Why Hollywood’s Anti-War Films Are Bombing

Despite big name casts, two films from Hollywood’s current crop of anti-war flicks are box-office flops.

“In the Valley of Elah” has three Oscar winners in its cast line-up, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Additionally, the movie is directed by Paul Haggis, who also has a gold statue to his credit for the film “Crash.”

Even with all the star power “Elah” opened its first weekend with a paltry $1.5 mill.

Another anti-war film, “Rendition,” which features three more Academy Award winners, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin, took in an embarrassing $4.1 million in its opening weekend.

Hollywood decision makers have been deriving comfort from opinion polls, which show a majority of the public no longer supports the war in Iraq. But once again Hollywood is showing that it is out of touch.

Left leaners in Hollywood have a visceral hatred for the Bush administration and enormous hostility toward the war.

However, for the public, the underlying feelings are more those of war weariness, and there is little appetite for activism or anti-war related cinematic fare.

After being barraged with negative imagery on the news each day and inundated with discussions regarding the war from presidential candidates, political pundits and the like, the public is just not in the mood to seek out movies with such themes.

Next to bomb will likely be Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” and Robert Redford and Tom Cruise’s “Lions for Lambs.”

But also likely to happen in the near future, despite poor box-office performances, is a bunch of slaps on the back to each other in the form of Oscar nominations.