Is Ricky Gervais really Hollywood history?

What has the Daily Mail got against Ricky Gervais? The paper decided today to write off his new film as a flop, suggesting that "the king of the sitcoms... may want to think again before making another film" after his new movie, The Invention of Lying, made only $7m at the US box office on its opening weekend.

Inquiries by The First Post, however, reveal that the film isn't regarded as a flop at all. It cost only $18m to make, so 40 per cent of its budget back in three days in north America isn't to be sneezed at. And it easily beat the Drew Barrymore-directed rollergirl movie Whip It which, with great reviews and Juno's Ellen Page starring, had been expected to do better.

In Britain, the Gervais film made more than twice what was expected of it at the box office, taking £1.74m on its first weekend. It was only kept off the number one spot by the new version of Fame, ironic given that the New York talent school remake is considered a disaster in the US.

All that said, The Invention of Lying is hardly a rip-snorting success and the timing for anything other than pure box-office gold is not good.

There has been a bloodbath in Hollywood in recent weeks, with studio executives being kicked out of their offices on an almost daily basis because films have underperformed and DVD sales - the traditional back-up revenue stream - are in freefall because of the recession.

Among those who have lost their jobs are:

• Harry Sloan, chief executive at MGM, pushed out even before it was discovered what a flop Fame has proved.

• Dick Cook, the man who started as a theme park monorail driver and worked his way up to boss of Disney Studios, fired after releasing a string of duds including Confessions of a Shopaholic, Race to Witch Mountain and the Bruce Willis film Surrogates.

• Marc Shmuger and David Linde, co-chairmen of Universal Pictures, who were kicked out on Monday after firing a series of blanks including Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger; Adam Sandler's well received Funny People and - this is the scary one for Gervais - Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno.

Bruno didn't actually fare that badly - but it was a flop relative to the success of his first film, Borat. And no one likes a supposed creative genius who's travelling downhill rather than up.

The fact is, with big name stars misfiring, and even supposedly safe remakes for the teen market such as Fame not working, there's only one 'safe bet' in Hollywood these days and that's "branded entertainment" - movies based on old TV shows, toys, boardgames - anything familiar.

With the success of Transformers and GI Joe, it's hardly surprising one of the most talked-about movie projects in Hollywood right now is Battleship, based on the boardgame, while Barbie: The Movie is also in development.

Gervais himself said the other day of The Invention of Lying: "This is the real test. If this tanks, I will only ever be the guy who did The Office."

He will likely get one more chance in Hollywood - but if he wants to use it wisely, he should probably be thinking along the lines of Ricky vs the Hungry Hungry Hippos. ·