There’s an LA Times story this morning about how Paramount has promoted Apatow-com Drillbit Taylor around the fact that star Owen Wilson has done no interviews, in fear of having to answer questions about last summer’s suicide attempt. Instead of talking to reporters, Wilson taped “Drillbit-themed introductions to Fox’s Sunday-night prime-time lineup.” If there are three steps to managing a celebrity scandal––denial, confirmation, confession––the Wilson camp has chosen to remain mired in Step 1 for going on seven months, a stunning and curious feat in the era of confession as commodity.

After enumerating a number of projects fatally wounded by the unsavory off-hours activity of their stars, LAT writers John Horn and Gina Piccalo note in the last paragraph that Nine Months, the Hugh Grant film that was released just two weeks after the star was caught with a prostitute, grossed $70 million––according to this chart, more than Dumb and Dumber, Bad Boys or Babe, all of which spawned sequels.  The Hugh Grant scandal seems to represent a turning point in spin: by appearing on any show that would have him the day before his movie’s premiere and talking about the hooker incident directly and self-mockingly,  Grant was able to completely deflate the issue, successfully turning confession into commercial.

Of course, Drillbit Taylor is probably not the film that’s going to benefit from a star divulging details on his darkest hour. It also seems pretty clear that even if there wasn’t a suicide attempt to avoid talking about, Drillbit isn’t exactly the calibre of film that would be worth speaking to interviewers about in any kind of depth. Horn and Piccalo note that Wilson could have offered interviews to every magazine and talk show in town, and it probably wouldn’t have much of an impact on Drillbit’s box office success––apparently, 12 year old boys don’t watch Access Hollywood these days. On some level, the scandal management tactic of keeping Wilson away from interviewers might be a mask, materially equivalent to witholding a “review-proof” (read: shit) film from critics. If this gambit pays off, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that other studios will try the same tactic the next time they have a biggish star anchoring a low-brow film.

But what about Wilson’s next film? What’s the statute of limitations on a scandal–how long can a star expect to be able to keep quiet about an unpleasant event, how long can tabloids convert that silence into mystery, and how long after a scandal can we reasonably expect the public to remain hungry for details? Can a star stay away from the media forever?