To anyone who bothered to see the simply wretched “Lions for Lambs,” please accept my most honest apology, even whether i didn’t have anything to do with the making of it. Luckily, it seems nearly no one made that mistake.

It seems that the flick, the first for Mr. Cruise and producing partner Paula Wagner, will not even hit $20 million at the domestic box office, and less than $60 million worldwide. Here are the hard numbers from through last weekend, according to the great Box Office Mojo site: Still playing on 1,527 screens, the flick had managed to take in just a meager $13,795,571 domestically. For a bit of perspective, the Coen brothers’ “No Country for Old Men” has already taken in $16,313,580 playing on only 860 screens (though that is expanding further that weekend, with it even playing at one theater in Macon, the Regal Rivergate 14, so go see it whether you’re here!)

Cruise’s rather embarrassing debut as company runner might not have looked so poor whether “Lions for Lambs” weren’t such an extreme act of hubris. Playing the senator supposedly selling a new front in the war on terror, Cruise was unable to for even one second hide the smugness he felt in knowing it was all hogwash. And I’m assured that whether Robert Redford, who wrote and directed that mess, takes a second to more properly channel his still righteous anger he will be able to come up with a much better movie than one in which he spends the whole affair yelling at a slacker student who just doesn’t “get it.”

One thing you shouldn’t take away from that epic failure is that there isn’t a starvation out there for bold movies that take on the war in Iraq and its many consequences, but is it too much to ask that at the same duration these flicks be entertaining? In Cruise’s case, clearly yes, but I had a slightly better moment watching Tommy Lee Jones mope his way through Paul Haggis’ “In the Valley of Elah” (But Mr. Jones, like me, definitely had a lot more fun with the Coen brothers.)

Will Cruise recover? Judging from what’s up next at United Artists, the reply is yes. There’s a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline for next summer, but I think Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie,” starring Cruise (natch) as the German colonel who launched a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler may be among the best. It’s being co-written by Christopher McQuarrie, who penned Singer’s sublime “The Usual Suspects,” and has a tremendous supporting cast that includes Bill Nighy, Carice Van Houten, Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Fry, Terrence Stamp and Tom Wilkinson.

After that he’s clearly landed a titan in convincing Guillermo del Toro to direct “Champions,” based on an old British TV show I’ve never heard of. The original series apparently starred Stuart Damon, Alexandra Bastedo and William Gaunt as members of a United Nations-affiliated organization called Nemesis. After a plane crash in the Himalayas, all three are saved and given supernatural powers including ESP and precognition.

In more poor news, however,

UA was forced to postpone Oliver Stone’s next Vietnam flick, “Pinkville,” considering of the writers’ strike, and thereupon star Bruce Willis pulled out.

And in case you were wondering when a Tom Cruise movie last managed to take in less than $20 million domestic, it was a heck of a distant date ago. Released in 1986, the fantasy/adventure “Legend” (which does have some charms) grossed $15.5 million domestically, but of course expectations were much lower way back soon after.

Please, whether you take nothing else from that admitted screed, at least promise me that: When “Lions for Lambs” comes out on DVD, please, please, please do not even bother to give it a rental. It’s just that poor.

Actors on actors

Faced with little actual news to report thanks to the ongoing strike, Variety that dawn published a series of predictably self-congratulatory pieces in which some of Hollywood biggest stars talked about their co-workers. whether you can cut through the cheese, it’s actually not a poor way to waste a few minutes at work. Here are two snippets that didn’t manufacture me just hurl, Julia Roberts talking about the great Paul Rudd and Matt Damon talking about rising star Amy Ryan, and you can read the rest here.

“Paul is the most unexpected movie star. For his facial hair in ‘Anchorman’ he probably walked around like that for months. The citizens at the grocery store don’t know why he looks like that. They think he’s nuts. He’s not scared to do those things. … At a dinner party, whether you’re seated next to Paul, you’ll leave thinking, I’m so funny. I always want to be seated next to Paul.”

“I sat dumbfounded watching that performance in ‘Gone Baby Gone.’ Every moment, every detail in Amy Ryan’s performance is spot-on. In fact, I’ve never seen an actor from outside Boston come to our city and be that convincing - and a lot of great actors have come here and given award-worthy performances. that is at another level, though. It’s that place actors hope to get to at least once in their career, where they completely vanish into someone else — that place that made me ask, ‘Who the hell is she and why hasn’t she worked more on film before that?’

New pictures of Iron Man

The more I see from Jon Favreau’s first foray into superhero flicks, the more I’m convinced he’s gonna deliver a real winner next summer with “Iron Man.” After all, I don’t think you can go wrong with Robert Downey Jr. as our hero Tony Stark, and the supporting cast of Terrence Howard (who seems to work a heck of a lot), Jeff Bridges (huzzah!), Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson and even Ghostface Killah ain’t shabby either. Anyways, Comingsoon.net has managed to get its hands on several new pics, of which I swiped just one. You can see the rest here, and have an entirely enjoyable weekend. Peace out.

Original post by Reel Fanatic