There’s a primitive, slap-dash, graphic-novel feeling to the title art in this Runaways teaser. Along with the theme about overcoming sexism in the ’70s rock-music world, of course. Passable but you want more.

The New Daughter, a horror film toplining Kevin Costner, has quietly snuck into L.A. and possibly other markets this past weekend, with no advertising or reviews to speak of.

Kevin Costner in The New Daughter

The film is directed by Luis Berdejo, who wrote the acclaimed Spanish horror film [REC] that was remade for America as Quarantine, and it costars Ivana Baquero (Pan’s Labyrinth).

HE reader Marc Edward Heuck, who alerted me, doesn’t claim to “know too much about the plot” but says it’s “something about a widower moving his two kids to a remote place, the daughter of course being a rebellious teen, and then some possession-type stuff ensues, possibly caused by a burial mound on the property.”

Daughter “was made by Gold Circle, and was supposed to be released by New Line, but supposedly they dropped it and Anchor Bay picked it up and are doing this dump release at the Regency Fairfax. It had some advance coverage on horror sites like bloodydisgusting.com, but no advances in the mainstream press.”

Has anyone seen it? Whatever the quality, a sneaky Fairfax Regency opening is clearly a comment on Costner’s ability to open a movie these days.

Having performed much better yesterday than expected, Avatar raised its final weekend tally to $77.3 million rather than the previously estimated $73 million. James Cameron‘s film has therefore squeaked by the $77.2 million earned by Will Smith‘s I Am Legend and taken the all-time record for a December opening. Variety‘s Pamela McClintock reports that Avatar “dropped a mere 3% from Saturday to Sunday, a rare feat, and a sign that the 3D sci-fi fantasy is already benefiting from powerful word-of-mouth.”

I said to a friend an hour ago that I’ve never enjoyed the Christmas holidays because everything slows or shuts down, and because there doesn’t seem to be anything to do except catch up on reading or roam around in the slush or hang out in coffee shops or go to book stores or drink Irish coffees and rum egg nog, etc. I write all the time but still, the holidays are dreary and boring for the most part.

To which he said that Xmas holiday cheer has always seemed forced to him, and that he finds it analogous to posing for a photo and the photographer saying “say cheese.”

What is there to feel cheerful about? he said. Tell me what’s cheerful! It’s cold and windy and damp outside. Sooner or later I’m going to suffer through a slow agonizing death or a sudden terrifying one. The health care bill is sickening, an embarassment. Obama has shown that he’s a total wuss and simply lacks the wily, hard-nosed ability to pressure the perverse into bending to a semblance of the popular will, who hasn’t the skills to administrate with any effectiveness, who’s essentially a media presence who lacks the confidence stand up to the generals and the Wall Street guys, etc.

I’m committed to buying two wooden back-scratchers in Chinatown, going to the Apple store on Mercer and buying some computer-screen cleaner, visiting the Metropolitan Museum, paying some bills, maybe catching a film, etc.

“I just got back from an aborted IMAX 3D showing of Avatar at the Showcase Cinemas in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Apparently the prime-time showing last night also conked out — an issue in which the sound drops out and then the whole movie shuts down. Showcase guys are claiming that some showings have gone fine, but their prime evening showings on Saturday and Sunday both bit the dust. I’m PISSED because I had reserved prime seats, and hell if I can swing getting back to the theater over the next couple of weeks.” — e-mail from HE reader Doug H., sent five minutes ago.

Three weeks ago James Toback told me that Peter Biskind‘s long-gestating Warren Beatty biography, called Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America (Simon & Schuster, 1.12.10), had been sent to this and that party. I felt hurt, left out. I’ve known Biskind for years and he knows of my interest in the book (being something of a Beatty-ologist myself), so I figured I’d be sent a copy also. Has anyone read it, written about it…anything?

Biskind’s Beatty bio (due 1.12.10); Peter Biskind.

“You know, everybody’s shaking their heads [about Brittany Murphy] and going ‘drugs,’ of course. I don’t know what was happening on the last movie. I know that, you know, she seemed to go through a change, you know, on Clueless. Maybe she felt like she was not the skinny pretty girl…you know?

“And then the next few movies she was…you know, thinner, blonde, you know, at MTV Awards and all sorts of things like that, and going out with Eminem and Ashton Kutcher, and, you know, suddenly got more into that whole glamorous scene. I think she felt the pressure to become a different sort of commodity to survive in show business, and I think it was awful.” — Clueless director Amy Heckerling speaking with Scott Feinberg, in a q & a posted today. (Here’s the sound file.)

On 12.14 I ran a short story on the Weinstein Co.’s Nine luncheon at Per Se, along with some photos. I called it “Nine Is A Ten” but I didn’t explain that the line was a mock-quote fed to me by Forbes.com’s Bill McCuddy, who was joking that CNN’s Larry King (who was also at the luncheon) would eventually pass this quote along to Weinstein Co. publicists about Rob Marshall‘s film. Sure enough, the quote appeared in Friday’s N.Y. Times. McCuddy nailed it before King said it — brilliant.

Right away this photo of the late Brittany Murphy and screenwriter husband Simon Monjack (Factory Girl), taken a few weeks ago, tells you something’s wrong. He looks relatively young (in his mid 30s?) but is obviously a food monster. (He looks like Oliver Platt on a binge.) Why, you ask, would Murphy have gotten a lip job at the tender age of 32? Why would they pose for PDA photos at LAX? You can feel the ick.

Simon Monjack, Brittany Murphy — photo allegedly taken in November 2009.

Here’s the AP obit in the NY Times, including a quote from Ashton Kutcher’s tweet on her passing: “2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany’s family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon.”

Box Office magazine’s Phil Contrino has reported some specifics about how much the blizzard may have dented Avatar‘s box-office in New York, Washington, DC and Philadelphia, where the show was especially heavy. “Grosses in New York dropped 18 percent from Friday to Saturday, Philadelphia was down 57 percent, Washington, DC fell 75 percent and Baltimore dipped 86 percent,” Contrino reports.

Contrino also quotes Fox senior vp Chris Aronson saying that Avatar‘s blizzard hit was “probably somewhere between $1 and $2 million.” Naaah — more like $3 or $4 million.