Q: What does America not want to see for Christmas?

A: Two men kissing.

Here's the poop: I have been doing a contract for a major Hollywood research group. The name will go unmentioned to protect the innocent, namely me. One of the benefits of the gig is that that I get to see a lot of numbers about movies--total gross, weekend gross, how many theatres showed a movie, what day of the week the movie was released on, etc...

Anyway, it turns out that a certain cinematic love story featuring two cowboys supposedly grossed 3 million dollars during its first week out. This might seem like a lot of money. But given that it took around fifteen million bucks to make, the success of this film does not bode well.

Now according to all reports, it's a good movie, worthy of the price of admission. But you'd think that the guys who distribute this film were out skiing in Aspen during the part of business school where they talk about optimal release time. Jeepers wanna release a hit at Christmas time? Release a movie with a talking lion, a movie about a family with 18 kids, a film about retribution in the Middle East, or a film about an oversized ape. America can live with blood, murder and talking or oversized animals. But a film with two guys rolling around in a sleeping bag during CHRISTMAS WEEK, what were these guys thinking about?

Now, if it were a story about two women rolling around in a sleeping bag.....

Well, it probably wouldn't do well either. But you can bet it'd clean up on DVD.