Just like always, the Super Bowl yesterday was the only event of the year when people actually watch, let alone discuss, commercials. Almost all of them try to be funny these days, but it might surprise you to learn that a committee of professional salespeople trying not to offend anyone may not be the most effective way to create comedy. The only thing sure to be must-see TV are the GoDaddy commercials, because not even a thousand monkeys on a thousand tabs of acid with their brains set on shuffle could come up with as strange a combination of “hot-chick” spokespeople as Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser. Tim and Eric could huff ether-soaked rags for a week straight and not achieve that level of pure randomness.

Anyway, plenty of movies got in on the commercial action, including The Dictator, Act of Valor, The Avengers, GI Joe 2, John Carter, and Battleship. You can see all their spots here, and not on other sites, which I’ve never read, but I hear are for dong punchers.

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With Battleship set to open on May 18, it would seem that Universal is full steam ahead (*tugboat horn*) with the threat of producing a series of films based on Hasbro games. However, as we learned last year, the threat is dying. First, Universal killed Clue in the board room with the red pen, and then the studio gently pushed its McG-helmed Ouija Board movie into the dumpster.

Now, as if the gods have heard our cries for salvation, Universal has also dropped its Stretch Armstrong movie that was not only going to be in 3D, but would have starred Taylor Lautner. That’s right, it was the perfect storm of elastic crap.

So why the toe tag, Universal?

The Tay-Tay camp is claiming “it was our choice” to pull out of the film, but in fact a project insider told Deadline months ago right after Lautner’s Lionsgate film Abduction bombed that the studio was rethinking the project with Lautner as star but that Hasbro would make the final decision on the status of the project. Looks like that has happened. (Via Deadline)

First of all, Tay-Tay? That’s just asinine. No grown adult covering any topic should ever refer to someone as Tay-Tay unless it’s a panda baby.

As for the film, we can’t get too excited. Relativity Media is cleaning up Universal’s sloppy seconds by teaming with Hasbro to get this movie done. The good thing is that it won’t star Lautner and maybe Universal has learned a very important lesson here.

Battleship is rumored to have cost Universal $200 million to produce, and if that’s true, the producers of Water World must be celebrating right now. There should be no way in hell that a film starring Liam Neeson and Rihanna could make that kind of money back, but stranger things have happened. Either way, this is a nice moral victory.

Let’s all enjoy it for now, until Boo Boo Stewart is cast as the lead in Slinky.

Life must be pretty fantastic for 24-year old supermodel and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model Brooklyn Decker, what with her marriage to America’s most above average male tennis player, Andy Roddick, and her blossoming acting career. Last year, Decker was easily the best part of Adam Sandler’s Just Go With It, in which she played a very attractive girl who was inexplicably attracted to a balding schlub almost 30 years her superior.

But this industry is about opening doors, and Just Go With It blew… them wide open for Decker. In fact, this year she’s appearing in two films that are expected to be blockbusters. First, she stars alongside Elizabeth Banks, Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez in the rom-com What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Then she’ll ditch the giggles for her serious face, as she joins Liam Neeson and Rihanna (wait, what?) in the intergalactic action thriller, Battleship.

So what’s the problem? They both open on the same day! *cues Yakety Sax*

Decker Tweeted the above image of her dilemma yesterday, and I immediately felt her pain. Which film should she encourage her fans to go see on opening day? It’s a very important question, because I only have enough chains for one door.

THIS WEEK IN POSTERS: I promised you guys last week that I’d get this feature onto a regular schedule, and it’s Tuesday afternoon, so so far so good. This week we’ve got Battleship, Friends with Kids, that one where the guy from 2 Live Crew bangs naked zombies, and I try not to burst an O-ring over a new batch from The Iron Lady. Enjoy!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – Yes, this project continues to be ever so cute. But ever since I saw Bill Murray shirtless in madras pants holding an axe and a bottle of wine in the Moonrise Kingdom trailer, every other axe wielder pales in comparison. Sorry, Abe.

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Here’s the new poster for Battleship (GRRR, SLOW-MOTION ‘SPLOSIONS!), and… Jesus, is that… a floating Decepticon that shoots lens flares? …Sounds about right, actually. Eat your heart out, JJ Abrams.

By the way, I read the script for this piece, and the fact that someone thought it was a good idea to spend $200 million making it is MIND-BLOWING. It would be a miracle if it was anything approaching “good,” and yet the subtext of someone okaying that kind of expenditure on… this… could make it sort of morbidly fascinating. This could be the Winchester Mystery House of movies.

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