Advertising Age describes this as "every film maker's worst marketing nightmare." Amazingly, Moore says he doesn't mind. Ever the rebel, the Oscar winner disagrees with copyright laws and is just happy that his message is getting out. So how much will this "leak" hurt the movie when it enters theatrical releases on June 29? To answer that question, let's look at who's most interested in seeing the movie.

My industry tracking sources tell me that 49 percent of Males 25 Plus and 45 percent of Females 25 Plus are Aware of Sicko, compared to 24 percent of Males Under 25 and 21 percent of Females Under 25. Definite Interest (from data gathered three weeks prior to release) shows a similar age disparity (Males 25 Plus, 23 percent; and Females 25 Plus, 33 percent; versus Males Under 25, 16 percent; and Females Under 25, 18 percent).

In short, Sicko is Michael Moore's next movie, but it's not the next Fahrenheit 9/11. This film will not be a cultural phenomenon with the Under 25 set. Its appeal is with older Americans who are dealing with the healthcare system, either themselves or on behalf of their parents. Younger people just aren't worried about, or, for that matter, very interested in, healthcare-related issues.

In big cities like New York and L.A., we tend to overestimate how "wired" the rest of the country is. Here are some facts courtesy of a recent study by Digital Life America, a unit of Solutions Research Group: 1) only 18 percent of Americans have ever illegally downloaded a movie, and 2) a typical downloader is 29 years of age.

As a theater owner, I'm not a fan of piracy. It should be discouraged, policed and stopped, but the moviegoers who will be the core audience for Sicko are older Americans who are, at best, internet novices. This crowd has never illegally downloaded a movie and would have no idea how to go about doing it.

Pirated downloads of Sicko will not cause any severe damage to its box-office performance, and I would argue that they could even help. This illegal internet bootlegging may give Moore's new doc a higher profile with Under 30s and that buzz could possibly drive additional ticket sales.

WILL MIGHTY HEART BEAT STRONGLY FOR VANTAGE?
Last summer blockbuster season, Paramount Vantage released Al Gore's landmark doc An Inconvenient Truth, and it became a cultural phenomenon. They are, however, really rolling the dice with A Mighty Heart starring Angelina Jolie.

This docudrama about slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and his wife’s battle to save him, is directed by Michael Winterbottom, who has tackled tough subject before -- most notably the capture of the "Tipton Three" in last summer's The Road To Guantanamo. The reviews are coming in very strong with an 85 percent Fresh rating at RottenTomatoes.com (100 percent Fresh with critics deemed Cream of the Crop). But how serious do summer moviegoers want to get?

The Los Angeles Times explores this question of summer counter-programming and cites the success of both Gore's global warming doc and the 2005 summer drama Crash. These films prove two things. First, that there is room for a well-made serious film amid the tent-pole blockbusters, and, second, that just because a film comes out early in the year, it doesn't mean that it can't be part of the Oscar race (both An Inconvenient Truth and Crash won Academy Awards).

Inconvenient Truth opened at four locations on May 24, 2006, and, although it only finished its domestic run with $24.1 million, it was No. 1 in PTA in its first two weeks of release and No. 2 the following week (that's 14 PTA points for an Ultimate Moguls studio).

The most recent major summer counter-programming misfire was Cinderella Man. I don't know anyone who disliked this Ron Howard-directed boxing movie starring Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger and Paul Giamatti, but it debuted at No. 4 back in June 2005, and it managed only $61.6 million in its domestic run. It was also, aside from Giamatti, shut out of the 2005 Oscar race.

Paramount Vantage exec John Lesher says that A Mighty Heart isn't a 9/11 movie. It may be important that moviegoers don't perceive it that way, since 9/11-themed films like United 93 ($11.4 million opening, $31.4 million cume) and Reign Over Me ($7.4 million opening, $19.6 million cume) have performed disappointingly despite strong reviews. Even the big-budget Oliver Stone drama World Trade Center managed just $70.2 million.

A Mighty Heart will open at 1,350 locations on Friday, and industry tracking indicates it'll be facing an uphill box-office battle. I'm told that its Total Aware is just 39 percent and Definite Interest is only 21 percent. Its strongest quadrant is Women 25 Plus, with 57 percent Awareness, 30 percent Definite Interest and a 4 percent First Choice -- but that's not necessarily the crowd that shows up on opening weekend. It's early, but this picture feels like a $3 million-$5 million opening, and it'll have to build based on positive word of mouth.

LUKEWARM TO NEGATIVE REACTION FROM THE FEW TO HAVE SEEN EVENING
Last week I wrote that I didn't know anyone who had seen Evening (Focus), set for release June 29. Despite its "chick flick" status, I've been looking forward to seeing it. (Man does not live by Transformers alone.) The cast is spectacular, a Who's Who of the world's finest actresses, including Meryl Streep, Vanessa Redgrave, Toni Collette, Glenn Close, Natasha Richardson and Claire Danes.   (Also in the mix are Patrick Wilson, Hugh Dancy and Streep's real-life daughter Mamie Gummer.)

I still don’t personally know anyone who has seen the movie, but the first official review of Evening from a professional film critic has gone online. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gives it a lukewarm two-and-a-half stars (out of four). Meanwhile, David Sterritt, an East Coast-based film critic who's a contributing editor to culture blog Rokovoko, saw this Lajos Koltai-directed drama at the Newport International Film Festival, and calls it "a pleasantly dull picture."

A Web site called The Evil Beet, however, has posted a decidedly negative riff saying that the film is horrible: "It's so sappy that you could make hard cider from it. It's so boring that you'll search for something sharp while you're seeing it." (Along with the snide attack, there's a photo of Streep's daughter. The resemblance is uncanny.)

I'm rooting for Evening because we need more intelligent, adult-geared films during the summer, but, in the end, you can always tell when a distributor "has the goods," and I suspect that this movie is being deliberately shielded from too much early exposure.

REPORTS OF RATATOUILLE IN TROUBLE MAY BE EXAGGERATED
The arrival of a Pixar film is a major event. When Toy Story opened in 1995, a new benchmark was set for excellence in animation. State-of-the-art computer technology, smartly-written scripts and movies just as appealing to adults as kids are hallmarks of the Pixar name.

Five of the all-time 10 highest-grossing animated films are from Pixar, and Toy Story is No. 14, with A Bug's Life checking in at No. 19. No Pixar movie has generated less than $160 million domestic (A Bug's Life), and, on average, the studio's films have delivered $242 million domestic. Last year's Cars ($60.1 million opening, $244 million cume), however, was generally perceived as being a step down from the company's best work, and its newest film, Ratatouille, has inspired less than wild anticipation.

The good news is that Disney loves its movie. They've done press screenings all over the country and a series of screenings in conjunction with MySpace.com and others with Ain't It Cool News. Plus, in the ultimate act of faith, they held 834 sneak preview screenings this weekend in multiplexes across America.

Several reviews have popped up on Ain't It Cool News, and they are mostly positive. A poster known as The New Cruelty writes, "Ratatouille seems like another instant classic, and goes a long way toward alleviating my disappointment with the lackluster Cars." A profane poster going by "Gunpowder Throw-Up Poo Poo Eggs" offers a more mixed review, but he (or she, or ... it) does say, "It's a beautiful (expletive) flick. Ratatouille is all about the luminosity of light. Everything in this flick glows with its own inner light, light that catches the air and scatters all around in blooming halos of soft, fluffy incandescence. It's great (expletive) stuff." (This poster swears like a sailor and writes like a Rhodes Scholar.)

I've heard people griping about "another animated rat movie," and distribution execs express concern about the title ("Kids don’t eat French food"), but the tracking is better than what might be indicated on the surface. Let’s compare Ratatouille's industry tracking from June 10 (19 days prior to release) to the industry tracking for Happy Feet from Oct. 29, 2006 (19 days prior to release). Both films have Un-Aided Awareness of 2 percent, so no huge advance buzz. Ratatouille has a much higher Total Aware than Happy Feet did -- 72 percent vs. 50 percent -- but they have identical Definite Interest scores of 32 percent, and both have early First Choice number of 4 percent.

It's safe to say that Disney's paid media blitz will dwarf what Warner Bros. spent on Happy Feet, and those lovable singing penguins delivered a $41.5 million opening weekend. Director Brad Bird won't likely match the $70.4 million opening of his last Pixar movie, The Incredibles, but, with a great film and all of the marketing elbow grease that Disney can muster, there's no reason why Ratatouille can't open in the $55 million-$65 million range.