The only reason I'm sounding the alarm bells is that the Holiday Season Game you are all playing (Oct. 30 through Jan. 30) is quite condensed. The weekends are chock full of releases so finding a "game turner" that is not already owned this late in the season is incredibly difficult.  Also, and more so than at any point of the year, movie studios lock in their release dates and there are far fewer changes. This means that you're not going to find a film like Evan Almighty suddenly being pushed into a Christmas Day release (although it was moved from a Christmas release to June 2007). Certainly, there have been a few moves: Blood Diamond and Charlotte's Web moved up one week,  while Zodiac (now opening in March) got pushed out of the current game altogether ... with the less Mogul-rific The Hitcher taking its place. (Now I'm just making words up). But other than the addition to the game of little films like Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima (Dec. 20), or the David Lynch odyssey Inland Empire (Dec. 6) getting a release, you'll be hard-pressed to counterattack the raging success of Borat, which your former best friend swiped in the third round of your draft.

To be honest, not ALL hope is lost ... just most. For people in the Ultimate Moguls game, a radical move you might attempt is to dump any middling performers you may have -- i.e., Van Wilder 2 or Unaccompanied Minors -- and try to corral the PTA and review market. My guess is that films like the two mentioned above (Iwo Jima and Inland Empire) are available. So, too, might be Pan's Labyrinth, Curse of the Golden Flower, or Perfume. Any one of these might just be the Christmas PTA juggernaut you need to shoot to the top of the prestige categories.

Of course, you shouldn't throw the baby out with bath water. One e-mailer asked if they should drop Eragon and pick up a potential Prestige film like Pan's Labyrinth instead. The answer is an emphatic, "NO." While I am first at the top of the list of folks saying Eragon will bomb, Ultimate Mogulers can't completely abandon Box Office and Top 5 categories just to corner the prestige market. This is not Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice, and you are not Randolph or Mortimer Duke. You still need to finish respectably in all four categories, so dumping one for an iffy chance at a better finish in the others can be quite dangerous. Moreover, PTA is the most difficult category to predict. Pan’s Labyrinth may look like an indie darling. However, on its opening weekend (December 29), it will be facing off against several films vying for the PTA crown: The Children of Men, Perfume and Miss Potter. Pan could win, but in this game of Moguls, factors like number of screens play a huge part in determining the winner. Trust me, this is shaky ground on which to build your hopes.

Something you might do is engineering a trade. Could you pry away The Pursuit of Happyness -- which I think has $125 million coming to it -- in exchange for two strong films with less upside? Is there someone in your league who was upset you drafted Eragon and might be willing to trade The Good German to you (there's one release that has strong PTA written all over it)? You probably won't be able to acquire Charlotte's Web, but you may be able to do some maneuvering to maintain your standing in a couple of categories, while bolstering the others.

Lastly, there is something you can take from all of this. You've just begun to whet your appetite for Moguls and, very soon, you will find yourself gearing up to play a year-long game. With shifting release schedules and movies coming in and out of the schedule, there is myriad opportunity to wheel and deal. Most importantly, you must remember the lessons you have learned from this year's holiday box office season. Two big films, Happy Feet and Casino Royale were released the weekend before Thanksgiving. Both opened well, and VERY importantly, played great into the holiday weekend. While traditionally Nov. 3 has been a great release date, two family films cannibalized each other (Santa Clause 3 and Flushed Away) making room for the incredibly unique Borat. And, I have no doubt, there will be many more lessons from Holiday Season 2006/2007 that will help you as you all become experts in the wonderful game of Moguls.

Howard Roark laughed. He can be reached at howard@fantasymoguls.com.