Fox breathes easier after 11th-hour 'Knight and Day' sneak peek

Stop biting those nails, Fox. Knight and Day could do just fine at the box office. It will, that is, if the Saturday-night sneak peek I saw is any indication. The theater was packed for a movie that was barely advertised (the official launch date is this Wednesday), and people actually clapped at the end. And it wasn't even free! A bit of background: First, the spy thriller's pre-release tracking hasn't been strong despite international stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. (Tracking is used to determine how well a movie will play to U.S. audiences. So far, so bad—there are estimates of a $20 million opening on a $120 million production budget, which would be as disastrous as any Diaz-with-a-machine-gun scene in the flick. Hazy marketing hasn't helped matters, and reviews, like this one in The Hollywood Reporter, have not been kind.) Second, there's the Tom Cruise Problem. Some potential moviegoers have lost their affinity for him because they think he's a little nuts. Still, Cruise and Diaz have been hitting the promo circuit hard, with Diaz giving some semi-scandalous interviews, Cruise rapping as Tropic Thunder's Les Grossman on the MTV Movie Awards, and the pair staging a stunt video that went viral with millions of views. To boost word of mouth, Fox decided at the last minute to sneak-peek the action adventure at 494 theaters on Saturday night, one of them being the AMC in Burbank, often used by studios as a testing ground for its heavy traffic and diverse demo. The tactic worked in this case—the audience was completely involved (no visible texting!) from beginning to end. Maybe Cruise still has it and the studio's worrying unnecessarily? Or maybe these were people who got shut out of Toy Story 3? My two cents: The movie's fun and frothy, if you don't count all the dead guys. (So don't.) Just add popcorn.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley