Sinking Poseidon

To the surprise of very few, "Poseidon" went down hard this weekend. The disaster remake earned just $22.2 million its opening weekend, meaning prospects of reclaiming that $150 million budget in U.S. box office grosses are about as promising as the Los Angeles Lakers' odds of winning this year's NBA title.

If there's a trend in these first two "summer" box office weekends (the calendar season doesn't start until June 21) it's that no one's in the mood for big, dumb action movies. Duck and cover, "X-Men."

"The Da Vinci Code" should be able to put butts in seats, but those butts will be very sore, having to sit there for 2 1/2 hours while Tom Hanks makes with his solve-the-riddles and tear apart the Catholic church routine. The worry about "Code" is that no one's seen it yet. The studio has kept this one very close to the vest. It hasn't screened yet, hopefully because the money guys see no need to generate more publicity for a movie already drowning in the stuff, and not because the studio is embarrassed of the film.