I don’t know why, but I get a lot of unsolicited promotional material sent to the GS address, everything from Richard Viguerie’s latest “Why X isn’t a real conservative” to news about upcoming videogames. But today is, I think, the first time I’ve gotten a press release about porn. It’s Digital Playground’s upcoming Pirates 2. I know what you’re thinking: A sequel in porn? Didn’t it used to be about the art?

Below is the image for the one-sheet:

Pretty wild, huh? Like they actually paid a graphic designer. But the real gold is in the email release. Some highlights for your reading pleasure:

July 23, 2008 — VAN NUYS, Calif. — The cover art for Digital Playground’s epic sequel “Pirates II: Stagnetti’s Revenge” is now available, as well as juicy facts concerning the budget, the special effects, and the raw, passionate sex. The original “Pirates” made history as the most expensive adult film ever produced, but it is left in the shadow of “Pirates II” and its 10 times larger budget. The extra cost can be partly attributed to the over 600 astounding special effects. . . .

Sasha Grey describes the special atmosphere that surrounded the production. She says, “There was always sexual energy on set. My sex scene with Evan Stone and BellaDonna was amazing! We all wanted to [have sex]; we were all horny. It was what pornography should be—flawless and unforgiving in every sense!” . . .

Digital Playground’s newest signed contract girl is Riley Steele and “Pirates II” contains her first filmed sex scene ever. Riley says, “What a fabulous film to start my career with. The original ‘Pirates’ was partly responsible for my decision to enter the industry. As if just being in the film wasn’t enough, what was supposed to be my first boy/girl scene turned out to be so much more.”

There’s so much great stuff here, but my favorite part is the way the press release demurely edits out the “We all wanted to [have sex].”

For those of you playing along at home, Dark Knight made $24.5M on Monday. That means it probably crossed the $200M threshold yesterday, on its fifth day of release. It could hit the $300M mark as early as Saturday.

Variety reports that Peter Berg, who recently helmed Hancock and directed the impressive The Kingdom, has agreed to take on Hercules: The Thracian Wars. No doubt, as Variety might put it, that the production values and perfs will be stellar across the board. Nevertheless, there will be enormous pressure for Berg to match the greatness of the original Hercules, which I was privileged to see in a movie theater in 1983. Somehow I doubt Berg will find anyone to match the depth of Lou Ferrigno.

First, a non-spoiler, semi-demurral from Santino, who says that I think Dark Knight is headed to Titanic territory in terms of box office. I don’t think Dark Knight has $600M in it; though I do think it has an excellent chance of $400M, a very good chance of $425M, and a fair chance at $450M and above.

I think I’ve made this observation before here, but to repeat: You cannot predict the biggest box office successes. A movie that does historic-level totals does so by having great legs and you only get that sort of repeat-viewership when the movie taps into, and becomes part of, the culture. And that’s something you just can’t predict.

If you’re a studio chief, you can basically manufacture a film with the goal of making, say, $80M, or $200M. But there is no way of manufacturing a cultural phenomenon on purpose. Look at the all-time list adjusted for inflation. The one thing most of the movies have in common is that you’d never guess they’d be on this list on the first day of their releases: Gone with the Wind, Sound of Music, The Exorcist, 101 Dalmatians. You get my point. I think Dark Knight is going to end up on the un-adjusted top five grossing list. And I think it could become a phenomenon. But I wouldn’t predict that.

Now on to the more interesting point. Galley Friend T.J. sends in a particularly keen observation. Spoilers Ahead!):

Here is something I immediately noticed last night upon viewing the film. Nolan has brilliantly inverted the world of Batman’s past. Take, for example, the climatic scene where Batman and Gotham police try to save both Rachel and Harvey Dent. The situation neatly parallels the predicament that Batman faces in Batman Forever (a terrible film). In that film, the Riddler has captured both Robin and Batman’s lady love. Batman/Bruce Wayne must choose which one he will save: his love, who represents Bruce, or Robin, who represents Batman. In the end he saves them both in a classic bit of heroism by diving down a seemingly never-ending shaft, scooping up both just in time, and explicitly proclaiming that he is both Batman and Bruce Wayne.

The Dark Knight turns that situation on its head. There is no option for Batman to save both Rachel (Bruce’s love) and Harvey (Batman’s sense of duty). From the first, he must choose (“Rachel” he tells Gordon, as he jumps on the Bat pod to save the day) and then when he does he is deceived by the Joker. He thinks he is going to save Rachel, but it turns out the Joker has reversed addresses on him.

But Rachel and Harvey die as a result. Rachel is, of course, killed in the explosion. Harvey is brutally scarred (emotionally and physically) even though Batman helps him escape. Harvey Dent as anyone knew him is now dead, with Two-Face taking his place.

This is probably over-thinking it. But I found this to be a neat parallel to Batman Forever. It shows Nolan’s Batman does not reside in the same world as previous incarnations. He can’t “save” the day in a classical sense. He is forced to make one impossible decision after another and even then he can still lose everything.

You’ll have to take my word for this, but on the way to see Dark Knight last week I told Santino that I had a sneaking suspicion this would be the biggest three-day weekend in the history of movies. The initial reports had it at $155M–the biggest ever–but the final numbers have it even bigger: $158M.

I think the declines are going to be, relatively speaking, pretty slim. Dark Knight is actually a great movie, unlike the other monster three-day openers. I think it could be headed for top five all-time, maybe even top three. I think it will become, over the next couple of weeks, a big-time cultural event that people talk about. Or maybe not. We’ll see.

But two statistical exit questions:

(1) What sequel showed the biggest opening-weekend dollar increase from the original movie?

(2) What sequel showed the biggest total gross dollar increase from the original?

Remember, the vast majority of sequels underperform from the original. Dark Knight is going to be one of the exceptions. I’ll try to find the answers to these questions later this week, but I’d be interested to see what your initial guesses are.

At first blush, I’d guess that it would be Mad Max, Rambo, Lethal Weapon 2, or Terminator 2 . . .

(If you want to cheat, the answers should be somewhere in here.)

There are a lot of reasons to hate the Redskins. (I don’t need one, of course, because I’m from Philly and hate is our default setting.) Today I bring you reason #4,419:

Steve Czaban is, for my money, the best sport-talk radio host in America. He’s wicked smart, deeply funny, and almost pathologically candid. He’s not a confrontational jackass like Jim Rome. He’s not a jock-slobberer like Mike Greenberg. He’s not a celebrity peacock like Dan Patrick. Czaban is, instead, everything you could want in a radio host: a quick wit with deep pockets of knowledge and an engaging worldview. He’s the best.

Czaban is based in D.C. and hosts two shows a day, a nationally-syndicated morning show called the First Team, on Fox Sports Radio, and a local afternoon show on Washington’s WTEM.

Washington has a weird sports culture in that fans and journalists mostly seem to have a Pollyanna view of the world: No matter how bad things are going, there’s sunshine around the corner.

Czaban has been one of the few voices of reason (during my purgatory in D.C.) to understand the real problems the Redskins face. He has been critical–though not crazily so–of Redskins management, particularly the coaches and management. Including owner Dan Snyder.

So a few weeks ago, Snyder, who already owns competing sports-talk radio stations in the market, bought WTEM.. WTEM was, up until the time of purchase, a Fox Sports affiliate. Snyder’s stations were ESPN affiliates.

And what was Snyder’s first move? To make WTEM an ESPN affiliate and drop Czaban’s morning show. Even though Czaban’s Fox show was crushing the ESPN show in the local ratings.

Now Snyder is airing the same ESPN product on all of his stations in the market. This doesn’t make much sense to me: Since he’s the only game in town, wouldn’t he attract more listeners by airing as much competing product as possible, thereby casting a wider net? Unless of course, this wasn’t a business decision in the first place.

My nerd-opus is up over at the other site. It’s less movie review than deeply revealing confession. I’m just warning you.

In other news, the great Alexandra DuPont has a characteristically brilliant review. (She closes the review quoting a line from moi, which, I believe, completes my nerd trifecta, having now been linked at AICN, the force.net, and Whedonesque. This is not, perhaps, something I should brag about.) Anyway, sample brilliance:

When “Batman Begins” came out, many of us praised it as a crime drama that happened to feature a guy in a bat costume. But that praise was partially in comparison to the Schumacher nipple-disco that had come before.

Yes, in “Begins” Bruce Wayne fights gangsters and police corruption (and choppy action editing). But he was also dealing with ninjas and an ancient secret society and Liam Neeson with two names and a Van Dyke beard and the thespian skills of glassy-eyed Katie Holmes as a little girl trick-or-treating in an assistant-DA costume. Also, there was that CGI elevated train and the CGI hallucinations and the sonar-guided bats and that dopey conspiracy involving corporate malfeasance, poisoned water, and a gun that microwaved that water into steam (unless that water happened to reside in a human body). You could almost feel Nolan fighting for his gritty urban Batman against a riptide of studio notes.

“The Dark Knight” has none of that.

I haven’t been holding out on you–I’ve got some thoughts about Dark Knight, but have been busy doing a larger piece on it which will run tomorrow. And apart from that, I’ve been grappling with how to talk about the movie without dipping too heavily into the realm of spoilers.

So I think I’ll have some spoiler-filled thoughts tomorrow (appropriately noted, of course), but in the meantime, some general observations:

* I understand how annoying the hype surrounding this movie is. I realize how over-sold almost every movie event in recent years has been. (Godzilla, Cloverfield, Spider-Man, etc.)

All of that said, even if your expectations are very high, I think this is more movie than you’re prepared for.

* Ditto the accolades for Heath Ledger’s Joker. Look, Ledger’s performance isn’t legendary, but it is inventive, off-kilter, and very, very fine work. His voicework in particular, impresses because he hits odd cadences and registers. And his physicality, for me, is really great. The Joker is never supposed to be physically menacing–he’s skinny and weak. But (and this is mentioned again and again in the comics) he’s deceptively quick, particularly with his hands. Which makes him kind of unexpectedly scary at close range. Ledger and Nolan get this just right.

But most of all, the character is perfectly conceived. This isn’t to take anything away from Ledger’s work, mind you, but just to point out that it’s build on really solid, thoughtful writing.

* I have no idea how much money this movie is going to make, but my unscientific guess is: a ton. I have no idea what the opening will be ($80M? $100M? $115M?), but I’ll be really surprised if it doesn’t have fantastic legs through July and August.

* It also would not surprise me if, at some point in the next couple weeks, the left decides that they have a political objection to Dark Knight. It isn’t an overtly (or even covertly) political movie, but it does have something to say about the capacity of Western liberalism for dealing with a certain type of nihilist challenge, and the limits of liberalism’s social compact.

I suspect that this is the real root of David Denby’s infantile criticism of Dark Knight and other liberal critics may join in, particularly if they think that conservatives are embracing the movie as some sort of apologia for Bush/Cheney/neoconservatism/Iraq/Guantanamo/warmongering/suspension of habeas/etc.

David Edelstein’s negative review complains that Christian Bale’s smirk reminds him of “Dubya entitlement” and that Batman employs “FISA-like surveillance.”

But I could well be wrong; maybe no one will attempt to invest any political meaning in it.

More tomorrow.

Update: One final point–even the title is perfect. I was wary of it, because I assumed Nolan was just using it as a sop to fanboys since there was no way he was going to use the Miller Dark Knight stuff. But I was wrong.

This isn’t Miller’s Dark Knight, but the title is absolutely integral to the film and not even in the obvious “dark night” of the soul sense.