Another season of Hollywood big budget releases is grinding onward and, as Deadline Hollywood Daily tells us, the latest in a long line of films about the Iraq War (and/or the Global War on Terror) seems set to take a dive at the box office.

I’m told #7 Stop-Loss opened to only $1.6 million Friday from just 1,291 plays and should eke out $4+M. Although the drama from MTV Films was the best-reviewed movie opening this weekend, Paramount wasn’t expecting much because no Iraq war-themed movie has yet to perform at the box office.

This is hardly the first time we’ve seen this. In the Valley of Elah, Redacted, Rendition and Home of the Brave, among others, were financial disasters. But why is this so? If you ask some of our friends from the Right leaning side of the sphere, such as the excellent Republican blogger Rick Moran, it’s simply a case of America rejecting the leftist Hollywood liberal elite anti-war (or even anti-American!) message in these films.

But this type of reaction seems a bit short-sighted, failing to take into account the success of films critical of the Vietnam war, such as Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket and others. And any theory of wholesale rejection of anti-Iraq war films fails to take into account the blockbuster success of Michael Moore’s Farenheit 911, which broke all records for documentaries at the box office and won wide critical acclaim along with an Oscar.

I put this puzzling question to author, film critic and Hollywood radio talk show host Betty Jo Tucker.

Jazz: Betty Jo, Why do movies about the Iraq War or the Global War on Terror fare so horribly at the box office?

Betty Jo: 1. Most people go to the movies for escapist entertainment, and the Iraq War & Global War on Terror are too serious for this type of viewing.

2. Because information and/or visuals about the Iraq War and the War on Terror run almost 24/7 on television news, the internet and radio, we are less likely to pay money for a film about them.

3. Our current “enemies” seem inferior technologically, so many of these movies lack dramatic presentation.

(Guess that explains why my husband and I chose to see a silly comedy called Superhero Movie instead of Stop-Loss this weekend!)

Jazz: Is it just American attitudes about the war which sink these films, or are they simply bad movies in terms of acting, directing, cinematography, etc.?

Betty Jo: Two films in the categories under discussion deserve more support and recognition than they’ve received to date. I’m talking about Rendition and In the Valley of Ellah. Both are high-quality in every respect — as well as entertaining. Rendition, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon, depicts how using torture to get information can backfire on the torturers – and it does so with excitement and suspense. The compelling In the Valley of Ellah, with Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon and Charlize Theron, adopts a kind of detective story format as it shows the Iraq War’s impact on an ordinary guy and his parents.

Other movies about the Global War on Terror haven’t fared as well critically or at the box office. Despite its star-studded cast (Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and Robert Redford), Lions for Lambs ended up being too talky and preachy, and even with George Clooney’s Oscar-winning performance, Syriana came across as too complicated and overly ambitious, while Redacted, from respected filmmaker Brian De Palma, was practically unwatchable.

As a side note, if you would like to hear more on this from Betty Jo, we’re going to go into more detail on this question when we have her as a guest on Mid Stream Radio, hosted by myself, Ron Beasely of Middle Earth Journal and Cindy the Lady Logician of Lady’s Logic, this Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 1:00 pm Eastern / 10:00 am Pacific. (Click on the link for the radio show’s home page, where you can – if you wish – sign up for a free BTR user account. By selecting our show as a “favorite” you can opt to receive e-mail notifications prior to upcoming shows, participate in a live web chat with other listeners during the show, and/or call in with your own questions. If the timing is bad for you, you can catch a replay of the show at any time using iTunes.)

Another point to ponder is exactly what types of movies Americans generally like to watch, and how do these Iraq war films fit into that formula? Yahoo conducted a poll on that recently and found that the most successful genres ran a wide range.

Gangster films
Dramas (including courtroom dramas)
Suspense / Horror
Comedy (including romantic comedies)
Action and Sci-fi

Where exactly would Iraq war films fall in that list? War films covering conflict of any era don’t even make the list these days, though they were immensely popular in decades past. There may simply not be a market for this subject no matter how negatively or positively the conflict is portrayed. This too may be a reflection of shifting national attitudes. Long ago, World War 2 films were almost always sure-fire box office gold. But Americans seem to have a very different perception of that era. First, it is a war that we most definitely won, against a well defined, evil adversary. Support for the war was massive across the nation, regardless of the cost in blood and treasure. Wars since that time have become more muddled in American discussion, with the good guys and the bad guys not being as clearly defined by who was wearing the white hat.

In a recent Washington Post article, Paul Farhi sought to put the same issue in perspective.

Film historian Jonathan Kuntz of UCLA points out that most memorable war films appear many years after a conflict ends, when the nation has had time to reflect on the experience and a historical consensus emerges about the war’s successes and failures.

The classic films about Vietnam — starting with “The Deer Hunter,” “Coming Home” and “Apocalypse Now” in 1978 and 1979 and ending with “Born on the Fourth of July” in 1989 — came out years after the last U.S. serviceman had left the battlefield. “M*A*S*H,” which was essentially an anti-Vietnam film but set in the Korean War, was released nearly 20 years after the Korean armistice.

But the outcome in Iraq remains an open question, with America’s military commitment to the country under constant debate.

For now, Kuntz agrees with Bochco: “We’re bombarded by information about [Iraq] 24 hours a day,” he says. “We already know plenty about it. We don’t need to learn more about it from the movies. Right now, it’s something people want to forget and escape from. I speak for the American public when I say, ‘What a bummer.’ “

No matter what the reason, whatever Hollywood is selling regarding the Iraq war, the American public isn’t buying. Is this a good or bad thing? I see it as a free market case study. If you spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars producing a movie you are taking a huge risk. And for that risk to pay off, you’d better be quite skilled at predicting what your audience is willing to consume.