By Steven Zeitchik

We get that it can be useful to promote the appearance of stars in specialized movies, even if it means sowing some confusion with filmgoers unaccustomed to that type of movie. (Random tidbit overheard outside a Michael Clayton screening last year: "I usually like George Clooney, but why was he so serious the whole time?")

But Par Vantage's ad for "Revolutionary Road," which ran in the New York Times Thursday, takes the play-up-the-star-but-play-down-the-content theme to new heights. No online version that we can find so no art, bu it featured a blank white background with the simple message "Winslet. DiCaprio. Tomorrow." if you didn't know better you might think they were appearing at your local movie theater, not starring in a film playing there.

It's hard, no doubt, to come up with marketing materials for a midcentury, wrenching suburban drama in which an increasingly distant husband and wife go after each other with emotional knives.  And if you've got DiCaprio and Winslet, why not push them.

But does it work to go so far the other way and just flog stars like Winslet and DiCaprio without a word about what they're doing there? And even if it does and you land some filmgoers, wouldn't you then run into a word-of-mouth problem? "I don't know, Gertrude. I kind of liked them in Titanic. But I was expecting more romance here."

By Steven Zeitchik

Throw all the naughty and nice cliches out the window. Today, Christmas Day, begins a four-day run the likes of which box office hasn't seen since reindeer roamed the earth.

Disney releases its biggest live-action pic of the year in Adam Sandler's "Bedtime Stories." Fox hopes that a dog named Marley rescues it from 2008 box-office danger. Paramount releases its biggest fall movie in years in the pricey and elaborate "Ben Button" and the witching hour for MGM/UA/Tom Cruise comes with the release of "Valkyrie." Lionsgate and Frank Miller are of course in the mix too, as are the priests of Miramax's "Doubt."

Our prediction, based on tracking (which basically squares with what THR guru Gregg Kilday is forecasting): "Bedtime Stories" comes in a strong number one with b.o. solidly over $35m "Button," and "Marley jostle for number two, with the dog wresting it away with its teeth for at least a high 20's finish. "Button finishes a respectable number three in the low 20's, and "Valkyrie" is right behind that. "The Spirit" doesn't fareas well. Hard to know where "Doubt" finishes on its 1200 screens but, really, could the timing for a movie about such subjects be any better.

And by Sunday the big Christmas experiment will end, with four of the biggest bets of the year coming out on exactly the same day. Does anyone have any Thanksgiving cliches?

By Steven Zeitchik

Big Christmas Eve surprise — a bow-topped gift for Fox, lump of coal for Warners, wound on its smiley face, etc.

A judge has ruled  that Fox has a copyright stake in "Watchmen" for their years developing the project.  The preliminary ruling doesn't issue binding oders, but it will embolden Fox to press on with its case — and could stir Warners to start thinking settlement.

The case is scheduled for trial in January. And forget Pellicano; this would be the real legal spectacle. Studios rarely face off against each other in court, and a public showdown like this could see the likes of top execs at both companies testifying (and a big curtain pulled back on the normally closed world of studio development).

What does this mean for the Zack Snyder-Alan Moore dark action movie? We still think the March pic comes out on time and a settlement is reached either before or shortly after the January 20 court date. (Even if a settlement isn't reached, Fox would have to win an injunction to stop the rollout.)

But with the ruling, Warners may have to pay a much heftier sum to make the case go away. That, or,press on with a trial even as it presses on with a marketing campaign.

By Steven Zeitchik

Just a few years ago, fantasy movies were so much the rage the were practically seething. The first "Chronicles of Narnia" earned more than $750 million globally, and studios were greenlighting tales of warlocks and wizards faster than a certain kind of eleven-year-old rolls the six-sided dice.

"Harry Potter" still works its spell. But the box-office sag for the second Narnia earlier this year (the global take fell to about $420 million) has prompted an unusual rethink, namely: Disney won't partner with Walden on the third picture. As Borys Kit reports, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader" was set to go into production in the spring. But the Iger conglom has taken a look at the numbers and decided not to voyage with Voyage. Walden is now looking for other studio partners, with Fox a leading candidate.

It's likely the film will still get made. And Hollywood has a history of reviving genres at the exact moment everyone's pronouncing them dead (the first fantasy revival, brought about by "Potter" and "Lord of the Rings," was hardly a sure thing; most people thought Peter Jackson had lost his marbles like Isildur lost the ring). But the decision might give some chills, for several reasons.

First, it shows how fragile and ephemeral even a supposedly strong franchise can be. That should give pause even to those with strong incumbent franchises, from Warners' Batman to Marvel Studios' Iron Man.

More specifically, it shows that when Disney a few years ago decided to go in the direction of built-in franchises, it wasn't kidding around. The company could, without any major risks, probably still pull in $300 or $400 million in global box-office for a new Narnia picture. With the right budgets, that's a profitable installment by pretty much any measure.

But it turns out that Disney is very specific in the numbers and upside it wants. Even a global publishing powerhouse and sequels that earn nearly half a billion dollars may not fit with its plans.

Time to cast a spell — the business is getting spooky.

By Steven Zeitchik

You might be a fierce swapper of online music. Or maybe you haven't traded a tape since that epic –  _epic_ — Phish concert in '93. Either way, get ready for the bootlegging comeback, as everyone from assistants to execs seems to be trading Sundance screeners ahead of the festival this year.

Swapping always goes on before a fest like Sundance; it's about as much of a given as Sam Rockwell at the Eccles. But this year it's particularly pervasive, as hot pics like "World's Greatest Dad" and "Paper Heart" make the rounds.

Bands kind of don't mind the swapping because it promotes the music and is a form of flattery anyway. Sundance screeners? Not so much. Filmmakers and sales agents say the festival screening is a sacred event, the place to see a movie free of other impressions, hype or bias — a way to catch history, even. And advance viewings spoil that sanctity.

Buyers, meanwhile, say there's little harm; it's just a way of scoping out the field so they and their people aren't pulled in ten different directions once they land on the ground. They'll go the public screening anyway if they like the movie.

Sellers can sometimes overemphasize the preciousness of that initial screening. And buyers can sometimes be a little cavalier about it.

But there is a serious issue here. A festival tends to be (and should be) about discovery and a genuine sense of surprise. All the industry screeners in the world won't ruin that if you're, say, a cinephile who's landed for a few days to gorge yourself on as many new pics as you can.

But if you're in the industry and you've seen a screener or know friends who have, it does take something away from that premiere to know you're part of the second wave, especially if you don't see half the execs you'd normally see in the room. Keep up this culture and it's not a stretch to wonder if we may not see many industry buyers on the ground at all before long.

There's another concern. Once you open the door to screeners you open the door to favoritism. It's one thing if the seller, by design, targets execs ahead of a public debut. But a black-market makes people jealous in all sorts of unhealthy and unpredictable ways.

The irony in all this is that festival themselves was designed as a kind of sneak peek, just one where the playing ground is level. Leaked screeners up the ante, creating sneak peeks on the sneak peeks.

Given where this is headed, we'll ask the inevtiable and wonder if a market could develop around an even earlier phase: screeners that let you see the film before it's even made.

By Steven Zeitchik

The unveiling of big available movies like Jim Carrey's "I Love You Philip Morris" and Antoine Fuqua's "Brooklyn's Finest" to distributors may not happen until lights go down at Sundance venues next month. But another movie — one not going to Park City — has quietly been slipping in buyer screenings over the past few weeks.

The Renee Zellweger-Kevin Bacon period romantic dramedy "My One and Only" has been playing to buyers in Los Angeles. The production, which was packaged and is repped by CAA, is one of the many celebrity-driven titles that grew out of the boom in indie financing the last couple years. Given its stars, its director ("Wimbledon" and "Firewall" helmer Richard Loncraine) and the pic's concept — Zellweger as a single mom looking for a wealthy suitor — it easily could have been a studio production (the fact that it's a midcentury piece may have kept it in the indie realm, at least in the financing sense). But now it's available for pickup like so many fest titles.

So far, buyers have reported that the movie plays sweet and plays commercial — two things that might prompt a specialty division or studio deal. If a distributor thinks it can turn the trick of  a studio-esque opening weekend, they'll get a bargain; even a solid seven-figure sale would mean a lower price tag than it would if the company made the pic itself.

We may not see many studio-type productions being financed by outside source for much longer in this current credit-crunch. All those who've decried the star-driven indie titles (made in part because of the number stars could fetch in overseas markets) may soon get what they wish for. But if this Zellwegger December surprise works, don't be surprised if it's not the one and only.

By Borys Kit

"Seven Pounds" may have recorded a middling  first weekend. But its topliner says that when it comes to box-office, it's next weekend that matters. Before the mortality drama opened, the world's biggest movie star told Risky Biz that he "take(s) personally" a movie's sophomore performance. "You can buy your way to a great first weekend but the second weekend is what tells you how much they like you, how good the word of mouth is. And that I take very, very personally," he said.

Speaking of the whole The Only Movie Star in the World bit, the man who inhabits the title says he doesn't buy it. "It's kind of a cool illusion," he said. "It's an interesting media creation that I'm going to ride until she bucks me."

The bucking could happen in the coming weeks. "Seven Pounds," as weve noted, will face a very tough second box office window given all the wide openers ("Button," "Marley," "Valkyrie," Bedtime").

Still, one victory Smith can claim is getting the movie in front of a wide audience in the first place — the project might very well not have gotten made, at least by a studio, if not for Smith's interest/involvement. "The main thing is that you want people to see the movie,² said producer Todd Black last week. "And if you have someone like Will Smith, people will."

By Steven Zeitchik

Talent-watchers and box-office gurus have been anticipating this weekend for months.

For one thing, those viral-video Christmas cards finally slow to a trickle. More important, it's a weekend when Will Smith went wide with his most commercially challenging movie since he became, well, Will Smith. Those either a) convinced of the death of the movie star b) convinced of the death of all movie stars save for Will Smith were watching closely.

You could almost look at this weekend's box-office as a lab experiment — the opening of a highly serious and elliptical tale that contains abundant marketing challenges but featuring the huge saving grace of its star.

Material vs megawattage, in other words.

So what results did all the beakers and test tubes yield? The verdict's a little compromised by the weather– box-office overall was down 45% as blizzards put the kibosh on everything from moviegoing to NFL teams' passing games. But there's still something meaningful in the $16 million gross the mortality drama scored this weekend. The conclusion: Smith still matters, but not nearly as much as the material he works with.

For comparison, we sifted through the A-lister's last group of openings. "Hancock" (with the help of July 4) had a $62 million opening. "I Am Legend" — the most commercial of his recent lot –  earned $77 million. And "Hitch" drew a solid $41 million in its February bow.

Those numbers dwarf the "Pounds" totals. But then, given the material, you kind of expect them to. They also all opened on at least 3600 screens, and "Pounds" debuted on only about 2800.

The best comparison is to "Pursuit of Happyness" two years ago. That pic had a feelgood tone and a far easier logline — but also a similar dramatic quality and no action or broad comedy. More to the point, it opened on a roughly similar number of screens as "Pounds."

So what's the lesson there? "Pounds" fell notably short of the $26 million "Happyness" earned its opening December weekend two years ago. But given that box office overall fell nearly 50% even from last year, given the fact that there were no wide-openers for adults like Jim Carrey's "Yes Man" that year ("Eragon" and "Charlotte's Web" were that weekend's two biggest openers), given the difficulty of the material, Sony and the Smith camp shouldn't despair too much — at least this week, before things get super-jammed with "Marley & Me," "Bedtime Stories" and "Button" next week.

In short, call it a verdict for material but not totally against the star. And call it comfort, recession-style. You didn't do great. But it could have been a lot worse.