While it pains us to stoop to the animal-threatening tactics of National Lampoon, it seems that Hollywood is far more cavalier with the fates of its four-legged thespians. According to the LAT, one of filmdom's most enjoyable genres — that of the monkey movie — is being assailed by PETA activists, who are demanding that actor chimps be replaced by CG versions. They allege that the trained monkeys are being abused to solicit a performance — and based on this anecdote about "Clyde," the orangutan from Every Which Way But Loose, they may have a point:

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We took the better part of two days to process the NYT's recent recognition of Warner Bros. as the crown jewel at Time Warner, where Jeff Bewkes, Barry Meyer, Alan Horn and Co. are venerated at length for emphasizing "content" (i.e. their film and TV properties) ahead of "distribution" outlets like AOL, DVD and on-demand services. It's an oddly situational success story; in fact, it opens with WB chairman Meyer literally inhaling the incoming fax telling him The Dark Knight made $66 million on opening day, and namechecks Two and a Half Men among a handful of TV series that are finding lucrative traction internationally. There's also the HBO factor and the Turner channels' flourishing as well.

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Recover from a weekend so sweltering, you briefly entertained the idea of seeing Speed Racer just to take advantage of two hours' worth of Americana AC, with a glance at some refreshingly chilled box office numbers:
1. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $56.573 million
It was an easy win for the second chapter of the only major Hollywood franchise that, to our knowledge, is also a lightly encoded Christ-allegory prominently featuring a ferocious talking beaver. (We suppose a reasonable case could be made for the Basic Instinct series, but that debate is for another time. And yes, we just made a beaver joke. It's going to be that kind of Monday.) In next installment The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the heroic young protagonists will be firmly entrenched in their gawky pubescent phase, leading to an awkward facts-of-life talk delivered by a visibly uncomfortable Aslan regarding the pile of crusty underarmor garments he found stashed in their wardrobe. Narnia forever!

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Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your guide to what's new, noteworthy and potentially toxic in weekend moviegoing. Today we survey the victims of Prince Caspian's box-office menace (including a particular race-car driver still convalescing from last week's pile-up), pick our first-ever foreign-language Underdog and browse the DVD shelves for potential Sunday-morning-hangover alternatives. As always, our opinions are our own but they are also 100% accurate, so plan accordingly!

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As if a third-place opening wasn't bad enough for Speed Racer producer Joel Silver, Page Six today added a liberal dose of existential crisis to the mix when it reported Silver may have flopped for Warner Bros. for the last time. "For the past few months, he's been trying to get his deal extended, but the thinking at Warner is maybe just let his contract run out," its source says — but wait! Silver himself told Nikki Finke yesterday that he's sought no such extension! But his contract still isn't being renewed! We're so confused — help us, Joel!

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In a loooooong video interview with David Poland over at Movie City News, producer Joel Silver chats about the prismatic, pyrotechnic up and downs of his career — the latter of which the bomb Speed Racer likely entered in the time since the modulated mogul sat for this conversation. And while he eventually acknowledges still dreading opening weekends and the Saturday morning silence that follows his weaker openings, he wastes little time defending the Wachowskis' career-suffocating reclusion and his role as de facto mouthpiece: "It ends up being harder for me because I end up being the voice for them. I wish sometimes they'd speak for themselves because they're much smarter than I am, and they're much more articulate than I am. ... I just listen to them relate to everybody and I say, 'Here's what they think.' That's how it happens." No, Joel — we think you mean that's how it happened. Time for a change, big guy. [The Hot Blog]

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It seems as if our reconnaissance on Speed Racer—quickly shaping up to be one of the biggest turkeys in recent Hollywood history—proved correct: The film was indeed third at the box office this weekend, taking in $18.6 million, $1.6 million short of the bloated studio estimates released yesterday. (What Happens in Vegas actually $200k more than its $2 million estimate.) And there's more Racer roadkill:

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Chase away the Monday morning May-gloom blues with a glimpse at the box office numbers:

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How's this for irony? The same week Warner Bros. reestablished its mainstream priorities by dramatically cutting off Picturehouse and Warner Independent at the knees, the studio opened the summer with one of its biggest bombs in years: Speed Racer, the imperially promoted, poorly received $100 million Wachowskis film that opened this weekend to $20.2 million — if that. A Defamer operative inside Time Warner sent word Sunday that the studio's estimate could be overstating its actual gross by as much as $2.5 million, placing it in third place overall behind the relatively well-received What Happens in Vegas, which Fox is calling at $20 million but is likelier to cap out between $18 and $18.5 million. We'll know the actual numbers later today, but as explained after the jump, it couldn't get much more sobering for Warner Bros.

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We've already made our case for why the Wachowskis' overstuffed Gran Turismo-on-Salvia fever dream and Kutcher and Diaz's feature-length sexual-health instructional film will likely limp their way across the box office finish line this Monday. But that still leaves filmgoers with a taxing dilemma: Which of the two movies would they rather see less? Clocking in nearly neck-and-neck in their bottom-of-the-class Tomatometer scores, it's anyone's race. Perhaps mainstream film critics—and the pun-loving headline writers who really sell the bile—can help you decide:

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