1) Up — $68.2 million
One stormy night many years ago, a small car drove up to a menacing, crooked old house far in the dirty outskirts of a crumbling, decaying American city. A man emerged from the car, walked up to the door, and tentatively knocked. After a long wait—he thought about leaving, he wanted to leave, but something compelled him to stay—a strange, bent old man answered the door. "Come in out of the rain," he croaked to the weary traveler. "My master shall see you in the parlor." He led the traveler through the dimly lit, cobwebbed rooms and finally there was a roaring fire and a huge armchair. In which sat a man of indeterminate age—was he young? or old? middle-aged? The traveler couldn't quite tell. "Sit down," the ageless man purred, like three voices talking at once. And so the traveler did. "I've prepared your contract here," and suddenly appeared an old piece of parchment. "Let's see... 'Being of sound mind and body'... blah blah... 'In perpetuity forever'... yadda yadda... ahh yes, the important part. 'And the company shall reign for decades, producing the highest quality product with supernatural ease, and all will be showered with praise.' And all for the low low price of... one soul. So just sign here if you could. No, I need the full name, not just initials. Yes, that's right. John Lasseter. Right there..." And John Lasseter signed and the bargain was upheld and though Pixar reigns now, poor Lasseter will suffer a thousand eternities in hell. I mean, that's the only reasonable explanation for their mind-boggling, unbroken string of successes, right?

2) Night of the Museum: Fight for the Threequel — $25.5 million
Showing strong legs in its second time at the rodeo, Ben Stiller's comedy held up despite its strong family competition from the aforementioned devil's deal. Do you think that some poor parents had to take their kids to both of these movies this weekend? Like somewhere where it rained and there was nothing else to do? And so you shill out $40, $50 for tickets and popcorn and sugary soda and hey, actually, Up is pretty good. But then they start wailing because they're bored and what else is there to do. OK, we'll go see Drag Me to Hell you think grimly, chuckling to yourself. No, obviously it has to be that museum movie with the Zoolander guy. So, $40, $50 again and sigh... it's actually pretty silly, with all the loud jokes and funny voices and all the kids do is yell, and you suddenly think in a sad flash that back in college you would have spent a whole rainy weekend stoned, sitting on the couch watching Star Wars, or trying to make out with Mindy Kitimski from down the hall and oh well, so it goes.

3) Drag Me to Hell — $16.6 million
Strong reviews and an otherwise horror-free cinemascape helped Sam Raimi's movie to a strong third place debut. Which is good news for fans of horror/comedy everywhere, and possibly good news for the underused Alison Lohman, who shined so brightly in the underrated White Oleander and then kinda disappeared for a while. Guess all it takes to get you back on top is a creepy old gypsy lady who tries to make a demon eat you. Just ask John Lasseter.

4) Terminator Salvation — $16.1 million
Yikes. Fourth place in its second weekend is not so good for ol' Stormin' Norman Christian Bale and his McG-led army of gray people doing gray things in Gray World. Which is OK, because the movie is not so good. My big beef? Why would a collective hive mind computer system that's all run from a central place need... a keyboard? Like, why would that be there? Can't the robots just tell each other how to do things because they're all just one computer robot? And why would they design their San Francisco headquarters with like, architectural flair? Do they care about aesthetics? I thought they were just uncaring computer robots. I'm confused. So is the rest of America.

9) Ghosts of Girlfriends Past — $1.9 million
It's funny to think about who went to this movie this weekend. It's been out for five weeks. Who went? People who just got back from a long trip overseas and when their significant other picked them up and the airport and asked them "so what do you want to do?" they said... "Ohh I know, let's go see that Matthew McConaughey ghost movie." So they do and then after the movie when they're taking the long way back to the car, enjoying the night, their significant other, whose name is Mindy Katimski, squeezes his hand and says "Speaking of old relationships, did I ever tell you about my boyfriend in college? We just smoked a lot of pot and watched Star Wars all the time. It was kinda lame. Anyway, he's got a bunch of kids now. He must be so happy."

1) Night at the Museum 2: Panic! at the Smithsonian — $70 million
Now, that's $70 million over a four day period, from Thursday to Sunday. But, still. Huge numbers, biggest ever, in fact, for Stiller. And, if the funnyman and his golden boy writing team agree to it, the film's success just near about guarantees a threequel. Une Nuit à la Louvre, perhaps? Mona Lisa comes alive and smirks enigmatically at everyone (to be played by Anne Hathaway)! While Stiller's continued success seems increasingly smug and middlebrow, we are pleased for Lennon and Garant, who hopefully now will have the freedom to write the weirdest, profanest stuff they can dream up and still get a green light.

2) Terminator Salvation — $53.8 million
Am I going to walk around and rip your fucking movie down, in the middle of Memorial Day weekend? Then why the fuck are you giving my boring action flick bad word of mouth? Ah da da dah, like this, all over town. What the fuck is it with you? What don't you fucking understand? You got any fucking idea about, hey, it's fucking disappointing having somebody walking up behind someone in the middle of the fucking movie theater line and saying "Don't go see Terminator, cause it sucks"? Give me a fucking answer! What don't you get about it? Oh, so you saw Night at the Museum with your kid instead of my movie? Ohhhhh, goooood for you. And how was it? I hope it was fucking good, because it's useless now, isn't it?

3) Star Trek — $29.4 million
The force is still strong in this one! Hyperdriving to a lightsaber-hot $191 million in just a few weeks, the film is set to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs—a new record! Soaring high through the clouds of Bespin, this swashbuckling space opera is sending the competition barrel-rolling down into the murky swamps of Dagobah. Sy Snoodles will be singing this movie's praises for eons, like a beautiful pop culture icon being slowly digested over a period of a thousand years by the mighty Sarlacc.

4) Angels & Demons — $27.7 million
Well good for everyone here. The film dropped less than 60% in its second week at the rodeo. While international numbers are sure to remain high for a lil' bit, this installment of the Dan Brown every-chapter-ends-with-a-cliffhanger-just-like-Fear Street religio-mystery series will not come close to its predecessor The Da Vinci Code's big returns. But no one really expected to, and every summer one or two movies do just OK, mostly lost and forgotten in the sea of churning robots and angry wizards and troubled museum guards who—wait, why is he in DC now?

5) Dance Flick — $13.1 million
A new generation of Wayans is welcomed into our hearts, as this a-few-years-too-late parody of films like Save the Last Stomping for When It's Time to Step Up does solid numbers in a super-crowded holiday weekend. We're pretty excited for the upcoming spoof Holiday-Time Family Cameo Comedy, in which Marlon Wayans Jr. plays a museum guard who must suddenly become a dad while driving a taxicab full of alien kids and then it's all 3D animation and Seth Rogen and a bunch of SNL people (or people pretending to be them, hilariously!) show up and everyone chuckles and forgets what they saw thirty minutes after leaving the theater.

Frank Coraci had done the same bit just the night before at the Independent Spirit Awards, Page Six reminds us. Stiller was at the ceremony only via recorded video, since he was in his ill-fated Oscar rehearsals at the time, but would have had time to hear buzz about Coraci's stunt in the intervening day. Stiller kept his impersonation plans secret until he arrived at the theater Sunday, according to Page Six.

Coraci's impersonation (above, NSFW) wasn't as good, but then again he's a director, not an actor. And he was first! Plus the idea of pairing Phoenix with a ranting Christian Bale is inspired. It's not, in the end, surprising that a mainstream actor like Stiller would appropriate and reprocess the idea for a broader audience (video below): That's how his business works, and how the Oscar audience was able to enjoy some biting humor along with all the cheery musicals.

A colorful, inner-candy-city drama revolving around down-and-out candy hooker Princess Frostine, turned out by Lord Licorice on the chewy streets of Gum Drop Mountain. She's eventually taken in by a disgraced former candy cop named Gloppy the Chocolate Monster, kicked off the force for stealing Pixie Stick powder evidence, and the two embark upon an unlikely love affair. [Variety]
· Casino Royale director Martin Campbell is close to signing with Warners for Green Lantern, outpacing other Warner/DC properties like the stalled Superman and Justice League projects, and even Sony's de-stung emerald hero, The Green Hornet. [Variety]
· Imagine TV is looking for another comedy hit, and is developing one written by Gilmore Girls's Dan Palladino and based on Brian Grazer's father, Tom Grazer. "A lawyer with a slightly questionable moral compass," Grazer Jr. said. "My dad was so much bigger than life. He was a big personality, extremely popular but flawed." Father of Grazerhead? The mind reels. [Variety]
· Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J are in talks to star in CBS's as-yet-untitled NCIS spinoff. We nominate DoN CAF, or Department of the Navy Central Adjudication Facility, in keeping with the indecipherable military-agency-acronym theme. [THR]
· Robert Downey Jr., Tina Fey and Ben Stiller are negotiating to voice DreamWorks Animation's Master Mind, about a villain who accidentally kills his superhero nemesis, sending him into an existential crisis. [THR]

Or, you know, as we like to call it: Joe Versus the Volcano.

The bad news? According to Slashfilm, the movie's title (assuming it does ever get made, and isn't simply consigned to Crowe's pile of bad ideas that includes a Jonathan Lipnicki-toplined Jerry Maguire 2) would be Deep Tiki. As in, if this movie comes out, the careers of all three participants would be in...no, we just can't say it. We can't say "Deep Tiki" again. Uttering its name only gives it more power.

[Photo Credit: AP]

• Reese Witherspoon says Cameron Crowe’s Next Film has Been Postponed [Collider]

• Cameron Crowe’s Deep Tiki Postponed; Iron Man 2’s Production Title [Slashfilm]

Cam, Cam, Cam (can we call you "Cam"?). This idea smells worse to us than Vanilla Sky, and here's why:

First of all, you're opening yet another film with a professional in disgrace? While that worked fine in Jerry Maguire, the conceptual retread wore thin quickly in Elizabethtown. Ironically, the fact that Elizabethtown bombed might have given you new insight into the sort of character who suffers career ignominy and then struggles to pick up the pieces, but we'd still recommend against using that trope a third freakin' time.

Also (and perhaps a bit more importantly), THIS IS THE MOVIE JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO. And, in choosing to pursue a logline so outrageously similar to that Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, you have unwittingly awakened the sleeping giant that is Defamer's love for that movie. Cam, we have been to Hawaii. We know Hawaii. Hawaii, sir, is no Waponi Wu.

Thus, Cam, we politely ask you to take stock of your upcoming project. Does your "disgraced professional" undergo a freakout that can top this? Is he asked to become involved with a volcano sacrifice by a sparkly-eyed Lloyd Bridges? Are three of his love interests played by a pre-Restylane Meg Ryan, and is one of them a flibbertigibbet? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," perhaps it's time to shelve this project and pick back up with Singles 2: The VH1 Classic Years.

• CROWE GOES OFF DEEP END...OF VOLCANO [CHUD]

Elton John: I’ve got to try and write a film musical for Ben Stiller.

GQ: What’s that about?

Elton John:It’s about a guy on Broadway who is gay, has HIV and AIDS, and has to go back and face his wife and his kids that he left. It’s very funny.

GQ: It wasn’t sounding funny, so far.…

Elton John:No, it’s very funny. The premise doesn’t sound funny, but it is. All right?

We admit that we too are having trouble seeing the humor in the premise of an AIDS-sufferer facing down the family he abandoned to pursue the Broadway lifestyle. Once the material falls into Stiller's capable hands, however, we have no doubt he'll find the funny in soulful numbers featuring the supporting harmonies of Rescriptor, Sustiva, and Virmanune— a backup trio of doo-wopping pills-on-legs, better known as The Meds.

• Sir Elton John's Weird Third Act [GQ via Yahoo!]

That didn't discourage the gang at DreamWorks, however, who argued that their $90 million raunchfest has what it takes to measure up eventually: "We will play to a little older audience than Pineapple Express, so we should do better on Saturday and get to about the same box office," a "source" told Nikki Finke, apparently overlooking the lack of a pot subplot or panty-soaking James Franco to buttress Thunder's run. We're a little more skeptical and think this calls for more desperate measures: If ever the 'Works needed to reinstate its gold mine at SImpleJackMovie.com, now is the hour.

• 'TROPIC THUNDER' grabs an estimated $7.5M on Opening Day [Fantasy Moguls]
• 'Tropic Thunder's Low-Key $7M Opening [DHD]

DEFAMER: Tropic Thunder was based on an idea by Ben Stiller who then started working on the script with Justin Theroux. Why did they bring you along? ETAN COHEN: In about 2002, Ben Stiller, who's about the busiest guy on the planet, was looking for someone who could do some of the unsexy heavy lifting of fleshing out the script. I think he read an early draft of Idiocracy [which Etan co-wrote with Mike Judge] and thought maybe I was someone he could trust to take it the rest of the way.

DEFAMER: What was it like meeting Ben for the first time?
ETAN: You know, every time I met with Ben he was incredibly intimidating because he was in costume for whatever movie he was working on. I think the first time I was wearing the usual writer's costume and he and was dressed in a full tux like James Bond because he was shooting Along Came Polly.

DEFAMER: What was the writing process like? Did Ben just give you the story and the ideas and say, "go to town?"
ETAN: Ben and Justin gave me a lot of material that I incorporated into a screenplay. Basically, I laid it out into script form and gave it to Ben in stages. When it got to a certain finalized point, I started working more closely with Justin. And then everyone started sending it back and forth. Ben too. But it was rare for all three of us to be in the same place at the same time.

DEFAMER: Any fights about keeping stuff in the script?
ETAN: No fights. You just do what Ben says. I think he knows what he's doing.

DEFAMER: There are lots of huge actors in this movie. As a director, how did Ben Stiller control all those raging egos?
ETAN: Basically, people had tremendous respect for Ben. He was able to command the set. Also he works out like crazy. He got ripped for this part because he was playing an action star and he was super buff. He even had dumbbells on the set. So knowing someone can kick your ass is probably more intimidating than just thinking they're really smart.

DEFAMER: Let's talk about the whole Robert Downey Jr.-in-blackface thing. How sensitive were you to the fact that some people could have been offended?
ETAN: As a writer sometimes you're able to be detached from the reality of what you're writing. I think it was maybe just a funny joke in my mind and I wasn't aware of how crazy it was. It didn't really hit me until I visited the set and I saw Robert taking a break while his stand-in, who was a real African American actor, stayed on camera. Then I realized it was truly insane.

DEFAMER: But do you worry about offending people in your work? I mean, they already took down that Simple Jack site and now the National Down Syndrome Congress is calling for a boycott of the movie.
ETAN: I do worry about it, but I hope that people realize our heart is really in the right place. The statement we're trying to make is not to make fun of those people, but to make fun of the way Hollywood views those people. I would feel terrible if people thought we were making a racist joke or a joke at the expense of handicapped people when what we're really trying to do is say, "Hollywood please stop fetishizing handicapped people."

DEFAMER: Alright, let's change gears here. Tom Cruise plays an evil studio exec in Tropic Thunder. What's it like meeting that dude?
ETAN: It's astounding. He just seems like the healthiest, happiest, most energetic guy you've ever met. He's radiant. He comes to the table and you think he's the biggest superstar, he's certainly earned the right to half-ass it, and he just brings it in the most wonderful and shameless way.

DEFAMER: Please put the rumors to rest. Did Tom base that performance on anyone in particular?
ETAN: I've heard all kinds of theories about that. But in the script it was really just a conglomerate of classic studio bosses going back to Jack Warner.

DEFAMER: I don't want to give anything away, but Tom Cruise dances in this movie. Now do you just write in the script "he dances," and Tom takes it from there?
ETAN: Actually the dancing was his idea! It was something he wanted to do, and to me, it's one of the best parts of the movie. People will see it and remember how great he is. It's a transcendent moment. I wanted that scene to go on for half an hour.

DEFAMER: I have to ask. Any Scientology crap when you met him?
ETAN: You know, I'm a religious person, so when I read that stuff I truly do sympathize with him because anyone's religion can be made to seem crazy by people who don't believe in it. I just have the benefit of my crazy things having happened thousands of years ago.

DEFAMER: Ok, let's talk about your career. What's your work ethic like? Do you write every day? To be douchey about it, what's your process?
ETAN: I have three kids at home so I don't sleep much past five. I try to treat writing like I would any job. You got to put in the hours. You hope if you work enough, some of the hours will coincide with when you're feeling inspired.

DEFAMER: What's next for you?
ETAN: Well, I'm writing the new Sherlock Holmes movie for Sacha Baron Cohen and Will Ferrell. And I also have Madagascar 2 coming out. That's something my kids can watch.

DEFAMER: Robert Downey Jr. is in a competing Sherlock movie. Are you concerned about that?
ETAN: I've let him know that LA is a dangerous place. All kinds of things happen. People disappear. I heard he's a martial artist and he should know that I take karate with my daughters, so don't fuck with me.

DEFAMER: But seriously...
ETAN: I think that it's odd, but I also don't think they're really competing projects. Ours is a big comedy and his is a serious action movie. I think there's an appetite for both. That said, at the junket, he was like, "Oh you've got the other Sherlock Holmes movie." And I said, "No you've got the other Sherlock Holmes movie."

DEFAMER: You're a big comedy writer in Hollywood now. You have some heat on you. What does that feel like?
ETAN: It feels pretty awesome. I've heard other people say this, and now I think I understand. People start to say yes more and that's scary feeling because they're gonna let you do what you want, so it's your fault if it's bad. But all in all, it's great.

DEFAMER: Are your agents kissing your ass more?
ETAN: You know, I unfortunately have an agent who was a good friend of mine before he was an agent so he could really be a much better ass-kisser than he is.

DEFAMER: Tropic Thunder opens on Wednesday, August 13 (that's today, kids!). Here is what you are competing with over the weekend: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the new Woody Allen movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, a horror movie called Mirrors with Keifer Sutherland, and some indie dramedy called Henry Poole Is Here starring Luke Wilson of Idiocracy fame. Why should people go see Tropic Thunder instead of those?
ETAN: I have a history of not helping Luke Wilson's career and I think I'm going to continue to do that. But why should you see our movie over Star Wars and the others? There's a truly amazing scope in our movie that's never been done in a comedy before. I think people will be astounded at how huge it is. I'd say for your ten dollar ticket, you get fifteen dollars of movie.

DEFAMER: Fair enough. One final question. The Dark Knight— greatest movie ever or a little overrated?
ETAN: I didn't even see it yet.

• GMA

"When I heard about it, I felt really hurt inside," said Special Olympics global messenger Dustin Plunkett.

"I cannot believe a writer could write something like that. It's the not the way that we want to be portrayed. We have feelings. We don't like the word retard. We are people. We're just like any other people out there. We want to be ourselves and not be discriminated against."

Andrew J. Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said he and other representatives from advocacy groups representing the mentally disabled met with DreamWorks co-chair Stacey Snider and watched a private screening of the film Monday morning. Imparato called the movie "tasteless" and said it was "offensive start to finish."

Despite the fun-dampening chant of "Call me by my name, not by my label!" echoing off in the distance, the premiere must go on—and it did, albeit with tightened security and views of the A-listers in attendance blocked off by 10-foot-high green fences, Variety reports.

As for the film's stars and star-writers, here's what some of them had to say about the controversy:

Justin Theroux: "I happen to disagree with them in regards to our film. It’s a shame that they are out there, and I hope that when it comes out, they will actually see the jokes for what they are — a deep cutting satire of Hollywood and the stars." [Us Weekly]
Jack Black: "Everyone has the right to protest. It’s a free country. Anytime that anyone feels that they are justified in their heart, more power to them." [Us Weekly]
Etan Cohen: "Some people have taken this as making fun of handicapped people, but we're really trying to make fun of the actors who use this material as fodder for acclaim. The last thing you want is for people to think you're making fun of the victims in this who are having their lives turned into fodder for people to win Oscar." [MTV News]
Ben Stiller: "It's sort of edgy territory, but we felt that as long as the focus was on the actors who were trying to do something to be taken seriously that's going too far or wrong, that was where the humor would come from. [The joke is on] actors reaching for roles in terms of hopefully winning awards." [MTV News]

It will be the A-listers, of course, who have the last laugh should Thunder succeed in doing what so many other couldn't, and toppling The Dark Knight at this weekend's box office—a movie, ironically enough, heralded by watchdog groups as an "exemplary instance of the disabled as being fully functional members of society, as depicted by Maggie Gyllenhaal's courageous and deeply honest performance."

• Mental disability groups protest 'Tropic Thunder' [AP]
• Tropic' premiere brings protest [Variety]
• Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes Face Protestors at Tropic Thunder Premiere [Us]
• 'Tropic Thunder' Director/Star Ben Stiller Says Disability Advocates' Planned Boycott Is Unwarranted [MTV Movies]

We thought this whole thing was settled last week after DreamWorks yanked its mock Web site for Simple Jack — the movie-within-the-movie featuring the tagline, "Once upon a time there was a retard" — and disability advocates' only slightly unreasonable list of demands ("Paramount/DreamWorks should pull all scenes and clips that include Ben Stiller’s portrayal of Simple Jack from the movie, DVD, trailers, promotional material and merchandising") came and went with nary a splash. But in fact the danger worsens by the day, reports one source, which warns of an ambush by aggrieved disability-rights protestors at tonight's premiere in Westwood and a full-scale, national "No Retard" backlash to coincide with Thunder's national opening on Wednesday:

“Not only might it happen, it will happen,” Timothy P. Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, said of the expected push for a boycott. ... Mr. Shriver said that he had also begun to ask members of Congress for a resolution condemning what he called the movie’s “hate speech” and calling for stronger federal support of the intellectually disabled. ...

Over the weekend an ad-hoc coalition of more than a dozen disabilities groups — including the Arc of the United States, the National Down Syndrome Congress, the American Association of People With Disabilities and others — laid the groundwork for public protests to begin Monday. ... "I came out feeling like I had been assaulted,” said David C. Tolleson, executive director of the Down syndrome group who saw the movie.

Funny — that was exactly our reaction to Sean Penn's grossly condescending role in I Am Sam. If only we had mounted a boycott then, we could have nipped this whole crisis in the bud.

• Nationwide ‘Thunder’ Boycott in the Works [NYT]

·Paramount/Dreamworks should pull all references to the words “retard,” “imbecile,” “moron” and “idiot” from the movie, DVD, trailers, promotional material and merchandising;

·Paramount/DreamWorks should pull all scenes and clips that include Ben Stiller’s portrayal of Simple Jack from the movie, DVD, trailers, promotional material and merchandising;

·Ben Stiller, DreamWorks and Paramount should apologize ...

·Paramount/Dreamworks should commit to consulting people with disabilities during the development process about scripts that portray them...

And the list goes on, though this last point is problematic: Tropic Thunder does not depict "people with disabilities," but rather Stiller's portrayal of a bad actor depicting someone with disabilities — a grievous Hollywood standby for which Sean Penn, Cuba Gooding Jr., Dustin Hoffman, Juliette Lewis and that guy from Gigli among sundry other 'retards' of varying severity all owe far more urgent apologies.

Anyway, isn't Diablo Cody connected with this somehow? She's always to blame for something around here. Apologize already, would you?

• Readers: What’s your advice on ‘Tropic Thunder’? [Patricia E. Bauer]
• ‘Tropic Thunder’ Abandoning ‘Simple Jack’? [Vulture]

• WHAT HAPPENS WHEN JUNKETS GO BAD… [Hollywood Outbreak]

His logic is crystalline, but alas, its political incorrectness is drawing even deeper consideration this morning as disability advocates wage war on the R-Word:

It’s just good clean fun, the studio might say, pointing out that the movie also pokes fun at racial stereotypes. It’s a sendup of old Hollywood films that trotted out able-bodied actors in disability drag, like Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Sean Penn in I am Sam. Stiller isn’t laughing at people with intellectual disabilities, I can imagine his publicist saying. He’s laughing at the way Hollywood portrays them.

But for the estimated 14.3 million Americans with cognitive disabilities and their families, such arguments may be problematic. These people share a history of segregation and exclusion, and report that what many call the “R-word” reinforces negative social attitudes just as surely as racial, ethnic and sexually oriented slurs do. ...

“What we are seeing already is a cause of great concern,” [said Peter V. Berns, executive director of the disability activist org The Arc of the United States]. “People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have had a lot of pejorative labels assigned to them over the years. I’d like to think that we as a society are getting past that, but we are seeing one after the other examples that this is not the case.”

Indeed, Stiller's joke is on Hollywood and the likes of Hanks, Hoffman, Penn and others — not to mention the punchlines implicit in an industry whose urge to outdo itself seems directly inverse to its ability to moderate taste. That's all Tropic Thunder is in the end, and really, if it didn't go "full retard" the same way it goes "full megalomania" (with Tom Cruise) or "full junkie" (with Jack Black), it would be an even more protest-worthy clusterfuck of pulled punches and missed opportunities. We'd hate it, and those 14.3 million Americans (and their families) would still face much worse every few years come Oscar season. They still may, of course, but we have faith that once the "full retard" is out of the bottle, it's gone for good. Let the healing begin.

• 'Once upon a time … There was a retard’ [Patricia E. Bauer via NYT]

Produced for an estimated $90 million, Tropic also has been supported by $30 million or more in advertising, a media campaign roughly comparable to other R-rated comedies. Meantime, promo appearances by its ensemble cast have included the three amigos showing up in person on American Idol, the MTV Movie Awards, by video at Comic-Con and at Cinema Expo. ...

All the humor-laced promos, combined with sustained tubthumping by publicists, have lent the air of an event film that's out of proportion to any reasonable earnings prospects.

Superbad, an R-rated comedy released last Aug. 17, opened to $33.1 million and fetched $121.5 million domestically. The Apatow-produced comedy bowed a week after action comedy Rush Hour 3 debuted with $49.1 million.

In this case, Tropic opens a week after Pineapple Express, another gleefully naughty R-rated comedy from Team Apatow. So we've got one stoner flick, one Hollywood satire, both essentially unpromotable by conventional prime-time standards. What could the difference between that and a steaming Ratner mean for Paramount/DreamWorks? Likely nothing on opening weekend, when Tropic could ride to $45 million on Cruise and Downey buzz. After that, though? Watch out for a gruesome bout of box-office cannibalism, interrupted every few minutes by innocent bystanders requesting two more tickets for The Dark Knight. The horror, indeed.

• August's hot topic is 'Tropic Thunder' [THR]

As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. ...

SAG announced Tuesday it had added high-profile supporters including Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen. It's also amped up its PR campaign via print ads.

The SAG-AFTRA brawling also raises the key question of clout. SAG has blasted the notion of the AFTRA deal serving as a template, because AFTRA's last primetime contract generated $40 million for members while SAG's last three-year feature-primetime pact generated $4 billion over the same period. Observers say the argument makes little sense, because SAG has so many more members working in the primetime and film arena.

Elsewhere in the paper, the AMPTP gets the backhanded benefit of the doubt: "Studios could stop haggling over pennies, but that's sort of like telling an insurance company to quit low-balling you. That's just what they do — relying on any sane person to give up first." Which suggests to us there's only one solution — a fun, unscripted, winner-take-all slugfest that would conveniently circumvent any potential work stoppage following AFTRA's ratification vote next month: Ladies and gentlemen, let's play the Feud!

• SAG, AFTRA in Spin Cycle [Variety]
• SAG Misses its 'Norma Rae' Moment [Variety]

Ben Stiller and Reese Witherspoon will star in an untitled Cameron Crowe romantic comedy adventure at Columbia Pictures.

Columbia was the winning bidder, beating out four rival studios, in landing the fully developed project, which is being produced by Scott Rudin. Crowe, who wrote the screenplay, is also producing.

Studio is keeping the logline of the contemporary-set project under wraps.

Whatever this movie is about, the very fact that it romantically pairs two of the most tightly-coiled, type-A-list stars in Hollywood should guarantee at the very least some choice tantrum scenes, followed by an inevitable pouty break-up montage set to the The Smithereens' "Since You Went Away."

• Stiller, Witherspoon fly with Crowe [Variety]

There were even some conquering summer box office heroes on hand, in the guise of Tropic Thunder stars Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, and Ben Stiller, digitally inserted into a vintage Gladys Knight performance as her backing Pips. (Downey wisely decided to leave his black face makeup kit at home.) The entire video is available for purchase on iTunes—the profits also going to some (non DeBargeian) charity—but we've included a short clip above. In it, Black and Downey abandon their Pip-marks, leaving Stiller to handle the complex hand-spins and toe-taps of the legendary backing trio's choreography on his own. What follows is not exactly clear: Shortly thereafter, Black tumbles back into the frame with his pants around his ankles; a contented Downey soon follows. Are we to infer that the pair just rode an express Midnight Man-Train to Georgia? We'll just assume we are.

• American Idol