DRESSED IN a suffocating Rangers warmup jacket earlier on that scorching June day, Brolin kept running into an outfield wall, trying to make a heroic catch as part of the film's baseball-oriented fantasy framing device.

Oh boy. While this is neither the first nor certainly the last time that Stone has sprinkled a bit of his patented blend of cinematic crazy into one of his scripts, this framing device sounds like it might have been concocted during an acid flashback that ended with Stone huddled in a corner of a room watching video of Willie Mays' miracle catch on ESPN Classic. Bonus points to Stone for showing a dirty and bloody Bush (pictured above), but if the film ends with Josh Brolin making a leaping catch in centerfield (scored, of course, with John Fogerty's "Centerfield") interspersed with documentary footage of the statue of Saddam Hussein falling down in Baghdad, we'll be the ones leading the charge to petition a judge to toss Stone in Movie Jail and to throw away the key.

• Oliver Stone and 'W.,' a story of President Bush [LAT]

It may or may not still be moving forward, but I have it from the most reliable source possible — Perelman himself — that it will not be going forward with him at the helm. ... Perelman was attached, and I can say with as much certainty as one can possibly have about a situation like this that the decision to step down was on Perelman's side.

Some fans of Ayn Rand's book are already bemoaning the Atlas Curse, fearing their beloved 12-pound brick of American letters will never receive the marathon film version it deserves. We're a little more optimistic, however, envisioning its star's symbolic embrace of the directing, screenwriting and acting reins in tribute to the source novelist's self-made spirit. Between Brad Pitt as John Galt and crewing up with first assistant director Maddox and the rest of the brood, this idea may really be about as right-place-right-time as it gets.

• BREAKING: Vadim Perelman Shrugs off 'Atlas' [Cinematical via Hollywood Elsewhere]

Lionsgate is planning a limited 100 theater run of the Clive Barker adaptation on August 1st.

This move fulfills Lionsgate's contractual obligation with production entity Lakeshore to give it some sort of theatrical run. The plan is to subsequently release Meat Train quickly down the line (October?) for a DVD release.

Barker himself has released a statement encouraging his army of Barkerites—an easily excitable bunch instantly recognizable by the variety of sharp metal objects jutting out of their heads and their tendency to shout, "Blooood...yess....bloooood," wherever possible—to rise up: "This is exciting! I really think, this late in the day, that grassroots support for our movie could significantly improve our chances of reaching a much bigger audience theatrically. The picture is worth the effort, I believe." We'd caution that while the Lionsgate board is no stranger to intimidation—there was that infamous Rize strategy meeting in which David LaChapelle's clown-faced, krunking henchmen held the marketing department hostage until they promised to incorporate glitter-lettering on the posters—that sometimes, killing them with kindness is the best route in these matters. Taking a page from the TV playbook, perhaps sending in boxes and boxes of a significance-laden-item—say, in this case, cuts of meat (animal—not human!!)—might quickly make the studio reconsider, particularly after they run out of fridge room and the office starts smelling like week-old death. Just a thought.

• Barker Endorses Meat Train Fan Campaign [shocktillyoudrop.com]

Sobini Films has a first-look deal with Lionsgate, which is said to be unaware of the tiger story line.

We were as shocked as they were, for while it would be unrealistic of a mid-size studio like Lionsgate to keep tabs on every logline greenlit by its various producing partners, something about the cracked-out premise and they-can't-be-serious title of this particular project—which producers promise will do for wet, hungry tigers what Deep Blue Sea did for genetically modified smart-sharks—really should have raised some red flags of the "are these Sobini people playing with all 52?" variety down by Colorado Ave. HQ.

• Briana Evigan has 'Bright' spot [THR]

"We don't really know much about Mr. Bush beyond the controlled images we've been allowed to see on TV. This movie's taking a bold stab at looking behind that curtain," Stone said in a statement. "I'm real pleased that Lionsgate has the independence necessary to bring this provocative story to an American audience."

Distribution deal was made by Tom Ortenberg, Lionsgate president of theatrical films. , who said, "With W, (Stone) again demonstrates his creative vitality and genius for speaking to our times."

Hence the W rumor mill once again whirring into action, deploying hints and whispers from the Louisiana set that Stone would probably "just play the son-of-a-bitch Cheney [himself]." He has alleged this could be his first comedy, after all, and it couldn't hurt to try on one of his films' quintessentially terrible hairpieces and take one for the team in the interest of time. Our democracy evidently depends on it.

• Lionsgate books Oliver Stone's 'W' [Variety]

God, we hope not. While we're sure Ken Tucker will be chiming in any minute now with his Iron Man vs. Spirit early Oscar-race handicapping, we have no doubt that Lionsgate will keep this one fairly straightforward — perhaps an ironic marketing surge positioning Scareltt Johansson "for your consideration" as Sexiest Nurse, or maybe Gabriel Macht as Most Overmatched Leading Man. In any case, we salute a studio with the balls to move a release up a month while the rest of the world makes excuses for its delays. We've already suggested Disney should be so bold. Pussies.

• Christmas gets Frank Miller's 'Spirit' [Variety]

The good news: You can wait and watch Made of Honor on your iPod in about three months! The bad news: It'll cost you $14.99 to download it. (Or $9.99 three months after that.) And for digital media that costs exactly nothing to reproduce, package or distribute, we think that amounts to little more than information highway robbery. And just in time for the studios to stonewall SAG on new-media revenues!

Or maybe they're not quite connected — yet. Conceding it would get paid for new media when studios got paid, the WGA settled its strike in February by negotiating for roughly 2% of studios' online grosses each year through 2011. But in an earnings call yesterday, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes cited a 60%-70% profit margin during a VOD trial for Warner Bros. films on cable — more than twice the return on Time Warner DVD rentals. It's anyone's guess how that shakes out in terms of purchases, but with DVD sales last quarter at $3.5 billion, and with a fairly clear break between online and traditional media consumers, even a tenth of that revenue online would be enough for SAG president/time-bomb Alan Rosenberg to reinforce the hard line as the first round of negotiations come to a close Friday.

Moreover, as an observant tipster pointed out to us this morning, the markup on these downloads is pretty obscene, maybe even illegal. After piracy concerns were allayed in the last year, pricing was the only remaining sticking point for Apple — which wanted to keep purchases at $10 — and studios, which compromised at $15. Albums on iTunes cost an average of 40% less than their CD counterparts; but with online retailers and box stores pressuring DVD prices below $20, why should they get away with a difference as little as 15% in some markets — especially with no extra features or deluxe packaging? The courts have even addressed this before, but it usually applies to manufacturers complaining about suppliers, not the other way around. Someone! Get the FTC on the line!

• Purchase New Movies on iTunes [Apple]

In the end, the studios just wanted more for their films' pay-cable rights than Showtime was willing to pay. This much was somewhat old news; Viacom and Paramount haven't quite seen eye-to-eye with CBS boss Les Moonves and Showtime chief Matt Blank for some time. The vertical integration implied by their output deals — Showtime had rights to Paramount releases through the end of 2007 — was less a function of convenience than an increasingly forced pairing, especially as Showtime's original programming (Weeds, Dexter, The Tudors) took off over the last few years. Showtime's output deals with MGM and Lionsgate — booked through the end of this year — were just as fragile in the Redstone and Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman's volatile corporate culture.

Nikki Finke was first on the scene when news broke on Sunday:

Moonves wanted to drastically cut the price for Paramount pics, arguing that "the pay channel world isn't what it used to be" and the value of movies on pay TV has decreased while the importance of hot new scripted original series have increased. I'm told that, as the bargaining dragged on, the Paramount/Viacom camp, once optimistic that it would all work out, lost patience with Moonves' "hard line" and resented being lowballed. Now it looks like Les over-negotiated because Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate have found refuge thanks to Viacom. This new premium TV channel by Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate is that old Hollywood maxim at work: Don't get mad. Get even.

Well, yeah. One observer told Finke that Moonves is "royally screwed" — for starters, there are no studios left on the market for output deals. A defiant Blank, however, is standing tall this morning in Variety:

"We're not willing to sell our network down the river for product that's not as valuable as it used to be," he said. "We wish them well. ...

"We've been having unbelievable success with our original programming," Blank said. "Can you name one movie Showtime has aired in the last three years? But people sure do know The Tudors and Californication and Dexter and Weeds."

Take that spin for what you will, but we're of a mind with David Poland: Apart from drunken Sunday-afternoon pissing contests, what's really in this for the 'Mount? Showtime keeps the studio's library for a while still, leaving MGM and Lionsgate's libraries (along with upcoming, inconsistent Paramount product ranging from Iron Man to The Love Guru) the primary source of programming. (DreamWorks films are aligned separately with HBO.) As such, reports The New York Times, original programming may be in the cards when the new channel launches in late 2009. But why pay hundreds of millions to enter that fray when HBO and Showtime have spent years establishing the institutional upper hand?

Sometimes there is no explanation for this kind of stuff besides entertaining Emperor Redstone — and us. We could watch Brad Grey cannibalize Les Moonves all day. Nevertheless, somebody out there knows something the rest of us don't; maybe an original program is jumping ship? Moonves lost a poker bet with MGM chief Harry Sloan over the weekend? Your guesses are as good as ours.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Studios team on VOD venture [Variety]

Gregg Goldstein brings us the "plot" at The Hollywood Reporter:

The Lionsgate comedy centers on Madea (Perry), whose penchant for trouble-making lands her behind bars. She comes to the rescue of Candy (Pulliam), a fellow inmate preyed upon by a large woman named Big Sal. [Derek] Luke is on track to play Joshua, an attorney who has a past with Candy.

We imagine this will indeed be the Tyler Perry film that draws Bill Cosby from his post-network slumber for a painstakingly enunciated call to Pulliam, asking if she needs to borrow money and reminding his little girl that roles like these are for Lisa Bonet. Alas, the contracts are signed. We don't even want to know what kind of revenge Phylicia Rashad is plotting right now.

• Keshia Knight Pulliam in 'Madea' caper [THR]

While the pictures do evoke a sort of kinky, Halloween-meets-Abu Ghraib appeal if you stare at them long enough, the expressionless starlet's turn as garden-variety fetish model leaves us wanting more — and not "more" as in "We can't wait to see this," but rather, "Why isn't the mannequin in this mug shot turning us on?" Claiming copyright infringement, reps for Lionsgate instantly issued a cease-and-desist notice to yank the photos, to which the editors at Hollywood Newsroom replied: "They're newsworthy.... Fuck off." See? Now that's sexy.

• Leaked pic of sexy nurse Scarlett Johansson [Hollywood Newsroom]

When straight black comedians do drag, they aren't trying to make women look fabulous. They reach for the floral housecoats and the chartreuse polyester pantsuits. It's anyone's guess why the no-nonsense old ladies hold more appeal for them — perhaps grandmotherly aggression and take-no-prisoners masculine attitude have more in common than meets the eye. The clumsy fashion sense is certainly a match.

[B]logger Darryl James sees the phenomenon as part of an effort to neutralize black masculinity. For him and a lot of other straight black men, gender-bending comedians are "castrated clowns," whose emasculation makes them palatable to white people and man-hating black women alike. "The black man in drag is one of the new coons," he writes.

Yikes! The ensuing shitstorm of comments is as theoretical and civil as you'd might expect from the Salon readership, but it underscores a reality that Perry and his less prolific black-drag contemporaries Martin Lawrence, Eddie Murphy and SNL's Keenan Thompson are, at the end of the day, handsomely paid commodities capitalizing on the minstrel tradition. And you know what? We're OK with that!

Because it sells. To dismiss Perry and Lionsgate — who've worked together on five theatrical releases since 2005 — is to condescend even more egregiously than a man wearing a dress; it suggests their audience is too ignorant to know it doesn't want what it wants. Lionsgate is responsible for a lot of atrocities, none worse than the Hostel duo and Crash, but it also has a proven marketplace to supply. And Perry's films are a market unto themselves, earning a total gross of $200 million. In other words, cultural commentators like Hannaham aren't the only ones parsing the question, "What's so funny about a black man in a dress?" All of Hollywood — and an audience of millions — stands to profit from an answer.

• The funny thing about black men in dresses [Salon]

While it cannot be argued that Jessica Alba has appeared in a couple of box office successes since graduating from the small screen (namely, the Fantastic Four franchise), it can be argued that these few bright spots had little to nothing to do with Miss Alba's acting chops or on-screen charisma and everything to do with the existing popularity of the material in question. As for the fate of The Eye, well, it sure looks like Lionsgate is gonna have their hands full now that Hannah Montana is on the scene. Don't fret, Jessica — there's always prosethetics!

• Rotten Tomatoes

• My Rambo Review [YouTube via BWE]

None of the major characters from the movie, including the ones played by Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser and Sandra Bullock, are likely to make it to the series, said Beggs. "We'll use the style of storytelling from the movie," he said, "but there'll be new characters and new stories to get into the subjects of race and class, and the bigotry that's simmering under the skin of a city like Los Angeles."

Though the jettisoning of Crash's beloved character-types is certainly disappointing (surely, someone at least considered the possibility of making an offer to Kevin Dillon to reprise brother Matt's Oscar-nominated performance), we're sure viewers will embrace the fresh players Paul Haggis uses to expose the prejudice-riddled underbelly of Los Angeles on Starz, open-mindedly accepting the secretly racist firefighters, Hollywood agents, or middle-class housewives who find their lives improbably intertwined by the we're-all-just-trying-feel-something fender-bender that opens each episode.

• Starz braces for 'Crash' [Variety]
• Previously: Lionsgate Pulls WGA Into A Negotiation Room For A Spat-Ending Quickie [Defamer]

"Lionsgate is considered a leader in the industry and its signing an interim agreement again confirms that it is possible for writers to be compensated fairly and respectfully for their work and for companies to operate profitably," said WGA West prexy Patric M. Verrone and WGA East prexy Michael Winship.

After the jump: The fates of Mad Men and Weeds hang in the balance!

And the timing of the deal is particularly good for Lionsgate's TV biz; the indie's Showtime comedy "Weeds" would normally be gearing up for pre-production right about now, and its understood that the company had hoped to begin prepping the second season of its much-praised AMC drama "Mad Men" as early as last November.

Whether Lionsgate's arrangement will result in the same kind of first-studio-to-cave bounty piled upon United Artists, with a WGA-branded dumptruck beeping its way backwards and unloading a small mountain of cheap-to-produce, Jessica Alba-friendly screenplays at their front doors, the tides of this industry-eviscerating tidal wave at least appear to be inching backwards. If nothing else, audiences suffering distended remote-control thumbs from a season of TV malnourishment can feast on the sweet, life-giving properties of a freshly baked batch of Mary-Louise Parker's signature brownies, washed down with a replenishing glass of scotch from the decanter sitting on Jon Hamm's desk.

• Lionsgate signs as WGA talks go on [variety.com]

1. Saw IV - $32.11 million
For a third consecutive Halloween weekend, Lions Gate's strategy of supplying teenage ticket-buyers with a fresh installment of the Saw franchise at the precise moment when their hunger to be delivered an unimaginative, gore-drenched horror sequel is at its natural peak has paid off, bringing the studio yet another easy, late-October box office win.

While LG's inevitable success with this fourth chapter already has them promising that Saw V will hit theaters a year from now, we fear they're thinking way too small. They should be testing their devoted audience's seemingly insatiable appetite for their product by announcing that they'll simultaneously release three new sequels next Halloween, unveiling an early mock-up of the one-sheet depicting villain Jigsaw trying to force-feed a trio of his blood-splattered, edged torture implements into the gaping maw of a victim chained to a theater seat.

2. Dan in Real Life - $12.081 million
Not even Hollywood's Second Most Likable Star (first place, of course, belongs to disarmingly cherubic killer spy Matt Damon) stood a chance against Saw, although Disney did do decent business giving parents a place to kill a couple of hours while their kids were busy being further desensitized to graphic violence on the other side of the multiplex.

3. 30 Days of Night - $6.7 million
Credit Sony for being smart enough to get their vampire movie into theaters a week before Lions Gate's buzzsaw tore through theaters, allowing Josh Hartnett his fleeting moment at the top of the box office.

4. The Game Plan - $6.257 million

5. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? - $5.74 million
After seeing the ads for Will Smith's I Am Legend that seemed to appear during every commercial break this weekend, the management team for Hollywood's stealth superstar is actively developing Tyler Perry's Why Am I The Last Man on Earth?, a lighthearted, family-friendly look at how humanity's sole survivor comes to grips with discovering that his millions of his once incredibly loyal, church-going fans have been turned into homicidal zombies by a mysterious virus.

• Weekend Box Office October 26-28, 2007 [Box Office Mojo]

For starters, Mr. Solomon has ordered up what he calls the three "most outlandish" SuicideGirls available from the punk porn service, even if they're as frisky as the ones he is told once set a Portland, Ore., restaurant on fire. Some lucky fans will get to take the women as dates for party night, July 10, on two conditions: "People take the date at their own risk, and everybody on the Internet gets to watch."

Cage fighting too is likely. Mr. Solomon's planners are angling for Kimbo Slice, the bare-knuckle bruiser whose vicious backyard brawls are a Web favorite and who made his Mixed Martial Arts debut on Saturday.

But the warren of live torture rooms is a must. As Mr. Solomon envisions it, individuals in torture gear will wander through the West Hollywood club Privilege grabbing partygoers. All of which is a prelude to an undisclosed main event that, he warned last week over slices of pizza a few doors from his company's new offices on the Sunset Strip, is "probably not legal."

"The women's groups definitely will love it," Mr. Solomon hinted. "I call it my personal little tribute to them."

It seems that Solomon is finally abandoning his strenuously insincere (though hilarious!) claims that Captivity is actually an uplifting, Lifetime-worthy story of female empowerment; finished with this outrage-deflecting charade, he's now free to carry through on his vision for a semilegal NOW "tribute" dungeon for his party, in which leather-clad, ball-gagged strippers playing the part of protesting "women's groups" are forced to watch a loop of the movie's most shamelessly exploitative scenes while Solomon paddles them with picket signs.

• Already Under Fire, a Producer Is Going Further [NY Times]
• Previously: More 'Captivity' Ad Fun: Elisha Cuthbert Vs. The Grizzly Bears [Defamer]

Palen defends his work in two ways: in terms of context and execution. The poster of a naked Phillips holding her severed head in her hands, he says, "is completely inappropriate to be on a billboard on the street or even in the lobby of our offices." But he says it is suitable for theaters in foreign markets — where people are far less concerned about sexual images — and for hard-core horror fans.

"It's for the boys in the backpacks at these comic conventions, waiting in line for hours to get the posters signed," says Palen.

Palen insists his images are considerably different from the ones that appeared on billboards for "Captivity," whose graphic portrayal of the kidnapping and torture of a woman caused such a furor that they were quickly taken down earlier this year. (The movie, made by After Dark Films, is distributed by Lionsgate, but the company claims it never saw or approved the advertising materials.) Palen says those images were "vulgar" because of the way they were designed and photographed.

But what about his severed-head poster? Why isn't it vulgar too? "There's a way for Bijou to hold her head in her hand and do it elegantly instead of gratuitously," he says. "It's the flourish and technique brought to it that makes all the difference."

We find it hard to disagree; Palen's haunting images are so aesthetically superior to the heavy-handed Captivity snuff work that if he decided to silkscreen one of his creations onto a promotional condom rolled over the biggest building on the Sunset Strip, there would be no outrage about a crass stunt, only profound appreciation of the flourish and technique that went into his loving rendering of Eli Roth's bloated, veiny junk.

• 'Hostel' ads test the squirm factor [LAT]
• Previously: The Uncut Eli Roth [Defamer]

• NSFW: Eli Roth Has His Dirk Diggler Moment [Vulture]

· Thighmaster Records proudly announces the forthcoming greatest hits package from Andy Bernard, The Office's beloved rageoholic crooner.
· As fun as standing in a field and roasting in 100-degree weather sounded to us, we somehow never got around to buying tickets for Coachella. But here are a shitload of videos from the festival, and a link to LAist's exhaustive coverage.
· Haley Joel Osment gets behind the wheel again.
· A former American Idol contestant is in legal trouble. Must be Monday!
· Lionsgate will find out if a post-Virginia Tech America is ready for some fresh torture porn.

The suicide comedy "Wristcutters: A Love Story" will be released in August, with a marketing campaign featuring cardboard cutouts of characters jumping off a bridge, electrocuting and hanging themselves.

The signage will be placed on telephone poles and trees in major markets beginning next month.

We just hope they don't cause too many accidents," said Courtney Solomon, a partner in AfterDark Films, which acquired North American rights to rookie Croatian director Goran Dukic's dark romantic comedy and will release the film through indie distributor Lionsgate.

Since we secretly admire Solomon for delivering the line about Captivity's female-empowerment message with a straight enough face to get THR to print it, we'll supply him with his next no-fault explanation about how his upcoming, sure to be controversial ad campaign escaped into the wild: "I have no idea how those cardboard cut-outs of the guy hanging himself wound up in the trees outside the suicide prevention center. I specifically told the marketing people that while that would be a hilarious place to put them, it would be in poor taste and might draw unwanted attention to our movie. Besides, I thought that everyone was too busy throwing dummies wearing Wristcutters t-shirts into convertibles driving underneath that bridge over the 101 to have time to follow through on the tree thing."

• Suicide comedy "Wristcutters" leaps into theaters [Reuters/THR]

[Photo: Getty Images via THR Much clearer image via CineFile Video ]

• Curtain falls quickly on 'Captivity' ad campaign [THR]
• Previously: Annals Of Ill-Conceived Outdoor Movie Advertising: The 'Captivity' Billboards [Defamer]

Realizing that the millions of purchasers of the shopping-mall-quality artwork of Thomas "The Painter of Light" Kinkade who spend their weekend nights avoiding the multiplex in favor of staying home to stare contentedly at the quaint tableaux upon which they've just spent hundred of dollars represent an untapped market for their cinematic product, the visionary executives of Lionsgate have announced that they're adapting Kinkade's "The Christmas Cottage" painting into a feature to be released around the holidays, according to Variety.

While the project will reportedly be "partly biographical," Lionsgate expects that audience testing will result in the boring details of the painter's life being expunged from the film, with a final cut consisting of nothing more than a single, 90-minute-long shot of the snow-blanketed abode slightly enhanced by subtle CGI highlighting (no two showings will be exactly the same!), which will allow theatergoers to imagine their own satisfying, idealistic Christmas tale unfolding within the cottage's cozy confines. Should this bold experiment into nontraditional source material pay off as handsomely as expected, the studio plans to quickly adapt the work of other massively popular and accesible artists, starting with a big-screen treatment of Bob Ross' Happy Little Tree, Fluffy Little Cloud, which could hit theaters as early as March of 2008.

[Image: KinkadeCentral.com]

• Lionsgate latches to Kinkade [Variety]

Police in Tempe, Ariz., said 23-year-old Tiffany Sutton allegedly tricked her 43-year-old victim with an offer of kinky sex.

But, after tying him up, police said, she pulled out a knife and cut the man on the leg. She then told him she likes to drink blood and proceeded to drink from his leg, officials said.

Sutton allegedly also made several cuts to the victim's upper body.

The victim managed to break free from his restraints and run from the bedroom. The woman then chased him with a pickax, police said.

The subject matter's probably a little too dark for the CBS MOW treatment (and Lifetime would ruin it by framing her bloodlust as some kind of exotic eating disorder), but seems perfectly tailored for studios that churn out low-budget horror, like a Lionsgate or the Weinstein Co., which has recently proven its its willingness to push holiday-exploiting product. And since it's never too early to worry about casting, agents for affordable, crazy-friendly talent like Juliette Lewis and Christina Ricci (or anyone who's been memorably offed in a Final Destination movie, if those two are busy) might want to start working the phones in case someone preemptively options the story.

• Woman Allegedly Ties Up Valentine, Drinks His Blood [NBC5i.com via BoingBoing]

Our previous post about a beehive outside MTV's Santa Monica headquarters, in which we voiced our concerns that the aggravated honeymakers might be a divine symbol meant to foreshadow the impending fires and brimstone to soon come hailing down upon our quaint, seaside community, was read by a Defamer operative, who was then instantly reminded of another such ominous foretelling at almost the exact same location—a power outtage at Lionsgate HQ next door, to be precise, which occurred on Halloween day. The video above, made by a Lionsgate employee during an investigation into the cause of the blackout and distributed to the entire company, reveals the horrifying and gruesome truth behind what happened that day. Watch it if you dare, and merely await the coming of the final sign—a pack of albino coyotes wandering in from the North Hollywood hills to wreak havoc on the Universal backlot—which shall mark the official beginning of the End of Hollywood Days.

The most recent poster and the film's TV spots explicitly sell "The Descent" as "from the studio that brought you 'Saw' and 'Hostel,' " invoking the names of two previous horror successes from the film's distributor, Lionsgate. Whatever the films actually do or don't have in common, the ads have a distinct "if you like that, get a load of this" angle to them. [...]

The first poster put out by Lionsgate featured an image inspired by a painting by Salvador Dali, later enacted in a photograph by Philippe Halsman, in which naked women form into the shape of a skull. The image was also used as a component of the one-sheet for "The Silence of the Lambs," where the skull appeared on the back of a moth. [...]

"Lionsgate have totally handled the U.S. marketing," he said. "They know their stuff. I don't know what U.S. audiences are like, and it would be arrogant of me to presume to know that. They came up with the image and I recognized it from the 'Silence of the Lambs' poster. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It's a striking image, but I'm not sure what audiences are taking from it, what it says about the film. I don't know what Dali has got to do with 'The Descent,' but whatever works."

We think that they've ignored a pretty obvious marketing lesson we've all learned from a soon-to-be-released, cleverly overhyped little genre movie: Slap on a knowingly kitschy title, and sit back and watch as the crushing buzz mounts in the days before the premiere of Hot Chicks Die Disgusting, Painful Deaths.

• How Scary Is 'The Descent'? [LAT]

LIONS Gate is hiding the sleazy porn past of the director of its new horror flick "See No Evil," which opens today, without advance screenings, starring wrestler Kane . While the studio's Web site gushes about Gregory Dark's degrees from Stanford and NYU, his paintings owned by the Whitney, and his video work with Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg, there's not a single word about his 13 years of grinding out ultra-raunchy XXX fare like "Black Throat," "Dr. Penetration" and "White Bunbusters." "We didn't feel it had anything to do with this film," said a Lions Gate rep. Sure.

We think you should let audiences be the judge of that, dutiful Lionsgate PR professional! How else can they fully appreciate the subtle phallic and surgical symbolism with which Dark suffuses his killer's rusty meathook adventures, without being fully aware of the invasive-medical-procedure influences the director is harkening back to from his much earlier "Dr. Penetration" period?

• HISTORY EXCISED [NY Post]
• [See No Evil Official Site]

"The two most important things about our campaign were getting 'Crash' to be seen by everyone who needed to see it and then reminding them of how 'Crash' made them feel," said Tom Ortenberg, president of Lionsgate Theatrical Films.

The logic was to "win" the city, while counting on voters in the rest of the nation, mainly the New York contingent, to split their votes among all five nominees, which also included "Capote," "Good Night, and Good Luck" and "Munich" as well as "Brokeback."

Ortenberg said Lionsgate never intentionally ceded other parts of the country. But as a company with limited resources, he said, it had to focus on L.A.

Really, the idea was nothing short of brilliant, if not thoroughly original: Divide the country into White Guilt and Pink "States," and then mercilessly target those easily manipulated by remembering the shame Crash made them feel. Cynical? Maybe. But the results speak for themselves.

• How 'Crash' went bang [The Envelope]

Starbucks Corp. plans to move some employees to an office in the Los Angeles area, in yet another sign of the company's growing interest in selling entertainment along with its lattes and Frappuccinos.

Audrey Lincoff, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based coffee retailer, said the move would be designed to put some people who work in Starbucks' entertainment division in closer contact with music labels and movie studios.

Starbucks has had success selling CDs at its thousands of retail locations, and recently inked a deal with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. to help market the upcoming film "Akeelah and the Bee."

Starbucks should be careful not to step too boldly into the realm of the promotional tie-in, lest the sophisticated pleasures of a gingerspice latte be ruined with the discovery of a "Shrek 3" figurine surprise tumbling around the bottom of the cup. If they play it just right, however, the best we can hope for is an army of green-aproned barristas in oversized badges solicitously tempting us to "Ask me about [middlebrow, inoffensive, limited release arthouse title] for a free refill! (Brewed coffee only.)"

• Starbucks to Move Workers to L.A. Office [Forbes/AP]

Just before Oscar nominations closed, Lions Gate earmarked another $500,000. After "Crash" scored six Oscar nominations — best picture, best director, best original screenplay, best song, best editing and best supporting actor for Matt Dillon — yet another $1.5 million was budgeted.

On a conference call with analysts Friday, Chief Executive Jon Feltheimer called spending the extra $2 million a "prudent investment."

Here's why: Feltheimer estimates an Oscar win could provide a windfall of as much as $10 million, because Lions Gate would would sell more DVDs, and get more money when "Crash" is shown on TV.

Of course, the numbers are really only shocking if you consider them in isolation. (Or if you consider they're flushing it down Crash's toilet.) $2 million is hardly a fart in a financial hurricane when you realize that Harvey Weinstein probably kept that much in his petty cash drawer to pay off all the hookers he had to hire to push Shakespeare in Love to victory over Saving Private Ryan back in Miramax's good old days, then have them "disappear" after their mission of persuasion was completed.

• Oscar Economics 101 [The Envelope]
• Previously: Crash Screener Blast Births A Movement [Defamer]