For all you Star Wars ROTS fans who have e-mailed me to denounce my assertion last week that the movie’s box-office drop-off indicates a general dislike of the film, I offer the following quote from today’s Variety in support of your position: “Though it dropped in the rankings, Fox’s ‘Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith’ is still doing massive biz. Its weekend result of $26 million won it the crown for the fastest pic to gross $300 million. George Lucas’s sci-fi finale hit the rarefied mark on Saturday, its 17th day of release, which is a day sooner than previous record-holder ‘Shrek 2.’ With a cume of $308.8 million, ‘Sith’ passed the 1977 original’s $307 million haul and is now the second-biggest grosser in the series, behind only ‘The Phantom Menace’s’ $431 million run.”

Here’s the thing, though: If it had actually been a genuinely good movie instead of a graded-on-a-curve movie, it would have made $400 million by now.