This is either the hardest or easiest night of the season if you are Syesha Mercado. It's hard because you have been dissed by the Zeitgeist. The David-versus-David finale is destiny, we have all been told. It is to be man against boy, comb-over against nervous giggle, "I found this great alternative arrangement" against "I sometimes sing this to my dog." On the other hand, it's easy, because Syesha is the contestant with nothing to lose, and as you know if you've watched a few movies about renegade cops, that makes her very, very dangerous.

Director Richard Kelly has a new movie called The Box coming later this year, and, unlike his last one (the insanely cast Southland Tales), the speculation this time isn't centered around how bat-shit crazy it will be, but on how long it will be before the film gets its own entry on the popular blog Stuff White People Like. Why? The Box's plot involves an unhappily married, frequently scarved couple (white actors Cameron Diaz and James Marsden), possibly on the verge of divorce, who have a small child and live in the suburbs. One day, as a gift, they receive a box with a button that, when pressed, will make them instantly wealthy, but, at the same time, will kill someone they don't know. It will likely premiere at a film festival of some kind.

Okay, obviously, so far, this is all pretty tenuous. But yesterday we learned that Arcade Fire (a.k.a. the World's Whitest Band) will be scoring the movie. How long before Stuff White People Like wakes up and takes notice? Frankly, we're surprised it hasn't happened already.

Stuff White People Like [Official site]
Richard's blog post on 'The Box' [Richard-Kelly.net]
Arcade Fire Scoring Donnie Darko Dude's New Movie [Pitchfork]

Bad news for Wachowski siblings of whichever gender they happen to be currently: This weekend's Speed Racer, the retina-searing CGI cartoon that New York's David Edelstein likens to "a nightmare in which you're trapped in an arcade with screens on all sides and no eyelids," is tracking poorly, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The film, which stars several bright colors (plus John Goodman), is only expected to make $25 million to $35 million and land in second place behind Iron Man.

To what can we attribute this disappointing pre-failure? Is it the fact that so much of the movie's target demo is currently institutionalized, shackled by straitjackets limiting their access to Fandango? Or that the simple act of watching the trailer on YouTube hypnotized everyone we know into buying a copy of Catcher in the Rye and climbing a water tower? Is the PG rating scaring off those who'd planned to see it under the influence of peyote? Good, because that'll make it a lot easier for us to run through the aisles raving in a made-up language when we see it on Imax on Friday night.

'Speed Racer' tracking unimpressively [HR]
No, Speed Racer, No [NYM]

Marvel's announcement yesterday about their two-picture Avengers project in 2011 (The Shirtless First Avenger: Captain America, followed by The Avengers) is sure to prompt plenty of nerd conjecture about which characters will be part of the team notable for taking on villains too mighty for a single superhero. Though the original sixties Avengers comic-book team included Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, we're hoping that Marvel will steer clear of DC's Justice League misstep of taking characters who already have movies of their own, recasting them on the cheap, and hoping to get a movie out of it. Why not take this opportunity to let some new heroes get in on the action?

The Avengers have always been known for having a large, revolving cast of characters, and with incarnations that have included the New Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, and the West Coast Avengers, Marvel can take their pick of costumed crime fighters — many of whom, in direct opposition to recent superhero-movie trends, are kick-ass women. So how about these Avengers, Marvel?

If there's one thing American Idol has absolutely nothing to do with, it's rock and roll. But that's not stopping the show from adopting the official list of "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" as tonight's theme. The good news is that, with four contestants left and each singing twice, there is an 8 in 500 chance that someone will perform "Mama Said Knock You Out." Come on, contestants! Do it for America!

Which songs will the contestants pick? Our best guesses are after the jump.

As expected, Iron Man is a critical hit, scoring an 80 on Metacritic and a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the best-reviewed film of 2008 so far. But is acclaim enough to interest the reported six million people in the film's target demo who purchased copies of Grand Theft Auto IV this week, most of whom have been sequestered in their homes since the game's release on Tuesday? Will they actually go see it, a task requiring one to stand up, put on pants (in many states), and travel to a movie theater? Paramount is optimistic, with conservative estimates predicting Iron Man's three day box office to be $75 to $85 million (and crazy estimates putting it at more than $100 million!).

Still, Iron Man's overall domestic gross could struggle to break $200, Nikki Finke says, since it's tracking poorly with women (too bad, we say — we already bought our girlfriend a ticket!), even as GTA IV grosses $50 million in a day, drives sales of Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s, and pretty much singlehandedly keeps our economy afloat and Americans from eating their own shoes for cheap sustenance. Check back on Monday to find out if Paramount executives are celebrating in the streets or building metallic, flight-capable exoskeletons to fly away from their creditors.

Iron Man is the Best-Reviewed Movie of 2008! [Rotten Tomatoes]
Wkd Prediction: 'Iron Man' A Strongman [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
'Iron Man': It's Still Weak With Women... [Deadline Hollywood Daily]
Box Office Tracking: Iron Man targets $102M by Monday Morning [/Film]

Once you’ve wiped the fury spittle from your television after watching the New England Patriots win another Super Bowl next February, you’ll be treated to NBC’s spin-off of The Office called … well, they don’t know what it’s called yet. They also don’t know who will be in it, where it will take place, who will write it, or whether or not it will feature any current cast members. All we do know is that it will take place in an office, and that it will air after the Super Bowl. That might seem like quite the risk for NBC, offering up its primo time slot — it paid $600 million for its NFL rights, the centerpiece of which is the Super Bowl — to a show that so far isn’t even a twinkle in Greg Daniels’ eye. If it’s going to be an actual spin-off, though, it’s going to have to feature a current cast member or two. But which one? After some thought, we're eliminating hangdog HR rep Toby, who (spoiler!) is being replaced in the season finale by The Wire's Amy Ryan. (We wouldn't put it past the producers, though, to reinstate Toby by finale's end and leave Ryan as the centerpiece of the spin-off.) Toby aside, we're setting some odds, after the jump.

When reviews of Iron Man started hitting the internet, fans anxious to see some awesome cameos were dealt a major bummer. Hilary Swank? Missing. Ghostface Killah? On the cutting room floor. But the worst news of all was that the highly anticipated appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as eye-patch-sporting Nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., was nowhere to be found. In the past week, fans have had to console themselves with director Jon Favreau's dodgy hints that Nick Fury just might appear in the DVD version of the film.

That was, until Comic Book Resources posted a column on the Iron Man premiere in London with a tantalizing note about a different cut of the film for theatrical release that does contain the Jackson cameo:

As everyone knows, the true measure of success for any entertainment product is not first-week sales or degree of critical acclaim, but the number of people who are knifed in line while waiting to pay money for it. By this metric, Grand Theft Auto IV is already well on its way to blockbuster status, as stories flood in about shattered jaws and pepper sprayings occurring in queues for the video game. Discouragingly, yesterday's account of a London fan being stabbed for a copy is being disputed (sources now claim the victim was stabbed for boring reasons unrelated to digital entertainment), but with excitement still running high, and supply reportedly dwindling, we think it's quite unlikely we'll make it to the weekend without at least one GTA IV–related stabbing.

Good God, man! The AP breaks big news today in this week’s Iron Man vs. Grand Theft Auto War for Pop-Cultural Dominance, reporting that one analyst expects GTA to sell 9 million copies in its first week of release — which means it would gross about $450 million in that time, which means it would have made more money in one week than any other entertainment product, ever. (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End grossed $404 million in its first six days of release.) Put in video-game-specific but still staggering terms, a week from now GTA will already have outsold more units total than Halo 3. Still unstaggered? Thirty-five percent of all Xbox and PlayStation 3 owners will have purchased the game by next week. Basically, it looks like America now faces three major threats to its global economic hegemony in the 21st century: China, India, and Rockstar Games.