Even the might of the movies has to bow to the power of football. During the last World Cup the studios made the mistake of releasing a string of "chick flicks" confident that thousands of football widows would flood the cinemas.
They could not have been more wrong. As research later revealed, 40% of women preferred to stay at home and watch the football.
This time Hollywood is conceding defeat by offloading a whole flock of turkeys and saccharine dross during June.
Blockbusters such as Mel Gibson's latest Brit-basher, The Patriot; George Clooney in The Perfect Storm, and Mission Impossible 2, for which Tom Cruise did his own stunts, have ducked out of a clash with Euro 2000. All three will be released later in the summer.
Instead, those who try to escape Euro 2000 fever in the cinema will have to make do with the sugary romance Return To Me, starring X-Files actor David Duchovny; The Next Best Thing, the latest proof of Madonna's limitations as an actor, or the grisly prospect of Sandra Bullock playing a drug-guzzling newspaper columnist in 28 Days.
For connoisseurs of the truly awful, there is The Barber Of Siberia, starring Richard Harris and Julia Ormond, which was cut in half before its premiere at Cannes last year but still bombed.
In among these films that have already flopped in the US, there are gems such as Woody Allen's Sweet And Lowdown, starring Sean Penn and Londoner Samantha Morton - which is considered soccer-proof - and Gladiator is expected to roar on unchallenged at the top of the box office charts.
There is also Chicken Run to look forward to, the first feature film from the creators of Wallace and Gromit, Aardman. But it will not open until June 30, by which time the distributors reckon England will be safely home with their tails between their legs.
The new British distributor, Momentum Film, hopes to tempt out older women who still seem to be immune to football, to see a version of Noel Coward's Relative Values following the unexpected hit last summer of Tea With Mussolini.
But Mary Scott, of Screen International, said distributors who had their fingers burned during the World Cup of 1998 are reluctant to take any chances. "June is always a slow month, and despite all their efforts during the World Cup it was still very slow."
If there is little comfort in the cinema for those who loath football, there is always the television. Next Monday night, when England play Portugal, This Life is finally being given a late night re-run on BBC2. Or to placate the non-sporting viewers Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway is being shown during the first match today.
Channel 4 has put together a formidable "girlie" combination with Little Women, Four Weddings And A Funeral and a documentary about eternal Bridget Joneses, Always The Bridesmaid, which will go head-to-head with England's clash with Germany on June 17.
With thousands queuing every day for Tate Modern, the most sublime alternative to the football has to be the Kirov Ballet's month long sojourn at the Royal Opera House, where it is performing its spectacular original 1890 version of Sleeping Beauty. English National Ballet is staging an equally lavish modern version at the Royal Albert Hall, and in the West End, Cava, an epic musical set in Moorish Spain opens at the Victoria Palace Theatre.
For classical music-lovers the Aldeburgh festival runs for the next three weeks. And for every other sort of music Glastonbury festival will be making its annual splash on the weekend of June 23-25.
