With great sadness, we report the preemptive failure of the latest bid by Katie Holmes, serious actress, to prove her acting mettle. Page Six reports that the Holmesbot, who is preparing for her starring role in Broadway’s revival of Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons,” hasn’t been much of a draw for ticket sales:

“Where are all the Scientologists? Don’t they want to see her?” jokes one person, who requested anonymity for fear that the followers of L. Ron Hubbard would hunt him down and make him read all 10 volumes of “Mission Earth.”

“I bought 1,000 tickets to the show,” says one broker. “I still have them.”

The advance for “All My Sons,” which opens in September, is said to be less than $1 million. Contrast that with the $4 million advance Cruise’s ex-wife Nicole Kidman racked up in 1998, when she made her Broadway debut in David Hare’s “The Blue Room.” Kidman was not, it must be remembered, a big star in her own right back then. But because she was (1) very good in the play and (2) naked (for about a minute), she set the town on fire. Scalpers were getting $700 for seats in the balcony - even after critics gave the production lukewarm reviews.

The article goes on to partially excuse the Holmesbot’s drag in ticket sales by means of a flagging economy, which assumes that NYC residents will no longer shell out the big bucks for an evening on Broadway. Without even taking inflation, which would make it easier for Holmes to reach Kidman’s 10-year record, into account, a quick bit of research disproves the recession-based justification for lower ticket sales. While NYC isn’t immune from economic downturns that strike the rest of the country, the Big Apple has maintained “a counterbalance against recession that few other American cities share: A rising tide of free-spending foreign visitors.” The weak U.S. dollar means that, in comparison, the Euro goes much further, so foreign tourism has actually increased by $560 million in NYC alone:

Foreign tourists are filling up the tables at the city’s pricier restaurants. Danny Meyer, who operates several highly rated restaurants in Manhattan, said he started printing the wine list at the Modern, the restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art, in euros to impress upon tourists what bargains the bottles are. Broadway theaters are still filling up at an average ticket price of more than $75 and the city’s hotels remain nearly full at the highest room rates ever.

Hmm… it looks like the economy shouldn’t be affecting Holmes’ Broadway debut at all.

Meanwhile, Tom Cruise is keeping a rather low profile, and, since Will Smith is already promoting Hancock in the midst of the Scientology school scandal, there will be none of this:

However, someone has talked a bit of sense into The Poison Dwarf, for the Cruise has decided not to proceed with a planned Presidential turn for the 28th Amendment film. Instead, Tommy is in negotiations for “an espionage thriller called Edwin A. Salt,” which will allow the Cruise to pull the persecution card as an on-the-lam CIA agent, who has been accused of being a traitor and must clear his own name. Methinks someone is projecting.