout, the Kate Beckinsale film set in Antarctica, opened to $4.9 million. Why didn't this comic book adaptation take off?

Josh Spiegel: The marketing failed. That's my best guess, based on the shock I had this week when Kate Beckinsale showed up to market this movie on Conan O'Brien; her appearance was the first time I was aware that a) Beckinsale had a movie coming out and b) that movie was coming out this week. The little I've heard about the film isn't great; the critics aren't going nuts for it. Either way, there was a complete lack of awareness about this one.

Reagen Sulewski: I think the comic-adaptation part is a bit of a red herring, as I doubt one in ten people that went to it knew it was originally a comic. the bigger problem is that this looked like a bad episode of CSI: Antarctica, and people getting killed where it's cold isn't enough of a novelty to make a movie.





Jim Van Nest: I had a completely opposite view of Whiteout than Josh. I saw ads constantly. They were just bad. CSI: Antarctica is about the perfect description. If I want to see some freaky stuff going down in the ice and snow, I'll re-watch Carpenter's The Thing. This just looked awful and I always appreciate when the movie going public treats a crappy looking film like a crappy looking film.

Sean Collier: I'm with Jim - every preview just made me think "Yeah, I should rent The Thing again." No hook, bad word-of-mouth, crowded marketplace. It didn't have a chance.

Max Braden: I agree with Jim's agreement. I saw ads over and over and I still couldn't figure out if they were selling a sci-fi mystery or simply a murder in tough terrain. I know we complain about revealing too much in trailers but I think audiences need a concrete idea to take away from the trailer. Hesitation to reveal enough to sell the movie leads to hesitation in buying tickets at the box office.

David Mumpower: People who don't follow movie releases for a living would have no idea about this sort of thing, but this one feels like it has been in limbo forever. The indecision about how to market it presumably comes from the fact that there wasn't anything good enough in it to sell. The 8% Rotten Tomatoes score reinforces that, although BOP's own Russ Bickerstaff has a lot of nice things to say about it in his Book vs. Movie piece.

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