I have been absolutely flooded with email over the past two weeks with Mogulers (yes, it is a proper noun) concerned about the performance of their slates, in particular those saddled with such underperformers as Flushed Away, Stranger Than Fiction and A Good Year. Even Deja Vu -- which had Disney Thanksgiving Blockbuster written all over it (at least it did to those of us who remember the abomination that National Treasure was ... and how it collected $173 million in total domestic box office) -- barely made $20 million over the 3-day period, and looks as if it will settle under the $75 million mark after all is said and done. Panic is starting to set in and while usually the response would be not to panic…let me be the first to tell you ... PANIC!

Ah…the vagaries of the release schedule. The all mighty tool that often dictates the success or failure of a movie. Studios pour over every weekend, plotting the specific date that gives their film the best chance to reach the widest audience.  It’s not science even if they treat it as such with graphs and charts and historical information.  When they finally settle on a date, it brings relief to the marketing department.  That is, until they ultimately decide to change the release…and thus destroy your Moguls slate in one fell swoop! 

So if you don’t own The Santa Clause 3, Flushed Away or Borat this weekend, there is nothing out there for you to make a last moment acquisition that will advance your slate.  For this reason, I will dispense with the usual Pick-Up Artist column that tells you what films might be available and helpful to your slate.  Instead, we will take a look at the Fantasy Moguls Celebrity/Experts League.

With the official start of Fantasy Moguls a mere two days away, most of you have probably had your draft and already might be panicking about your slate.  The best advice I can give you is to be patient as none of your films have bombed yet, so you don’t really know where you stand in relation to your competition. 

Just yesterday, the greatest minds in all of Internet-land gathered to discuss and participate in the coming revolution. While this group’s influence is felt far and wide--perhaps on the level with Herb Allen’s annual Sun Valley retreat (but with fewer private jets), they came together not to conjure E-vil, but to take part in something that could change the way the world looks at the entertainment business. As you might have guessed, we are speaking about the Fantasy Moguls Expert League Draft!

To answer your first question in reference to the title of this column, Yes, I am a fan of the entire Robert Downey, Jr. filmography. However, while many have told me that I have the face of a Botticelli and the body of a Degas, this title more specifically refers to the advice we will dispense in case your Fantasy Moguls studio slate is lacking in a particular category or two. This column will look at upcoming films that might be un-owned in your game and will appear on Wednesdays to try and help you make last minute add/drop decisions that will enable you to accrue the needed points to topple your opponents. For obvious reasons, this will be most helpful in the prestige categories (Review and PTA), as it is more than likely the films expected to perform well at the box office (and thus the Top 5 category), will already be on someone else's slate. Of course, if our data reveals that a particular movie is going un-played in a high percentage of leagues, we will hip you to that as well—and if we don't have that data readily available to us, we'll just make it up anyway.