Evan Almighty Likely to Take Top Spot at Box-Office

Hollywood studio executives are crossing their fingers that the expensive (it cost $175 million to make) new Steve Carrell comedy Evan Almighty will be able to recoup its cost by performing well at the box-office. This weekend, at least, it will not face serious competition: the serious-minded "A Mighty Heart" is not designed to pull in as large a crowd as possible, and the horror flick "1408," in spite of its surprisingly positive reviews, is still a horror film, a genre with less universal appeal than the comedy.

"Evan Almighty" is also exactly the sort of sanitized PG-rated fare that tends to do well, because it's designed to please everybody; executives are even hoping that the religious theme will strike a chord with the faith-based crowd. Next weekend, "Evan Almighty" will face competition from the wide release of Michael Moore's "Sicko;" but this weekend its producers should be able to rest easy, in spite of the fact that "Evan Almighty" has opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews.