IT sounds like a surefire hit for the Christmas movie season: bosomy showgirls snorting cocaine in a Las Vegas hot tub. A rowdy, Scotch-guzzling hedonist splashing in there with them. Oh, he’s also a congressman. Then there’s a rogue C.I.A. operative. Big names on the marquee: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman. All this, and the story is true.

But Mr. Hanks said he and executives at Universal Pictures fear that “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which opens on Friday, could be a dud.

The problem isn’t the sex-and-drugs part, but that “Charlie Wilson’s War” is also about Afghanistan, military spending bills and kids with their arms blown off. A mere whiff of more depressing headlines out of the Middle East may be enough to drive some people home to watch a DVD of the Yule log.