Who would have thought...

...that after the blockbuster successes of In the Valley of Elah and Lions and Lambs that a film about the bravery of the American military how honor lies in deserting ones commitment to their country would fall flat?

I'm told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn't expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office. "It's not looking good," a studio source told me before the weekend. "No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It's a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that's unresolved yet. It's a shame because it's a good movie that's just ahead of its time."

Portraying soldiers as girlfriend-beating alcoholics who have become empty shells of human beings seems pretty old hat to me, not "ahead of its time". After all, that's basically been the storyline of every war movie since the Vietnam War began.