As Goldstein describes in today's Big Picture:

Hollywood is full of older masters who've been mentors to younger acolytes. But Hughes, 58, is the only one who's disappeared without a trace; he quit directing in 1991, moved back to Chicago in 1995 and has basically stayed out of sight ever since. ...

No one who knows Hughes is eager to theorize about why he dropped out of sight. It's possible that the filmmaker, who gave studio executives headaches when he was riding high, simply grew tired of the messy business of making movies and chose to pursue a simpler life.

It's honorable work overall, but Goldstein's failure to procure straight answers leaves us feeling shortchanged. So in the spirit of reader service and our own unflagging curiosity, we're hereby issuing the John Hughes Q&A Challenge directly to Hughes himself. But this requires participation from the whole Defamer community, so listen up:

1) Commenters: We're opening the floodgates! Veteran and rookie commenters, submit your questions for John Hughes below. Keep 'em classy, although any inquiries about the post-graduation sex and dating lives of The Breakfast Club are admittedly fair game.

2) Tipsters, spies and industry moles: Help us help you. Get this challenge to John Hughes. We're hoping for a personal response to his favorite questions at Defamer by the end of this week.

Let the virtual interview (and the word-of mouth) begin!

• John Hughes' imprint remains [LAT]

1. Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! - $25.1 million
A second solid week atop the box office officially cements this all-CGI adaptation of the beloved children's verse as a bona fide blockbuster. Proving a perfectly successful Seuss adaptation can come from not veering too far from the source material, directors are now lining up to pitch their own faithful versions of works from his canon. First up: Oliver Stone's searing take on The Butter Battle Book, tweaked to better evoke the Iraq War with suicide-Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz-bombing Zook-insurgents.

2. Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns - $20.01 million
Oh, who really cares if it's anachronistically racist, sexist, and/or homophobic: Madea's back! And her legions of fans were eager to part with their disposable leisure-dollars just to catch the latest adventures of their favorite gat-toting drag-grandma.

3. Shutter - $10.7 million
Yet another horror thriller from the Far East about spooky digital photos that sneak up on you in the bathroom mirror de-Asianized for American consumption, the critically trounced U.S. version of the Thai original is notable only for starring Joshua Jackson, offering plenty of opportunities for smart-ass entertainment reporters to ask the, "Talk to Katie Holmes lately?" question at press junkets, just to see him get pissed off.

4. Drillbit Taylor - $10.2 million
Owen Wilson's return as a leading man was met with a lackluster response, as this Seth Rogen-co-written, Judd Apatow-produced comedy about—a kid bodyguard, or something?—lacked the menstrual blood heart of the creative team's last teen raunchcom foray.

5. 10,000 B.C. - $8.66 million
Run! CGI mammothsaurs! They'll kill us all!!!

• WEEKEND BOX OFFICE March 21-23, 2008 [Box Office Mojo]

[Drillbit] is based on a treatment Hughes wrote years ago for Paramount; he never turned it into a script. But two years ago, after Apatow's breakout hit The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the studio enticed him to develop Drillbit.

Hughes decided to not come aboard but has "story by" credit under his longtime pen name Edmond Dantes, protagonist of Alexander Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo. It's the first participation in a feature of any sort for Hughes since he received "story by" credit on 2002's Maid in Manhattan and 2003's Beethoven's Fifth.

Even Apatow has never met Hughes, a notoriously studio-hating brat with the uncanny talent to churn out screenplays faster than most writers can finish a cigarette (''I may get in a lot of shit for this, but the last 40 pages of Home Alone took eight hours to write,'' he memorably told EW in 1994). He has yet to emerge from hiding in Illinois or express any interest in reclaiming his spot as the industry's reigning comedy kingpin, which is fine by us; we love a guy who knows to quit while he's ahead lest such overextended wares as Drillbit Taylor or, worse yet, Apatow's forthcoming mistake Step Brothers have our eyes rolling until they cramp. We strongly urge Brett Ratner, an unwavering devotee of Experimental Rejuvenating Arts&trade including tranny fellatio and frozen-yogurt chauffer bonding, to give a similar reclusion a go.

• Hughes treats Apatow to laughs [Variety]

Unlike Paramount's extensive marketing effort for Drillbit, Fox Searchlight depends on publicity to boost most of its theatrical release campaigns. With little free media (and good but not gushing reviews) for The Darjeeling Limited, the film came and went quickly, grossing just $11.9 million domestically and slightly more overseas.

Disney chose a different strategy with December 2006's Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto, whose release came on the heels of the actor-filmmaker's notorious anti-Semitic arrest rant. ... Although Gibson and CNN's Anderson Cooper famously didn't quite hit it off, the filmmaker was able to talk about his movie more than might have been expected.

The authors also note the strength of Hugh Grant's rebound from solicitation charges in 1995, and the subsequent $70 million take for his film Nine Months. It all makes sense on paper, which is the only kind of sense Fox will need this Christmas when it approaches the release of the currently in-production Wilson/Jennifer Aniston comedy Marley & Me. That's a duo with a ton of baggage, but that's part of what the studio paid for. (That doesn't even include the bump in the insurance budget — a number we'd be interested in knowing, and not a wholly separate issue from whether or not the studio can publicize its film in the end.) We don't think it's going too far out on a limb to presume Wilson will be on the promotional hook for the the holidays, is it?

• Owen Wilson sits out 'Drillbit Taylor' promotion [LAT]