Mike Judge's new film Idiocracy is brilliant. Funny. Sharp. A dead-on satire, of the kind we've come to expect from Judge, that sends up the dumbing down of America in a witty but ever-so-uncomfortably-plausible futurescape in which everyone else is such a jackass, Luke Wilson looks like a genius.

Sounds great, right? So why didn't anyone at Fox put any marketing or distribution money behind this film? It opened in seven cities with virtually no advertisting and no press screenings.

Luke Thompson, who reviewed the movie for E! offers FBLA his theory about why Fox ditched the project.

It was obvious the studio killed it -- usually, movies that don't screen for the press are promoted up the wazoo with misleading trailers, posters, etc., but this wasn't promoted at all.

It's possible Mike Judge or somebody else pissed somebody important off.

Having seen the movie, though, the best theory I have is that some of the sponsors may well have been unhappy with the way their products are placed, and made some phone calls to higher-ups. Carls Jr. is prominently mentioned, featuring their new slogan "Fuck you! I'm eating!", their "super big-ass fries," and when one woman is unable to pay for her fries, the Carls Jr. automatic dispenser calls the cops and tells her her children are now the property of Carl's Jr.

Fuddrucker's, in the film's future world, is called "Buttfucker's," and a Gatorade-like drink called Brawndo is used instead of water, which has killed off all the crops. It's a fictional product, but is explicitly compared to Gatorade at one point. Starbucks has become a brothel, offering full-body lattes.

Perhaps closer to home, Fox News features nearly nude anchors and is affiliated with "The Violence Channel." Though this seems fairly mild compared with the usual critiques of Fox News, sexual content does seem to be considered more of a stigma nowadays.

It may have been a simpler decision than that, like someone just figured they wouldn't make money from it theatrically -- but tonally and in content it's absolutely in keeping with everything Judge has ever done, most of which has made the money men very happy in the long run.