Spider-Man 4 is down for the count?

Nikki Finke and Mike Fleming have some very, very bad news for Tobey Maguire fans.

Running Wild at the megaplexes

News flash from Miss Nikki Finke: Where the Wild Things Are may be heading toward a $35-million opening weekend gross. Cowabunga.

Weekend b.o. report: $15 million for 30 Days

From Fantasy Moguls: More good news for Tyler Perry and George Clooney. From Nikki Finke: Vampires feast, New Line flops -- and The Comebacks lives down to my worst expectations.

Odd couple, big b.o.

Nikki Finke pronounces Chuck and Larry the weekend's winner.

Rat here, rat now

According to Nikki Finke: The rat is grabbing a huge hunk of b.o. cheddar.

Early weekend b.o. report

From Nikki Finke: Looks like Evan isn't so mighty after all.

'Four' is the new No. 1

Nikki Finke: Never underestimate the appeal of a comic-book movie.

A big b.o. hit a-birthing?

According to Nikki Finke, early reports indicate Knocked Up might gross as much as $30 million during its opening weekend.

And it's all because of my review, right?

Great big green moneymaking machine

Nikki Finke: Looks like it'll be yet another opening weekend for the record books.

Biggest. Opening. Ever.

According to Nikki Finke, Spider-Man 3 already has made more money than you can shake a stick at... plus the stick.

A three-peat for 'Disturbia'

From Nikki Finke: It's another downbeat weekend at the box-office.

Weekend b.o. report: Oh, Shia!

Nikki Finke: "It's official: Shia LaBeouf, the 20-year-old handpicked by Steven Spielberg to co-star in Indiana Jones 4 can open a movie. He helped DreamWorks/Paramount's teen thriller Disturbia open No. 1 this weekend with $23 million on 2,925 screens."

Early weekend b.o. report

From Nikki Finke: Will Ferrell's ice-capades score big time.

Turtle power!

Like, cowabunga! Nikki Finke reports that the heroes on the half-shell are kicking butt at the box-office this weekend. Big surprise, right?

'300' still No. 1

According to Nikki Finke, Sandra Bullock is scoring with some shrewdly timed counter-programming, but Chris Rock is finding that something got lost in the translation during production of his Americanized remake of (no kidding) Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon.

'300' scores millions, but you might prefer to spend time with 'The Host'

I can't truthfully say I was terribly disappointed when I had to blow off a preview screening of 300 earlier this week while preparing for my journey to Austin for SXSW. Truth to tell, the trailers struck me as promising... Well, let's just say that A.O. Scott confirmed my darkest suspicions (and made me laugh out loud in the bargain) when he wrote yesterday in the New York Times that the CGI-suffused flick is "a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s." (Not that there's anything wrong with that, you understand -- but it's not exactly high on my list of priorities.) On the other hand, judging from Nikki Finke's box-office report, millions of other moviegoers were appreciably more impressed.

Even so: If you can't get into any of the sold-out screenings of 300 this weekend, and you're lucky enough enough to be living in a city where The Host (pictured above) has opened in limited release, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you check out that Korean-produced import, which I've been raving about ever since I caught it last fall at the Denver Film Festival. Indeed, you'd be doing yourself a favor even if you have no intention of ever seeing what Nikki Finke has dubbed Gladiator Lite. As I have written elsewhere, Bong Joon-ho's audacious and exhilarating crowd-pleaser is a startlingly poignant family drama that also happens to be a tremendously exciting, smartly subversive and often explosively funny horror flick. To put it simply and gratefully, The Host is the damnedest thing you're likely to see all year.

Weekend b.o. story: Ride, baby, ride

Nikki Finke: Wild Hogs replaces Ghost Rider as No. 1. Maybe Christina Ricci should have ridden a motorcycle instead of Justin Timberlake in Black Snake Moan?

Countdown to Oscarcast, Part 1

According to the Associated Press, the Best Picture race is still very seriously wide open. And Nikki Finke has some so-called "spoilers" for those planning to watch the Oscarcast Sunday night. (I sincerely hope she's wrong about No. 4.)

You can call them Al

Nikki Finke links to two pertinent pieces about politics: A fictional Hollywood agent's hilarious "open letter" to Al Gore regarding the latter's post-Oscar career, and a serious announcement by satirist-turned-candidate Al Franken.

Gore for President? Fat chance!

From Nikki Finke: Don't expect Al Gore to announce the start of another Presidential campaign at the Oscars, even if An Inconvenient Truth brings home the gold. Money quote: "As one news report said, 'Gore's weight, which has ballooned since he left office, is widely seen as a barometer of his ambitions, and the Clinton, Obama and Edwards campaigns have been studying his girth closely.'"

As Jeffrey Wells notes, this ties in with a theory about Gore's fighting trim offered last November by Mick La Salle. Does the mean that -- gasp! -- density is destiny?