Brendon shouts out to the new J.J. Abrams-helmed Star Trek prequel which we first heard word of a few weeks ago.

The early word on United 93 is almost universally positive. So how much money is it going to make? It’s not unreasonable to speculate that United 93‘s box office performance will be analyzed as a cultural indicator of one sort or another.

Let’s start, as always, with the marketplace. HSX has United 93 pegged at $48, which translates to a $16.5M opening weekend.

Our next stop is the performance of the April 28 weekend over the last few years:

* In 2005 The Interpreter opened to $22.8M.

* In 2004 Man on Fire opened to $22.7M and 13 Going on 30 opened to $21M.

* In 2003, Identity opened to $16.2M.

* In 2002, Jason X opened to $6.6M and Life, or Something Like It, opened to $6.2M.

* In 2001, Driven opened to $12.1M.

* In 2000, The Flintstones Viva Rock Vegas, Frequency, and Where the Heart Is opened to $10.5M, $9M, and $8.2M, respectively.

What we see here (excepting 2000, when this weekend followed the strong release of The Scorpian King) is a trend of increasingly large openings for the fourth weekend in April.

Because of this, it looks as though the floor for United 93 is probably $22M. None of the other April openers are in the same genre as United 93–really, nothing is, except maybe Passion of the Christ. Passion opened to $83M. Could United 93 wind up in that neighborhood? I think it’s possible. But I’d be surprised.

Only two movies have ever opened above $40M in April. It’s more likely that United 93 will fall somewhere between that $22M floor and $42M. If it’s within that range then I’m not sure the audience reaction will really symbolize anything–that’s basically business as usual for the month of April.

But if it’s significantly outside that range, then it could really say something about American attitudes.

Game maker Aspyr reports:

Development has also continued progressing with Call of Duty® 2 and Sid Meier’s Civilization® IV. Look for both of those great titles to be released for Mac in the next few weeks.

Oh well, there goes my summer.

Let the battle commence! IMDB has this unsettling report:

Consumer electronics writers have begun to weigh in on the new HD DVD players distributed by Toshiba this week, and most are unimpressed. Several cite an intolerably long boot-up period, a confusing menu system, and incompatible sound. But nearly all express disappointment in the picture. . . . Writing in the Los Angeles Times David Colker remarked that on larger screens he could detect a subtle difference. He added: “I tested my perceptions by switching between the two formats. I asked a colleague to close his eyes while I chose a version, then had him open them and guess: DVD or HD DVD? He got it right only about 75% of the time.

That’s bad news for HD-DVD but I think it might be worse news for Sony. A lackluster $500 hi-def DVD player is better than a lackluster $1,800 player.

Up until now, though, I hadn’t considered this possibility: What if both standards fail?

In historical terms, the change from VHS to DVD took much longer than the switch from DVD to HD DVD (or Blu-Ray). The first mass-market DVD players didn’t hit until about 9 years ago; the DVD revolution only really completed itself about four years ago. What if it’s too soon for a new format that only offers marginal improvements at a very high price point?

Here’s the rest of the Colker article.

Hercules points us to this TV Guide story reporting that Amy Sherman-Palladino is leaving Gilmore Girls.

Sad news. Let’s hope she gets a chance to do another good show.

this link in yesterday’s Sentinel post. I was already planning it while I was sitting in the theater at the screening. That’s how much I care about this blog. And you.

And since I feel bad about forgetting, here’s some bonus Brendon that I found while hunting for that link:

Eva Longoria claims to be so sure that boyfriend Tony Parker is “the one,” she’s already planning a family with him. Gabrielle Solis, Longorias character on Desperate Housewives, is pregnant, and now Eva is frustrated that she lives in California while Parker, who is the point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, lives in Texas.

“I want a lot of children, so I told Tony to hurry up because Gabrielle is already two months pregnant, and we’re two months behind. Tony and I live in separate states, so that would be difficult at the moment. But he’s very family oriented and we both want to have kids.”

Yeah. It’s cool. I don’t care either. What I do care about is these pictures and what kind of story she’s telling that requires her to slap her own ass. Probably about a bee sting or detention or something. What? A sex story? But . . . wait, sex stories involve girls lying perfectly still and crying, don’t they? Oh. They don’t? Well, heres a tip, they do when you’re a pretend social worker and you host sexual addiction trust building workshops.

Merry Christmas.

Galley Friend B.W. sends along this highly-disturbing link reporting that Islamic extremists are now threatening Sienna Miller.

There’s a joke in here somewhere, but I can’t find it. And even if I could, there’s nothing funny about threatening one of the hottest women on the planet.

Not cool.

Layers of funny:

If I were a OBGYN, I would assume mothers in labor like really funny jokes, so I would definitely get a terrified look on my face whenever I delivered a baby, and hire an actress to pretend to be a nurse and she would gasp in horror and say “Santa Maria!” and make the sign of the cross and step away in shock when the babies head came out, and then I would say “Nurse, get a hold of yourself”, but I’m pretty sure all that would have happened with Paltrow anyway. Which is cool because actresses with their own nurse outfit probably aren’t cheap.