Then, after producing Ferrell's misguided Kicking & Screaming in May of 2005 ($20.1 million opening, $52.8 million cume), Apatow really hit his stride producing, writing and directing August 2005's The 40-Year-Old-Virgin ($21.4 million opening, $109.4 million cume), producing last August's Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby ($47 million opening, $148.2 million cume) and producing, writing and directing June's Knocked Up ($30.6 million opening, $148.8 million cume to-date). Now, he's produced Superbad (Sony), which is written by his Knocked Up star Seth Rogen.

Sony knows they've "got the goods" with this R-rated comedy. They've been doing word-of-mouth screenings from coast-to-coast, and virtually every print and online film journalist has seen it. It's being compared to classics like American Pie, American Graffiti, Revenge of the Nerds and Dazed & Confused, and it checks in with a sterling rating of 92 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and a very solid 82 from MetaCritic. Industry tracking says that Superbad is a sure thing with Males Under 25. The movie has a Total Aware of only 54 percent, but its Awareness with Males Under 25 is at 65 percent. Definite Interest is at 39 percent overall, but Interest with Males Under 25 is at 53 percent. To put that in perspective, Ghost Rider had 53 percent Definite Interest with Males Under 25 on its opening day, while Blades of Glory was released with a 51 percent score in the demo, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was at 50 percent.

There are two factors that will limit Superbad's upside. First, it will likely be only a two-quadrant film, at least on opening weekend. Definite Interest among Under 25 Females is at 41 percent (decent), but the raucous comedy is at only 24 percent with Males 25 Plus and 18 percent with Females 25 Plus. Also, the R rating will keep hordes of teens from seeing the movie (at least legitimately). As of this moment, it looks like the film should open in the $25 million-$30 million range, but my guess is that it will have very good "legs" in the weeks to come.

Warner Bros. will release The Invasion this weekend, and despite the presence of Oscar winner Nicole Kidman and James Bond star Daniel Craig, it has no real chance for success. This is the fourth movie version of Jack Finney's 1954 novel The Body Snatchers, and I can't help but think that, in a summer where the Autobots fought off an invasion of the planet by the Decepticons with spectacular results in Transformers ($300 million domestic), the pod-people paranoia of Invasion feels a bit "soft." Quick. How many live action Nicole Kidman movies have topped $100 million domestic? The answer is just one: Batman Forever, $184 million. Aside from Batman, she's never had a live action opening of more than $23 million. She had a small voice role in Happy Feet, but let's set that aside for now. Other than that, here are her last 10 films:

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006): $29,000 opening, $223,000 cume
Bewitched (2005): $20.1 million opening, $63.3 million cume
The Interpreter (2005): $22.8 million opening, $72.7 million cume
Birth (2004): $1.7 million opening, $5 million cume
The Stepford Wives (2004): $21.4 million opening, $59.4 million cume
Dogville (2004): $89,000 opening, $1.5 million cume
Cold Mountain (2003): $14.5 million opening, $95.6 million cume
The Human Stain (2003): $1 million opening, $5.3 million cume
The Hours (2002): $340,000 opening, $41.6 million cume
Birthday Girl (2002): $2.3 million opening, $5.1 million cume

Kidman is among the world's finest actresses, with films like To Die For, Moulin Rouge!, The Hours and Cold Mountain on her resume, but she's, by no means, a sure thing at the box office.

The Invasion, meanwhile, is also Daniel Craig's follow-up to the monstrous success of Casino Royale. This guy is a very serious actor, who was a student at Britain's National Youth Theatre at the age of 16 and later graduated from the prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama, whose alumni include Ewan McGregor, Alfred Molina, Orlando Bloom, David Thewlis and Joseph Fiennes. Craig parlayed interesting supporting roles in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road to Perdition and Sylvia into a star turn in Matthew Vaughn's 2004 gangster thriller Layer Cake. After a major role in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated Munich, he became the sixth man to play James Bond, and it's safe to say that he has a chance to be the best 007 since Sean Connery.

TOP 10 DANIEL CRAIG OPENINGS
1. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: $47.7 million opening [$131.1 million cume]
2. Casino Royale: $40.8 million opening [$167.4 million cume]
3. Road to Perdition: $22 million opening [$104.4 million cume]
4. Munich: $4.1 million opening [$47.4 million cume]
5. The Jacket: $2.7 million opening [$6.3 million cume]
6. I Dreamed of Africa: $2.4 million opening [$6.6 million cume]
7. Infamous: $453,000 [$1.1 million cume]
8. Layer Cake: $82,000 opening [$2.3 million cume]
9. The Mother: $62,000 [$1 million cume]
10. Sylvia: $59,000 [$1.3 million cume]

German director Oliver Hirschbiegel is at the helm of The Invasion, mostly (it's been widely gossiped that brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski and James McTeigue had a hand in reshaping a large portion of Hirschbiegel's work). His 2004 film Downfall was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and his 2001 movie The Experiment was a huge success on the festival circuit, but critics appear to feel that he has completely missed the mark here, despite his A-list leads. The Invasion has only a Rotten Tomatoes rating of just 13 percent Fresh and hit MetaCritic number is a decidedly pedestrian 45. The consensus is that the film is painfully conventional, with badly miscast stars.

The tracking bodes very poorly with a Total Aware of just 67 percent, Definite Interest at only 27 percent and a First Choice number of a meager 4 percent. I'm told that Warner Bros is buying lots of late-week TV advertising in a bid to avoid embarrassment, but my hunch is that it's too little too late. I'm looking for The Invasion to score something in the $9 million-$12 million range for the weekend.

The other wide release Friday is The Last Legion from MGM/Weinstein. This is a sword-and-sandal epic from Doug Lefler, who directed a couple of episodes of Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys. The picture stars Colin Firth (Bridget Jones's Diary), Oscar winner Ben Kingsley and Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai. It all adds up to a mess that hasn't been screened for critics, and I don't know any print, broadcast or online journalist who has seen it. That's a very bad sign. The tracking is ridiculously bad for The Last Legion. It has only 25 percent Un-Aided Awareness, 19 percent Definite Interest and its First Choice is only 2 percent. I can only assume that the Weinsteins are giving it a nominal domestic release, and they'll be pushing hard in overseas markets. Aishwarya Rai is probably the biggest star in the world that Americans have never heard of, and she sells tickets internationally. Domestically, however, I don't expect Legion to grab any more than $3 million-$6 million this weekend.

Here is my forecast for this weekend Aug. 17-19:

1. Superbad (Sony) — $27.5 million
2. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) — $22 million
3. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) — $19.3 million
4. The Invasion (Warner Bros.) — $11 million
5. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox) — $5.6 million
6. Stardust (Paramount) — $5.25 million
7. Hairspray (New Line) — $4.3 million
8. The Last Legion (MGM/Weinstein) — $3.75 million
9. Underdog (Buena Vista) — $3.5 million
10. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Universal) — $3.25 million