Hollywood news hound Nikki Finke has been championing Diane English's version of The Women for most of this year, using it as an example of how female-centric films get the shaft by Hollywood studios. In June she argued:

I'm told Warner Bros execs including movie boss and charter member of the he-man women-haters club Jeff Robinov (who keeps maintaining he was just joking when he said he didn't want to make any more motion pictures with women as the leads) recently screened The Women and didn't like it. "It's not Sex In The City. It's just not that kind of movie," a studio insider insisted to me. Puh-leeze, who indeed wants a low-budget $16.5 million chick flick written, directed and produced by one of the biz's greatest women's comedy writers of seminal Murphy Brown fame... That stars quality "name" actress like Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Bette Midler, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Debi Mazur, Joanna Gleason, Carrie Fisher, Lynn Whitfield and Cloris Leachman... That reworks the original so it takes place in the broadcasting world and an ashram-like retreat where Meg plays a fashion designer and wife and mother, Eva the skanky mistress, and Annette the deliciously two-faced BFF and so on...

As it turns out, The Women seems to be the Sarah Palin to Hillary Clinton's Sex and The City. The film currently sits at an amazing 00% at Rotten Tomatoes. Now, I'm not fan of film critics and think they've often led us astray (especially this summer) but when you reach the dregs that only a few films like Disaster Movie have been able to reach, odds are that your film just isn't very good. 

Not that Ms. Finke doesn't have a point. Female-centric films are in such a decline that even most films that pass as romantic comedies today are really male coming-of-age films in which the woman is just someone waiting around for the guy to start acting his age. Unfortunately, championing stuff like The Women is nothing more than a surefire way to help the opposing argument. 

But who knows, maybe the film will overcome its rating and actually make some money. Maybe women will come out and see the film, if only to spite other new releases like Burn After Reading and Righteous Kill. I wouldn't bet on it and right now, I'm guessing Warner Brothers wishes they went with their original plan and just dumped The Women.