Remember last month when we took a moment to consider the potential back-end windfalls for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Harrison Ford should Indiana Jones 4 turn when Indiana Jones 4 turns a profit? "Crystal Skull will have to generate around $400 million for Paramount for the studio to make its money back and earn its distribution fee," Claudia Eller wrote in the LA Times. "Only at that point will Lucas, Spielberg, Ford and smaller profit participants, including screenwriter David Koepp, begin collecting their portion. Paramount will take 12.5 cents from every dollar thereafter, while Lucas and company will earn 87.5 cents." With the worldwide total pushing $332 million in five days, the film could drop 75% percent globally this weekend and still be pouring money on the principals by Sunday night. A more likely 50% drop would still split $86 million among them — with another solid month of box office ahead. Elsewhere in percentages: The likelihood of Indiana Jones 5 climbed to 100% while we wrote this.

The long Memorial Day weekend may be gone, but we'll always have fond memories of the holiday box office to warm our hearts:

The dirty, no-good Reds are not at all happy about the portrayal of Cold War Russians in a new historical documentary starring Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett that's sweeping our country this weekend. "The Communist Party of St. Petersburg say the actors promote crude, anti-Soviet propaganda in their new film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; and have urged Russia's movie-going public to boycott the film and told Ford, 65, not to visit the country.The Communist Party's ideology committee in Russia's second largest city published an open letter declaring, 'Your work in this film is an insult to the Soviet and Russian people, who remember the difficult Fifties when our country was concluding its reconstruction after the Great War, but did not send merciless terrorists to the USA'."

The Times chose wisely this weekend, dedicating its often miserable "A Night Out With" feature to super-dreamy Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull star Karen Allen instead of some dicky little 12-year-old writer who some editor found attractive. "Ms. Allen said: 'People want to see a movie that casts a mature woman across from a mature man. They're not matching Harrison with a 30-year-old.'"

· We're sure Karen Allen is telling a very interesting story about how her involvement in the new Indiana Jones movie came about, but we're way too distracted by Sherri Shepherd's ghetto-not-so-fabulous sartorial homage to the legendary adventurer. [The View]
·The name's Jonas. Nick Jonas. Codename: Mooseknuckle. [Just Jared]
· LAist interviews local music legend—and Hotel Cafe Records artist—Jim Bianco. (Who we look like, according to about a half-dozen random people who've come up and told us so on the street.) [LAist]
· Nailed's EKG delivers a steady, ear-piercing shriek, as the production is shut down yet again. [Deadline Hollywood]
· The LAT details everything they observed backstage leading up to Wednesday night's historic American Idol finale. (Spoiler alert: They caught Syesha tucking in the men's room!) [LAT]

Defamer Attractions returns today with another round of movie scanning for your Memorial Day weekend. We already know you're planning at least two excursions to view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (once out of drunken impulse, and once to make sure that really was the ending you saw before blacking out), but Indy alone does not a holiday make! At least one of the poor bastards sharing this opening weekend is bound to tank the worst, and yet another is a fine bit of foreign-language counterprogramming worth your consideration. And of course we've got a few new DVD choices for the agoraphobic, hungover and/or the cheapskates among us. As always, our opinions and projections are A) our own and B) impeccably fail-safe. Where should we start?

Oh hey, it's me, your weekend guy (Who's now on the masthead! Yahee!). So I went to the first showing today of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, because how could I not? And I thought I would tell you what I thought of it, without spoilers. I am not a film expert, and certainly not a critic, but I am all full of Indy right now, so, if you're interested, here's what I think.

[Margin of error: +/- 9.5 trillion]

Even as our Indiana Jones PlunderWatch ticker moves inexorably closer to $9.5 trillion, a proportionately huge response to the new film is also taking place in high-traffic piracy circles around the globe. A bit of Defamer research (as well as a few winks from seedy, trench-coated informants in the digital shadows) reveals a surge in foreign-language torrents, including France's dynamite adaptation Indiana Jones et le Royeaum du Crane de Cristal. Another look at the soaring box-office, though — $250,000 in Belgium alone! Incroyable! — hints that little (if anything) will slow the hero's conquest as the weekend rolls on.

And we're off! At the stroke of midnight, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull began screening on 4260 U.S. screens, and 12,000 more around the planet.

No one combats Indy 4 fatigue like our batty, beloved gossip aunt Cindy Adams, who today grilled one of the blockbuster's key consultants in an attempt to discover the sexy mystique of — wait for it — the bullwhip. Not just any bullwhip, of course, but Harrison Ford's $1,000 bullwhip — all 13 feet and two-and-a-half pounds of it, said whipmaster Anthony De Longis:

Even as Indy 4 is poised to do mammoth B.O. this weekend, it seems that one member of the LaBeouf Snow Cone Family Circus is a bit down on his luck. Shia LaBeouf’s father, whom Shia has already outed as a former drug dealer who used to smoke him out at 10 years old, has allegedly been crashing in Indiana Jones Jr.’s garage all winter long and has yet to return to his warm weather teepee in Montana (yes, really). As Shia puts it, "We've got this little air mattress set up for him. It's very comfortable. But now it's not winter anymore and he's still there. But I can't go there and go, `Hey dad. Listen it's time to go back.' I can't make him leave." So isn’t it time we finally figure out who this longshot Father Of The Year candidate is already? You know, before he inhales too many fumes while sleeping next to his superstar son’s pricey cars?

Paramount interns are plucking rose petals as we speak for Brad Grey's arrival at the office tomorrow, by which time Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Do We Really Have to Write it Out Again will be on its way to the top five — and possibly even an all-time record — for a five-day opening weekend. Most midnight screenings around the country tonight are already sold out, with at least one prognosticator firming up his tracking to reflect a $173 million opening. The number would bump the final Star Wars installment Revenge of the Sith from the number-one spot and, paired with Iron Man, give Paramount the best May in its history.

With all the magnetized baked potatoes and dancing chihuahua sequences in store in this weekend’s Indy 4, it’s no surprise Harrison Ford’s next on-screen project is as simple and easy to understand as possible. As we noted weeks ago, Ford was filming spots for an environmental group that prompted him to step in as copywriter and retool the scripts. And thank goodness he did — who else could have come up with this illuminating dialogue between the grizzly manscaping actor and, well, himself? Apparently, even big boys like Ford wince when hair is ripped from their shiny manly chests using hot wax. And that’s how the environment feels. So get thee to the nearest beauty parlor, shoot the unsmiling waxer a charismatic flirty smirk or two, and save the planet already.

Looking remarkably sober and well-recovered from last weekend's Cannes-diana Jones sojourn, Harrison Ford returned home Tuesday for the film's long-awaited Harlem premiere (yes, Harlem) and a requisite visit with David Letterman. The conversation quickly turned to Ford's piloting hobby — particularly his fondness for taking off in a Beaver. What? No, not a late-model Calista Beaver, but rather a vintage de Havilland model — the bulletproof kind flown covertly by the CIA during Vietnam. Naturally Letterman's audience followed his train of thought straight into the gutter, but an unfazed Ford stuck to the high road with tales of his soaring journeys into the bush. If only Kevin Spacey had shown the host so much class the night before. [The Late Show With David Letterman]

There has been no shortage of potential cross-pollenation opportunities for Paramount Pictures over its 90 years in business, but for sheer monolithic stature and creative promise, nothing tweaks our loins quite like the just-announced Paramount Movie Park Korea. While we're mildly disappointed to hear that the park is slated for Seoul and not Pyongyang (tell us you wouldn't have been first in line for "Kim Jong Il's Marathon Man Experience"), we're glad to see the studio back in the theme-park business and eager to have a go at the 30-plus attractions planned for a 2011 opening.

After intrepidly (and only somewhat confusedly) parsing the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise yesterday, we've looked on in amazement as the phenomenon continues its global siege. To wit: If ever we actually wanted to see Harrison Ford return for a fifth Indy film, we can only hope it extrapolates the promise of the accompanying trailer for Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Gay Rabbi. Which looks suspiciously more influenced by the 1979 Harrison Ford/Gene Wilder vehicle The Frisco Kid, but still — it's not like George Lucas is going to come up with anything better. (via The Hot Blog)

Forget the jerk-ass haters: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will make you happy. "[O]nce it gets going, Crystal Skull delivers smart, robust, familiar entertainment. Ford looks just fine, his chest skin tanned to a rich Corinthian leather; he's still lithe on his feet, and can deliver a wisecrack as sharp as a whipcrack. Karen Allen, 56, who was Indy's saucy love Marion Ravenwood in Raiders, still has that glittering smile and vestiges of her old elfin swagger. They needn't break a sweat keeping up with the (relative) kids: 39-year-old Cate Blanchett, the movie's villainess, and Shia LaBeouf, who plays the young lead Mutt Williams, and who may be tapped to continue the series after Ford's retirement - at least that's what Lucas hinted a few days ago here in Cannes." Slight spoilers after the jump.

So why did magnificent hottie Karen Allen pretty much disappear off the face of the earth after Animal House and Raiders of the Lost Ark before finally returning for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? (Starman doesn't count!) "[A]t some point she went to go knit in the Berkshire Mountains. There was also a marriage followed nine years later by divorce, and single motherhood that would, in concert with the dwindling Hollywood career and the shock of 9/11, prompt her to quit Manhattan permanently for the Berkshires. She had done summer theater in Stockbridge, Mass.; she felt at home there. With her Hollywood money she'd purchased an 18th century barn and remade it; the place came with its own beaver pond, and Allen added a hot tub. She cleared the attic of bats and made it into a master suite with its own sunken bath and office." But now she's back! Yay!

Pity the poor, misunderstood archaeologist, chained to painstaking years of research and field work only to live in the cultural shadow of the globetrotting, Nazi-battling adventurer Indiana Jones. Not ones to miss an opportunity, though, the leaders of the Archaeological Institute of America have dovetailed with the forthcoming release of Indiana Jones 4 to welcome franchise star Harrison Ford as a trustee. "The group promotes archaeological excavation, research, education and preservation worldwide," notes an AP dispatch. "AIA President Brian Rose says Ford's Indiana Jones character has played a major part in stimulating interest in archaeological exploration."