There have been any number of catastrophic movie releases this year -- "MacGruber," "Jonah Hex" and "Extraordinary Measures" come to mind -- but none worse than last weekend's opening for "Twelve," a drug-dealing drama from director Joel Schumacher ("Batman & Robin").

Since the movie's title contains a number, we thought we'd come up with some other digits worth considering:

1. $477. That was "Twelve's" per-screen total for its first three days in limited release in 231 locations. There was only one other film among all movies reporting box-office grosses in Variety that had a lower per-screen take, the $390 average for "Sex and the City 2," which has been in theaters for more than two months "Flipped," which had a mediocre opening weekend, garnered a per-screen average more than 10 times higher than "Twelve," with $4,983 per location.

2. 4. That was "Twelve's" Rotten Tomatoes score, one of the lowest in recent memory. The critical consensus average was lower than the marks given the critical dogs "The Last Airbender" (8%), "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" (14%) and "Killers" (12%). As Times reviewer Robert Abele put it: "... for all the cautionary trappings inherent in a downward spiral like 'Twelve,' it ultimately falls victim to another kind of addict, in that Schumacher can't keep himself from the kind of vibey camera and editing flourishes that facilitate only viewer numbness."

3. 2. Movies that "Twelve" distributor Hanover House tentatively plans to release in the coming years: Next year's "Untitled Jim Henson Project," a biography of the Muppets creator, and 2012's "Dances With Werewolves," a western-themed horror movie.The Arkansas-based DVD company previously has released "2 Dudes and a Dream," "Bobby Dogs" and "Sensored."

4. 59. The estimated average number of people who saw "Twelve" in each theater location over its entire opening weekend. At least it was easy to run for the exits.

-- John Horn

http://twitter.com/JGHorn

Photo: Chace Crawford and 50 Cent in "Twelve." Photo credit: Jonathan Wenk

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It's a bit like a freeway at rush hour: four big movies on three consecutive weekends, and somebody -- and it might be "Robin Hood" -- will have to accelerate to stay on the road.

Universal has a lot riding on its summer update of the mythical English hero. For the movie to prosper, the beleaguered studio will have to take a page out of the Robin Hood playbook and steal from the rich -- namely, Marvel Entertainment and Paramount Pictures' "Iron Man 2."

There's little question the Tony Stark sequel is going to launch the summer season in spectacular fashion. Although early word-of-mouth is not as strong as the buzz greeting the 2008 original, and the initial "Iron Man 2" trade reviews are not glowing, May 7's superhero sequel could break the three-day box-office record set by 2008's "The Dark Knight" ($158.4 million) and certainly should rival (if not surpass) the premieres of 2007's "Spider-Man 3" ($151.1 million) and 2006's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" ($135.6 million).

So even if "Iron Man 2" drops around 50% in its second week of release (the first film fell 48.1% in its second weekend), the sequel could gross as much as $70 million over the May 14 weekend, when Universal's "Robin Hood" is set to premiere. Several people who have studied this week's audience tracking surveys say that means "Robin Hood" will not open in first place with a possible opening gross around $45 million, and the Russell Crowe historical epic also will lose some critical female ticket buyers to Summit Entertainment's Amanda Seyfried love story "Letters to Juliet," which looks surprisingly strong among younger women.

Universal has struggled with its last two big-budget releases, as both February's "The Wolfman" (domestic gross: $62 million, with not much more overseas) and March's "Green Zone" (domestic gross: $35 million and equally weak foreign returns) fizzled fast.The studio said "Robin Hood" cost $155 million, but another person close to the production maintained that the budget was closer to $200 million. Universal's budget figure includes all of the film's rebates and tax credits, and also excludes the shut-down costs when the film's initial production start was postponed. 

For "Robin Hood" to succeed, the film will need to play strongly for several weeks and perform robustly overseas, where Universal expects the movie could double its domestic theatrical gross. The studio is hopeful the film could perform like "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Sherlock Holmes," neither of which opened in first place. Fox's 2007 animated rodent comedy was crushed in its premiere weekend by "I Am Legend" but nevertheless went on to sell more than $217.3 million in tickets in domestic release. Warner Bros.' "Sherlock" update premiered in second place behind the behemoth "Avatar" but also went on to surpass $209 million in domestic release.

It won't get easier for "Robin Hood" later in the month. On May 21, DreamWorks Animation opens "Shrek Forever After," the fourth (and promised last) sequel in the animated franchise. Although the momentum is fading for the ogre story (2007's third "Shrek" film did 27% less domestic business than 2004's second offering), the 3-D animated comedy is still on track to be one of the summer's biggest releases, as it plays to all slices of the audience. 

When Crowe and "Robin Hood" director Ridley Scott collaborate, the results can be dramatically successful. Ten years ago, the best-picture-winning "Gladiator" grossed $187.7 million, and 2007's "American Gangster" grossed $130.2 million. But 2006's "A Good Year" was a bad week ($7.5 million domestically) and 2008's "Body of Lies" also fared poorly ($39.4 million domestically). Last year, Crowe's Universal film "State of Play" performed weakly, grossing $37 million domestically. To play deep into the summer, "Robin Hood" will need strong word-of-mouth, young male ticket buyers, supportive reviews and a reasonably good turnout from women -- before they flood the multiplex for May 27's "Sex and the City 2."

-- John Horn

Photos, from top: Russell Crowe in "Robin Hood." Credit: Kerry Brown / Universal Pictures. Robert Downey Jr. in "Iron Man 2." Credit:  Merrick Morton / Marvel Entertainment. Sarah Jessica Parker in "Sex and the City 2." Credit: Craig Blankenhorn / Warner Bros. Pictures.  "Shrek Forever After." Credit: DreamWorks Animation / Paramount Pictures

Mike Fleming at Deadline New York offers the best response yet to the absurd/disturbing news of a financial market for box office. We know a couple people who are part of fantasy box-office leagues, which are operated in the same way as fantasy-football leagues. That seems harmless enough, and it's even kind of fun.

But creating a real market with real dollars around a movie's performance poses all sorts of ethical and logistical questions. Even individual sports like tennis give gambling sites fits because the results are too easily manipulated; the path between those with skin in the game and those with a role in the outcome is simply too short. If that’s true in sports, it’s doubly true here. Let’s hope regulatory agencies take care of this one – and if not, that the free market does its work for it.

--Steven Zeitchik

Box-office pundits, including our own colleague Ben Fritz, are abuzz over the question of whether "Dear John" could finally take down "Avatar" at the box office this weekend, knocking the film off its No. 1 perch for the first time since it opened the week before Christmas.

To do that, the Nicholas Sparks-derived tearjerker would probably need to make at least $20 million and hope that enough Avatar-inclined men stay home in anticipation of the Peyton Manning show on Sunday; in other words, prospective filmgoers would need to opt for the man in blue over the blue men.

"Ghostbusters," for instance (which held for 10 consecutive weeks)  is a supernatural adventure with a "Saturday Night Live" level of comedy. "Crocodile Dundee" (nine weeks) is a fish-out-of-water comedy and an outback adventure. "Beverly Hills Cop" (14 weeks) is a fish-out-of-water comedy that's also a (relatively) dense police procedural. Even "Titanic" combined one movie with another: Cameron-esque spectacle and a melodramatic love story (and Leonardo DiCaprio, a genre unto himself).

It's admittedly hard to pinpoint a single overarching reason why a film will hold the top spot for months. But given these examples, it's also clear that when you have one movie that's really two, you may also have a film that will be flocked to by one audience and then quietly, over time, discovered by another.

In this light, Avatar's achievement is even more surprising,since it's really only trying to be  one thing -- an action epic (that love story isn't exactly "Gone With the Wind)." But it does bring a second element -- only it's not narrative, but technological. Most people buying tickets to the Cameron-fest at this late date may not have been initially interested but are coming out because they want to see if the film really looks as good or as different as everyone says it does. Or, as the anecdotal reports are suggesting, they've seen it, but they want to see it again in a different format. Sometimes it's good to have comedy to go along with your action. And sometimes it's just good to have some cool-looking blue people.

-- Steven Zeitchik

Photo: "Avatar." Credit: 20th Century Fox