They sent back a busy graph that showed a confluence of lines plotting summer hours, male bulge humor, and funny Mediterranean accents. Add to that a diversion-hungry populace still shellshocked from the time Gwyneth Paltrow and her redheaded Hell's Angels boyfriend literally ate their way through the country, and you have what could be considered the perfect summer movie storm.

• 'Hellboy 2,' 'Knight' lift Europe [Variety]

[John Woo's film] Red Cliff isn't the only would-be blockbuster beset by accidents and tragedy. Two stuntmen were burned while making the Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Visual effects technician Conway Wickliffe was killed while prepping the Batmobile for the upcoming The Dark Knight. According to a production source, Wickliffe and a colleague were videotaping the Batmobile as it spun around a racetrack to see if it was properly rigged to do stunts. Wickliffe was hanging out the window with the video recorder when the driver accidentally careened into a tree. The police investigated and found no wrongdoing.

To say nothing of poor James Bond's car trouble, including two unintentionally totaled autos and one injured stuntman on Quantum of Solace. But there's hope yet after the jump!

"In the last 10 years, and particularly in the last five years, CGI has kept the risk assessment down on most stunts," says Sony's president of physical production, Gary Martin. "We have alternatives. We have safe ways to plan the stunts and keep people out of harm's way."

Sony, like all studios, has a team of safety specialists who travel from set to set to monitor stunts and crew safety. Martin declines to speak specifically about any Sony film — such as Quantum of Solace — but he says the recent spate of accidents is mostly a reflection of the increased amount of films with stunts and spectacle.

Kind of like how our increased, sincere affection for Mexican culture has yielded the likes of Carlos Mencia and Beverly Hills Chihuahua — accidents literally do happen. And according to government figures cited by the Times, it's to the tune of 270 injured actors and 230 dinged-up stunt performers on film sets in 2006. But these are indeed the times we live in, and Defamer salutes each and all of the industry's brave stunt performers; may you never again know third-degree burns in the service of an Adam Sandler comedy.

• 'Red Cliff' and Bond: Safety first on set — or last? [LAT]

WHAT'S NEW: With the May tentpoles out of the way, Sony and DreamWorks Animation are set to spar in the first head-to-head weekend of the summer. Sadly, however, with such diverging demographics for You Don't Mess With the Zohan and Kung Fu Panda, we will not get the Kimbo Slice-esque ass-beating the box-office sadists in us were quietly praying for. Theaters are happy about it, though, with Adam Sandler's annual mediocrity orgy guaranteed its minimum $35 million and Panda — with its Black/Jolie firepower and well-above-average reviews — raking in the $50-$55 million from families who dodged Speed Racer a month ago and have three weeks before Pixar's Wall-E emerges. Far be it from us to be content with a draw, but this is a weekend when our blood lust may go unsatiated.

Also opening: the John C. Reilly/Seann William Scott workplace comedy The Promotion; Dario Argento's slipshod gore-stravaganza Mother of Tears; the Sundance '07 leftover The Go-Getter; the Genghis Khan epic Mongol; and Heather Graham's long-awaited foray into menopausal baby-making comedy, Miss Conception.

THE BIG LOSER: We made a critical math error last week, underestimating the take for The Strangers by, oh, 150% or so. That won't happen again this week, if only because as mentioned above, nothing new stands to tank. Even Sex and the City enjoyed a robust week since its initial windfall ($73 million through Wednesday) and shouldn't drop more than 50%. But that's OK! Next week, The Happening should implode more than spectacularly enough to make up for it.

THE UNDERDOG: Another fairly flimsy week here, but we did kind of like the When Did You Last See Your Father?, starring Colin Firth as an author reconciling the secrets, guilt and memory of his dying dad, played by Jim Broadbent. Despite a few narrative lapses (a frustrating Firth affair subplot dies at the intersection of chamber drama and bad editing) and director Anand Tucker's overbearing stylistic flourishes, newcomer Matthew Beard's coming-of-age awkwardness as young Firth dovetails nicely with the adult animus that follows. You could do worse.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's this week include the completely remastered, retooled and highly acclaimed Dirty Harry Collection; the less-highly acclaimed Will Ferrell basketball laffer Semi Pro; the much-less-highly acclaimed Jon Heder/Diane Keaton duel Mama's Boy; the Ian Curtis biopic Control; and the long-shelved, sadly underachieving The Onion Movie.

So who takes it? Bamboo or matzo, fur or mullet? Can SATC break $100 million before its sequel's screenplay is written (if it isn't already)? Tell us what's worth your time this weekend; are you retrofitting your bomb shelter for the next two weeks of releases? And can we join you?

He will receive the award for his "amazing contribution to Hollywood" and years of entertaining the network's young viewers, MTV announced Wednesday. ... "A 30-something water boy, a brokenhearted `80s wedding singer and a rejected hockey player-turned-pro golfer ... now that's an impressive resume," said Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks Music, Logo and Films Group, in a statement. Toffler was referring to Sandler's roles in The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer and Happy Gilmore.

Has it really been years? It feels so much... longer. Still, there's plenty to appreciate in the metaphor here — particularly Sandler's clean break from developmentally arrested Jew to hairdresser/lethal Israeli operative — and Defamer salutes the comic for this extraordinary milestone. We only wish Sony would have budgeted for such assiduous product placement when it released Punch-Drunk Love. Was it really Reign Over Me that finally got him over the top?

• Adam Sandler to be honored at MTV Movie Awards [The Envelope]

As we can see, Chirqui was (not so) innocently trying to garner some press for her upcoming Adam Sandler-as-Israeli hair guru movie You Don't Mess With The Zohan by posing in various soft-core poses like the standard "I See You But You Can't See My Tits!" and "My Boobs Don't Fit In This Jacket Mr. Manager!" But the porky Malibu vice were concerned for the safety of all neighborhood residents, and reportedly "came by just to make sure things remained tasteful." While they'd probably be more useful checking in on the taste levels inside Britney Spears' and Lindsay Lohan's various drug and sex-laden abodes in the area, we suppose we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and believe their story, rather than dwell in fear that discrete tit-watch cameras lie on every street corner, sounding the alarm whenever a starlet is seen exposing a potentially dangerous amount of flesh.

[Photo credits: men.style.com]

• COPS SWOOP IN ON TOPLESS 'ZOHAN' SIREN [AOL Movie News]