Much has been made of the savage reception received by Howard's Dan Brown adaptation, and, given the presence of two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks and critical fave Ian McKellen, the filmmakers were probably expecting friendlier reviews. Still, the critical bloodbath did nothing to dissuade moviegoers as The Da Vinci Code generated $77 million in the United States and $224 million worldwide on its opening weekend alone.

Although Cannes is viewed as an important festival, it is decidedly unconventional and noncommercial. Some might say that its juries are mercurial at best and, at worst, completely out-of-touch with what moviegoers want to see. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not in competition at the festival, and it is definitely not in step with the more specialized films that generally capture acclaim and awards at Cannes.

What kind of movies play well at the festival? In the past 25 years, 27 films have been recognized with the Palme d'Or (there were two ties), and they combined to gross fewer than $400 million in the United State. It's also instructive to note that fully half of that gross is thanks to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Eighteen of those Palme d'Or winners went on to gross less than $5 million in the US, and only seven managed to score more than $10 million.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are very smart people. They have the most remarkable resumes in the history of film. They certainly know that there's a chance that new Indy will get beat up at this high profile venue. Can negative reviews from Cannes be a good thing? When these two guys have their names attached to a project, the expectations soar. Raiders of the Lost Ark is a movie that is held in almost holy reverence, and there is virtually no way of meeting the lofty expectations that filmgoers will have for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is set for release next Wednesday at midnight.

When I landed on The Drudge Report today and saw the headline "WILL INDY GET THE CANNES JEER?," I remembered what George Lucas told USA Today back in March:

"When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming and it's not. It's just a movie. Just like the other movies. You probably have fond memories of the other movies. But if you went back and looked at them, they might not hold up the same way your memory holds up. You're not going to get a lot of accolades doing a movie like this. All you can do is lose."

Possibly, the best way to lower expectations for IJ4 is to show it to the same elites who honored the bleak abortion drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days last year, and Ken Loach's portrait of early 20th-century Ireland, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, the year before that, and L'Enfant about a couple that sells their baby on the black market the year before that, and so on.

The Crystal Skull reviews coming out of France seem destined to be mixed, and I suspect there will be some rather negative ones. This is not a movie made for, or in need of, critical acceptance, but some of these less-than-spectacular notices will be splashed across websites as soon as Sunday. These stories will not hurt ticket sales for this truly critic-proof film, but Indy fans will naturally lower their expectations for the film.

As I have previously written, the industry tracking for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is into the stratosphere. The movie will generate at least $160 million for the Thursday-thru-Monday Memorial Day weekend and that number could easily reach $170 million or better. By the time Harrison Ford's bullwhip cracks Wednesday at midnight, fans will have read a lot of the reports from Cannes (and critics who see the film this weekend in New York and Los Angeles), and fans worldwide are certain to like the movie more than those critics. In fact, I suspect those fans will be pleasantly surprised.

U.S. BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE OF PALME D'OR WINNERS
1983: The Ballad of Narayama — Unreleased
1984: Paris, Texas — $2.1 million
1985: When Father Was Away on Business — $16,000
1986: The Mission — $17.2 million
1987: Under the Sun of Satan — $69,000
1988: Pelle the Conquerer — $2 million
1989: sex, lies and videotape — $24.7 million
1990: Wild at Heart — $14.5 million
1991: Barton Fink — $6.1 million
1992: The Best Intentions — $1.2 million
1993: [TIE] The Piano — $40.1 million, Farewell My Concubine — $5.2 million
1994: Pulp Fiction — $107.9 million
1995: Underground — $171,000
1996: Secrets and Lies — $13.4 million
1997: [TIE] The Eel — $418,000, Taste of Cherry — $312,000
1998: Eternity and a Day — $107,000
1999: Rosetta — $267,000
2000: Dancer in the Dark — $4.1 million
2001: The Son's Room — $1 million
2002: The Pianist — $32.5 million
2003: Elephant — $1.2 million
2004: Fahrenheit 9/11 — $119.2 million
2005: L'Enfant (The Child) — $652,000
2006: The Wind that Shakes the Barley — $1.8 million
2007: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days — $1.2 million