Factory Girl

Weinsteins can't buy a hit: For a while, you really couldn't fault the Weinsteins. Seriously, who could conjure a hit out of forgettable fare like "Lucky Number Slevin," "Factory Girl" or "The Last Legion"? But in the three years since the brothers Harvey and Bob severed their ... moreties with Miramax, a company they founded and sold to the Walt Disney Company, a number of films, such as "Grindhouse," "The Great Debaters," "Miss Potter" and "The Nanny Diaries," came into their hands that would have been easy hits for other studios. Well, this year, the bottom dropped out. Expected hits that were supposed to keep the studio afloat, such as "Superhero Movie," "Soul Men" and, stunningly, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," completely underperformed. In fact, throw "Zack and Miri" to Universal, Columbia or Fox, and the picture would have easily done double its domestic take. Ironically, Woody Allen, hardly a hit-maker the past decade, delivered the brothers a summer surprise with "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," but it still makes you wonder how much longer these guys can stay in the movie business. (The Weinstein Company)