Julia Roberts Eats, Prays, Loves: But Will Anybody Pay to Watch?

Without a doubt, you'll be hearing a lot in the next few days about Julia Roberts and the August 13 opening of Eat, Pray, Love, the movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert's 2006 best seller, which now has five million copies in print.

Gilbert recounts in her journal of self-discovery how, after the break-up of her marriage, she visited Italy to learn the language and scarf the cuisine, India to study meditation, and finally Bali to find true love. Endorsed by Oprah, the memoir has become a book club favorite and has inspired others to take their own "Eat, Pray, Love" journey.

Now the question is: Will the movie be the chick-flick hit of the summer? Certainly, Hollywood needs one. Sex And The City 2, the last movie exhaustively promoted to a female audience, was a resounding flop.

Another unknown is whether fans will still come out to see Julia Roberts, once America's Pretty Woman sweetheart. Roberts hasn't carried a movie by herself in over ten years. And though Oprah's approval moves millions of books, she's got a hit-and-miss record when those books are turned into movies. (The Road, anyone?)

But Roberts is working hard to make sure the movie's a success. She is on the cover of Elle and Entertainment Weekly, she's appeared with David Letterman, and has been interviewed by major newspapers both here and abroad.

The 42-year-old Roberts told Elle why she's avoided Botox: "I want my kids to know when I'm pissed, when I'm happy, and when I'm confounded. Your face tells a story ... and it shouldn't be a story about your drive to the doctor's office."

She also joked with Letterman about her varicose veins, and she shared with Entertainment Tonight that she had gained 7 to 10 pounds in Rome during the "Eat" section of the movie. "By the time we would cut, I'd be done with an entire pizza or a whole bowl of pasta," she said. "The take would just go on and on and I'd love it."

Roberts' down-to-earth image just might get some skeptical women into the theater; even though critics of the book said that Gilbert came across as silly, self-involved and more than a bit self-satisfied: For example, the writer admitted she gained thirty pounds in Italy, but said she still looked "cute" after all that lasagna. (Little wonder that there's been a snarky backlash, a veritable "Eat, Pray, Loathe" movement.)

Most women, though, seem to adore the idea of a sensual year-long journey that features good food and gorgeous scenery, and ends with the narrator in the arms of a hunky Brazilian (played in the movie by Javier Bardem).

And the book title itself, with its distinctive typography of pasta, prayer beads and flowers, has spawned a flood of licensed merchandise, ranging from Fresh's new trio of fragrances (guess what they're called) to an Eat, Pray, Love "shop" within World Marketplace stores.

And starting on August 6, the Home Shopping Network is selling a multitude of Eat, Pray, Love items from Italy, India and Indonesia. And then there are the many tours being offered by travel agents replicating Gilbert's self-seeking wanderings.

But in the summer-movie sweepstakes, how will the ultra-feminine Eat, Pray, Love do against its most powerful competitor, the testosterone fest The Expendables? (Ironically, that movie, which also opens Aug. 13, features Julia's brother, Eric Roberts.) The difference between the two films is so great that couples may choose to have a split multiplex evening: he goes to one theater, she goes to another. Even better, they might just decide that they'll see both movies together.

That, of course, would be the ultimate happy ending for Hollywood.