I Know What You Did Last Summer, Again

Don’t believe in summer counterprogramming: The chances were nil that an adult-oriented downer movie like A Mighty Heart could do well (especially when sexy star Angelina Jolie dresses down and dons a horrible wig) when the alternatives at the megaplex are superrobots, superheroes and supersperm. Talk about idiocy. Release those small, important, politically themed films in the fall.

Don’t make chick flicks that even chicks won’t go to see: When I saw the ads for Evening and Georgia Rule and No Reservations and Lucky You, I gagged. Hey, I love a good romance, but don’t stretch credulity and cast a real-life glamour gal like Catherine Zeta-Jones as a working single mother with boyfriend problems.

Don’t make movies starring Lindsay Lohan: This summer provided proof that her act has worn thin. Moviegoers gave an F to Lindsay Lohan’s horror flick I Know Who Killed Me. And 70-year-old Jane Fonda beat the 20-year-old head-to-head at the box office while starring in the same movie, when exit polls showed 53 percent of the audience for Georgia Rule went to see Jane Fonda (even though she was channeling her father, Henry), and only 34 percent went to see Lindsay Lohan (whose price quote sank by half after this summer).

Don’t make commercial movies with Nicole Kidman: When John Cusack can open a horror film (1408), and Nicole can’t (The Invasion), this actress has officially become box-office poison. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Nicole should be paying film companies to hire her, not the other way around. I don’t care if she can act: She’s the female equivalent of Sean Penn. Let her finance her own films from now on.

Don’t think you can skate with a lousy trailer: Ads will always be the bedrock of a movie’s marketing campaign, and they’ve never been more important, because of all the competition and clutter. Rush Hour 3 and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry would have been stillborn had it not been for summer trailers funnier than the pics themselves. Stardust and Balls of Fury had terrible trailers and were stillborn at the box office.

Don’t forget that Judd Apatow is officially now a mogul: More bowing and scraping to him is therefore called for. And a bigger bonus than the $1 mil Universal forked over. I hear Amy Pascal is serious about having Sony buy him his own country.

Don’t expect the foreign box office to save Hollywood summers forever: Yeah, French and Russian TV sucks worse than NBC. But one of these days, and probably sooner rather than later, entertainment choices in Bolivia and Bahrain will become as myriad as those in the U.S. and those denizens will find better ways to amuse themselves than sitting through American crap like Daddy Day Camp.