* The smart and likable John Krasinski of “The Office” may be out of the running for the Captain America movie though his agent appears to be keeping busy. I take it some fan boys didn’t think he was sufficiently ultra-muscular or traditionally handsome or something enough for the role, but I find that a bit weird — especially considering that Steve Rogers starts out as an ordinary guy and it’s not Krasinski’s McLovin or something. He’d be a good choice and I hope they change their minds.  The other reputed candidates aren’t as well known to me, but the guy from the “Tron: Legacy” trailer certainly doesn’t strike me as anything too special based on what I saw there.

* It used to be that winning the best picture Oscar had major repercussions at the box office. At least for the so-far low-grossing “The Hurt Locker,” that might not be the case, though I’m sure it’s DVD sales will be a lot better than they would have been otherwise. The Iraq war drama appears to be caught in the crossfire between theater owners and studios over DVD releases.

* The show has taken its share of critical lumps, but Sunday’s Oscars did just fine in the ratings.

* Jim Emerson on the latest self-destructive move of Variety. Why do newspapers of all stripes seem to think that increasing prices and decreasing value is the way to salvation? I’d really like to know how that’s supposed to work.

* Howard Stern can be funny, but this item and accompanying clip, about his and cohost Robin Quivers’  nasty, idiotic reaction to “Precious” star Gabourey Sidibe’s career prospects reminds me of what made me dislike him rather strongly back in the day– it’s not just the nastiness, it’s the fact that he doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s talking about. Or is it the case that John Goodman, Chris Farley, John Candy, Victor Buono, Dom De Luise, Nick Frost, Jonathan Winters, Jonah Hill, and countless other, admittedly mostly male, actors who are in the fat-to-obese category have had “no” careers over the last several decades?

Not that overweight actors, especially including severely obese ones like Ms. Sidibe, shouldn’t try to lose weight if they want a larger selection of parts and a longer and healthier life, though it’s always vastly easier said than done. Still, it’s definitely not true that she will “never” work again if she stays at her present weight. She’s already got work on Showtime.

* In Hollywood, imitation is the sincerest form of success envy. And so, it’s possible that Warner Brothers may be looking at the huge first-week success of “Alice in Wonderland” and thinking about going to meet the Wizard. One thing is true — as wonderful as the MGM classic is, the weirdness of the very long series of books has barely been touched by the movies,

If anyone out there still remembers my pre-weekend box office post, I was slightly bemused by predictions that Tim Burton and Disney’s spin on the two short pre-surrealist Lewis Carroll novels we know sometimes refer to as “Alice in Wonderland” would make upwards of $75 million. I didn’t doubt it, but I did doubt that the infamously hard to adapt, and emotionally cool (in a good way) stories would have ongoing appeal with the public, even as rejiggered by screenwriter Linda Woolverton. I still wonder about that, but can only be impressed by an estimated $116.3 million weekend estimate being reported by this morning by Box Office Mojo and everyone else.

Just for comparison, “Avatar” debuted with a mere $77 million, though it’s likely the grosses that weekend were depressed somewhat by the huge snowstorm then barreling through the East coast. In any case, the film showed remarkable staying power because on the odd fact that people were actually moved by it as well as being wowed by the visuals.  Still, this is amazingly strong business. As pointed out on the first first of a new series of box office reports by Anne Thompson, the showing of “Alice” is also well north of $102.1 million earned by “Iron Man” on its spectacularly lucrative opening weekend a couple of years back. As for the “why” of it, I think Ms. Thompson put fairly succinctly:

[The massive opening weekend success of "Alice in Wonderland"] proves yet again why studio marketers keep chasing the perfect match: branded family title + proven visual master + global movie star=blockbuster.

I still have my doubts on this having the long-term appeal of an “Avatar,” but we’ll just have to see how it holds up. Also, the accuracy of the estimates could be a hair or two off, given that today is Oscar day and that could make for a much slower than usual Sunday evening. I can say one thing for sure, those hoping for a break from 3-D movies are going to have to hope for a lot longer now.

Moving on to the #2 slot, it’s a long, steep drop from over $106 million to $13.5 million, but “Brooklyn’s Finest” nevertheless proved to be a pleasant surprise for still-newbie studio Overture Films, which managed to beat the still fairly strong “Shutter Island.” People like movie cops.

****

Just a moment for a quick programming note: In a couple of hours or so, I’ll be experimenting with this crazy new online thing all the kids are doing, and will be live-blogging the 82nd Annual Academy Awards.  Get out out the martinis and, with a little help from the miracle of DVR, we’ll have some bloggy fun. I’m actually thinking about breaking my usual “no cocktails until blogging/writing is finished rule” tonight, so the typos may really be flying!

Jolly Carl Diorio is saying it could make $75 million or so. Indeed, there’s no particular reason to doubt that the combination of the name recognition of director Tim Burton, star Johnny Depp, and the enduring, if eternally semi-culty, appeal of Lewis Carroll’s subversive not-at-all-just-for-children literary classic will mean some degree of big dollars at the Oscar weekend box office.

At the same time, I wouldn’t expect “Alice in Wonderland” to haven gigantic lasting power. With a few notable exceptions, weak stories have been the otherwise brilliant Burton’s Achilles heel throughout his career. Moreover, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass have never really broken through in film versions in a huge way because of their chaotic, episodic structure. It took the advent of marijuana, LSD, and the Jefferson Airplane to make Disney’s “Alice” a theatrical hit in 1974, 23 years after it’s original release. 3-D is the closest thing our more abstemious age has.

Of course, the new film as written by Linda Woolverton is technically a sequel to original stories and attempts to lay a more coherent structure over Charles Dodgson’s chaotic classics but, judging from the reaction of our own David Medsker and critics overall, the results are mixed. Audiences will come for Burton’s visuals, Depp’s appeal, and the 3-D, but what will they stay for on the second weekend? Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter as dramatic queens won’t hurt, but still.

The fiscal prospect of the week’s other new major release, “Brooklyn’s Finest” seems considerably more modest, though with Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes and Ethan Hawke in the cast it has its share of big name stars. Reportedly filled to overflowing with cop-movie cliches, the R-rated film from director Antoine Fuqua of “Training Day” has left critics unimpressed and jovial Mr. DiOrio doesn’t expect it to break double-digit millions, noting it “tracks best in urban demos” — which I guess either means that African-American filmgoers are somewhat more kindly disposed towards it than, say, Armenian-American filmgoers, or that filmgoers in farming communities aren’t up for it.

Since I took a day off earlier in the week, I’ve got probably enough material for fifteen separate blog posts, but just one will have to do…

* Since about Wednesday (my day off) items about the upcoming Superman film being presided over by Christopher Nolan have been rolling out. First Latino Review broke the news in Spanglish that writer David Goyer, who has been involved with Nolan’s Batman franchise from the start, would be on board. Now IESB (via Bad Guy Wins) reports what it says are rumors that  the director of the Superman film will be Christopher’s writing partner brother, Jonah, making his directorial debut.

That seems reasonable enough especially given that Nolan’s going to be busy with the third instalment in his Batman franchise. I get a bit more skeptical about the idea that Nolan will be sticking around to direct the long-mulled Justice League movie which would presumably include the new Supes (whoever he may be; sorry Brandon Routh), the current Batman (just as long as no one gets into his eyeline), and Ryan Reynolds’ Green Lantern, but I suppose anything is possible.

* I could spend the next week trying to figure this one, but negative PR campaigns against Best Picture Oscar nominees have become de rigeur in recent years and the shrapnel is flying in more than one direction around “The Hurt Locker.” First there were stories from Pete Hammond and a typically voracious Nikki Finke about anti-”Avatar” e-mail blasts by producer Nicolas Chartier. Today there was a far more substantive front page news story in the Los Angeles Times on some disagreements among military people about the film’s putative claims to authenticity. The most serious allegation — which doesn’t appear to be anywhere close to being proven — charges that the crew drove a Humvee into a Jordanian village in order to film angry locals.

Though I think quite highly of Paul Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a frequent guest on Rachel Maddow’s old radio show, I think his criticism is way off-base and was surprised to see him on the anti-”Hurt Locker” side. I don’t think anything in the film indicates that the dangerous-seeking behavior of Jeremy Renner’s character is supposed to be typical, but simply one person’s reaction to an insane situation. Still, it’ s easy to understand why some might kind of forget the movie, though attempting to mirror reality to some degree, makes no claims to being anything other than fiction.

Steve Pond covers the push-back by reporter-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal.

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According to a poll reported on by Nikki Finke. Interestingly, all are from big name directors with pronounced visual styles, and the final one makes him the star of the movie. Chalk three up for the auteur theory.

…And not a whole lot of time to talk about it.

* Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” tested as the most memorable film commercial during last night’s hugely rated Superbowl and understandably so, it’s genuinely beautiful stuff. Past versions of the classic, however, have been somewhat hampered by the episodic — you might even say pre-Pythonesque — structure of Lewis Carrol/Charles Dodgson’s freewheeling children’s literary classic. (The first work of art to ever really blow my mind, I think.) The idea this time is to get around that problem by turning the film into something like a sequel to the original as concocted by writer Linda Woolverton. Storylines, or the lack thereof, have been Burton’s Achilles heel in the past, so this should be interesting.

* The late Michael Jackson’s doctor has been charged with involuntary manslaughter.

* We’ve had movies based on toys and board games, so why not a new movie based on this blog?

* In the seventies and eighties, horror films were often named after holidays. Now it’s ensemble romantic comedies, apparently.

* “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” meet “Mr. and Mrs. Jones.” (I guess “Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Episode 1″ didn’t do well in focus groups.)

* I’ve always loved Robert Wise’s great film of “The Andromeda Strain” and there are few movies I’ve detested more than Wolfgang Peterson’s “Outbreak.” (A virus is threatening all of humanity and I’m supposed to be distracted by an adorable monkey on loan from an overrated sitcom and helicopter chases???) I’m sure Steve Soderbergh’s “Contagion” will at least try to be closer to the Wise approach. Soderbergh may be uneven because he’s so unafraid to take huge chances, but when he pulls a movie together, few are better.

* Yet another item from Deadline|Hollywood’s ace, non-venomous reporter, reporter, Mike Fleming. Ami Canaan Mann, daughter of Michael Mann, is directing her first big feature (but not her first feature). It’s an intriguing sounding fact-inspired thriller about a series of unsolved Texas murders tied with the drug trade.

Okay, so the big show has been over for more than 24 hours and it’s time to come to some grand conclusions. The thing is the only grand conclusion I can offer you is one that isn’t news, and really hasn’t been for many years now: Comic-Con is less and less about comics as a medium — a medium that is too frequently confused with a genre — and more and more about a kind of obsession in the media business with appealing to a young males with tales of butt-kicking monoliths and moderately dressed babes who bend over a lot, and now to young females with tales of forbidden love with troubled vampires who are more a lot more James Dean than Bela Lugosi or Max Shreck — not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, in theory. (I’ve never seen/read “Twilight,” hence my blissful tolerance on that score.)

Of course, there are plenty of bright spots and I’m fond of reminding the world of “Sturgeon’s Law,” the dictum uttered by science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon that “90 percent of everything is crap.” In other words, don’t expect greatness most of the time from any genre, whether it’s superhero funnybooks or Elizabethan plays (though the ones that survive a few centuries tend to be dandy).

And, as someone who bemoans the lack of emphasis that the still nascent art form of comics gets at its own convention, I need to get serious myself and read a few more of them this year. (If you’re curious about comics as a medium and how they relate to other media, including film which grew up alongside it, one of the best books about media ever created is a comic book, “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud.) For this kid who grew up dreaming of the day his comic book favorites would finally become major motion pictures, the phrase “be careful what you wish for” is certainly valid.

Before we go, we do have a few lingering con and geek related news items I should probably mention…

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I’ll be writing a little bit more about the unwisely dropped direct-to-DVD festival hit, “Trick ‘r Treat,” after I return from the con. That particularly includes what I gleaned from a trio of round robin interview things with writer-director Michael Dougherty and co-stars Lauren Lee Smith (”CSI”) and Brian Cox, definitely one of the toppermost of the poppermost, acting wise. Including Mr. Cox, all very personable folks, which never hurts in show bidness.

My reaction to the film was muted by my own tiredness, but I do think there is something there. Dougherty, a co-writer on the last couple of Bryan Singer superhero projects, has an outstanding eye for creepy beauty and he certainly brings human values and humor to his horror. However, the muddy acoustics of the hall drowned out much of the dialogue for me, and the impossibility of obtaining coffee at the convention center  in the evening dulled out much of my brain. (Why, oh why, Mrs. Fields, have you abandoned me this year?) The audience reaction was, as far as I could tell, divided between wild enthusiasm and muted nitpicking. More to come.

And now, a few other more high-profile movie related con related matters live from my horrifyingly small shoe box hotel room. Also, I wonder how long I can hold out without ever setting foot in the dreaded Hall H.

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After a couple of days getting crap out of the way, packing, and the most crowded Amtrak train I’ve ever seen (though it’s still a highly civilized way to travel), I’m a bit out of it. Also, with the “Industry Lounge” not yet open, I’ve got no place to blog with access to a outlet, and my power is 55% and rapidly dwindling…so let me just say that — yeah, it’s a zoo here.

That also means that tonight, it’s just quick-ass short astericky stuff. And no pics either. Sorry.

* Via Anne Thompson @ AICN. 250 “very lucky” fans will get to see “Inglourious Basterds” here after all. And, as per Ms. Thompson, after “Spiderman 4,” Sam Raimi may do a movie version of the “World of Warcraft” game. If anyone can make the first good video game-derived movie, it would be Raimi.

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