Hollywood Nervous About Upcoming Iraq Movies

Hollywood producers who insist on making antiwar Iraq movies are getting their heads handed to them by the moviegoers, or should I say movie-notgoers. The latest big budget antiwar/anti-America flick Lions for Lambs has done a dismal $7.9 million at the U.S. box office since it opened last Friday. That won't even pay for tom Cruise's Scientology guru.

It's done about $19 worldwide (which may be the audience the producers were really aiming at), but that's still less than the $22 million that Fred Clause has done in the U.S.

According to Politico, this has got the Hollywood heavies ready to hurl:

Tom Cruise and Robert Redford weren’t the only ones biting their fingernails after the Iraq war talkfest “Lions for Lambs” tanked last weekend at the box office.

Several other Iraq-themed movies, from the Sundance Film Festival favorite “Grace Is Gone” (starring John Cusack) to Brian DePalma’s highly controversial “Redacted,” are opening within the next few weeks.

Fellow thesps Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts have got to be more than a little nervous, too, since their own Middle East conflict pic, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” opens late next month.

That film, directed by Mike Nichols and penned by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin, is based on the true story of a freewheeling Texas congressman and his efforts to covertly arm Afghan mujahedeen during the early 1980s.

I think Charlie Wilson's War has a reasonable chance at success and I'd kind of like to see it. For one thing, it's not about Iraq. Secondly, it's about an American congressman doing something to help the good guys in Afghanistan win against the Russians. In other words, unlike most of the war movies out right now, America is not the bad guy. Plus, it has Tom Hanks in the lead and he's generally a lot less smarmy than Robert Redford or Tom Cruise.

The other upcoming movies like Redacted haven't got a prayer.