Chris O’Donnell, who has a role in Mark Wahlberg’s fall-debuting “Max Payne” feature, scoffs word that the filmmakers are trying to get a PG 13 rating for the adaptation of the violent, hugely popular video game.

“Good luck.  I’ve been doing my ADR (post-production audio recording) and seeing the footage, it’s just not appropriate for kids on too many levels.  For adults, yes.  Very entertaining.  I’m a big fan of Mark Wahlberg.”

O’Donnell has strong views about what is and is not okay for children these days.  That’s not surprising, considering that the actor, who rose to fame with films including “Batman Forever” and “Scent of a Woman,” has five offspring of his own – three boys, two girls, ranging from eight years to six months old.

“At home, I hear ‘Dad!’ about a hundred times a day.  That’s what it’s all about for me,” says Chris, who’s been married to Caroline Fentress since 1997.

He complains that he’s “seen most of the kids’ films that are out there now, and a lot of films that say they’re PG are really not appropriate for children.’”

That’s not the case, he points out, with his latest movie, “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl’s Story,” opening in limited release Friday (6/20) – widening July 2.  In it, he plays papa to the title character portrayed by Abigail Breslin.  Also starring Julia Ormand, Joan Cusack and Stanley Tucci, the movie is set during the Great Depression of the 1930s, complete with home foreclosures and soup kitchens.  O’Donnell’s character loses his car dealership.

“You want to protect your kids from the harsh realities of life, but there come times when those realities intervene,” he notes.

O’Donnell tells us there’s a film shooting in Boston this summer that might be in his future, but “I’m hoping to stay closer to home – maybe do a cable series.  I like the fact that they do fewer episodes than network shows.  The pace is more of what I’m used to than ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ was.  On one-hour shows, the pace is overwhelming.”

MEANWHILE: Abigail Breslin is looking forward to some down time now that “Kit Kittredge” is almost launched — on the heels of her “Nim’s Island,” on the heels of “Definitely, Maybe.”  The busy 12-year-old 2006 Oscar nominee (“Little Miss Sunshine”) also has “My Sister’s Keeper” with Cameron Diaz in the can.  She tells us that now, “I’m just going to hang out at home and have sleepovers and stuff like that.  And my family’s going to Prince Edward Island” for vacation.  Still, she has her sites set on what’s next.  “I would like to play Helen Keller or Lady Jane Gray.  I just read a book about her, and she was the Queen of England for nine days.  I just thought that was really interesting.”

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: Jamie Lynn Spears has brought teen pregnancy to the forefront this year, which makes the new ABC Family drama “Secret Life of the American Teenager” all the more relevant.  ”You deal with teen pregnancy and a lot of time people try to avoid talking about stuff like that, but it’s true to society,” notes newcomer Daren Kagasoff, who is starring alongside veteran actors Molly Ringwald, John Schneider and Ernie Hudson in the show that deals with an unexpected teen pregnancy.  ”Like with Jamie Lynn Spears, things happen and you deal with them in whatever way is morally correct in your mind.  Our show keeps you updated with what’s going on in real life and how some people choose to handle these situations.”

The show, premiering July 1, is Brenda Hampton’s latest project after her long run with the other show she created “7th Heaven.”

While Kagasoff wasn’t the studio’s first choice to be one of the main teens, he tells us he couldn’t believe how much Hampton fought for him.  ”They weren’t sure about me because I had no prior experience acting in front of the camera.  They wanted to audition other people with more experience, but I guess nobody really caught their eye so Brenda Hampton pushed for me. She came to my house with a dozen roses to tell me I got the part.  It’s a moment I’ll never forget.”

BIGGER SCENE: When “Law & Order: SVU” producer Neal Baer finds himself with any free time from the show, he turns to “my other side of my life, doing photographic projects with www.joinipe.org – the Institute for Photographic Empowerment.  The idea is to give cameras to people who are traditionally disenfranchised and give them a chance to tell their own stories.”  The endeavor has brought forth video from young people in several far-flung locales, including “AIDS orphans in Mozambique and South Africa,” according to Baer.  It’s also, he says, led to a forthcoming book and documentary that Baer reports “We’re cutting right now.”

“Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” has no sex and not much of a city.

But this G-rated movie adventure is shaping up as Hollywood’s next serious bid for female viewers, some of whom showed their power by pushing the R-rated comedy “Sex and the City” to surprisingly strong first-weekend ticket sales of more than $57 million two weeks ago.

At first glance, the films have little in common, apart from their skew toward the female.

“Sex” runs hot, while “Kit” — scheduled for wide release on July 2, the same day as “Hancock,” starring Will Smith — does not. Fans of the fictional Manhattan writer Carrie Bradshaw, the heroine of “Sex and the City,” are often over 40. Ms. Kittredge, an aspiring reporter based on Mattel’s incredibly popular American Girl doll of the same name, mostly appeals to girls between 7 and 12.

Yet the films have a certain kinship. Each was made by a studio — “Kit” by Picturehouse, “Sex” by New Line Cinema — that was only weeks ago marked for elimination by the same corporate parent, Time Warner Inc.

And “Kit” has a shot at attracting an intense niche audience of the sort that boosted “Sex” at a time of year that has become better known for fantasies like the “Spider-Man” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, with their broad demographic appeal.

“I’m scared out of my mind,” said Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, a producer of “Kit Kittredge,” speaking by telephone last week. She was referring to an unconventional decision by Picturehouse executives to open this relatively small film in around 1,800 theaters, putting it in competition with potential blockbusters like “Hancock,” from Sony Pictures, and “Wall-E,” from the Walt Disney Company’s Pixar Animation Studios.

“Kit,” which cost about $10 million to produce, stars Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”) and features an ensemble that mingles unknown child actors with adult pros like Julia Ormond, Stanley Tucci, Chris O’Donnell and Joan Cusack. Set in 1934, it tells the story of a Cincinnati girl who is trying to get the local newspaper to take her seriously as a reporter, even as her family and just about everyone else struggles with the Great Depression.

(Julia Roberts, a client of Ms. Goldsmith-Thomas when she was a talent agent, is an executive producer of “Kit.” The two were among those with producing credits on earlier television movies based on three other American Girls: Molly, Felicity and Samantha.)

That quite so innocent an enterprise should be in a position to challenge much racier movies with much higher budgets has much to do with the promotional power of American Girl, which, like HBO’s long-running “Sex and the City” series, is helping to prime loyal fans for a first film based on the brand.

In the toy world, American Girl’s characters — “they never refer to them as ‘dolls,’ ” Bob Berney, the president of Picturehouse, said in an interview last week — are unusual in that they come with detailed story lines, from various eras, delivered in books that accompany each figure.

Kit Kittredge, spunky and a bit confused by the economic crunch around her, has been the central character in a half-dozen titles that have contributed to the sale of some 120 million books since the company was founded in 1986, said Ellen Brothers, American Girl’s president and a producer of the film.

“We approve all the marketing,” Ms. Brothers said, describing her company’s close involvement with the making and selling of the movie. And American Girl has been using its considerable reach to promote what it is calling “Kit’s Big-Screen Debut.”

The company’s mail-order catalog, a primary engine for sales, has a blurb promoting the movie on its May cover. Cities with American Girl retail outlets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and suburban Atlanta — will get to see the movie early, beginning on June 20. That first round is being helped along on the Web with Kit’s movie blog and, at the Grove shopping mall in Los Angeles, with the giveaway of “Kit’s Home on Abbott Place,” an elaborate playhouse built by Pardee Homes as part of a benefit for the homeless.

Last Saturday mothers and daughters trooped through the siding- and stone-veneered structure to admire it, and to donate $5 for “opportunity tickets” — never say “raffle” — that buy a shot at taking it home. “ ‘Win Me?’ ” one mother gasped, reading a sign outside, “Oh, my God!”

Other plans include movie-night dinners at the in-store American Girl cafes, which begin to sound, at least a little, like the viewing parties that pushed “Sex and the City” over the top during its May 30 opening weekend.

Allie Mayer, a publicist for movietickets.com, said the service had seen “steady activity” since it began selling tickets for the early engagement last month.

Mr. Berney said a box-office success would be “a little bittersweet”: His company will remain intact only long enough to release its existing films, including “Kit,” “Mongol” and “The Women” (scheduled for fall). To date, the studio’s biggest box-office hit has been “Pan’s Labyrinth,” which took in $37.6 million at the domestic box office in 2006.

If “Kit” works, its success would owe something not just to the promotions, but also to the straight-shooting approach of a director, Patricia Rozema, whose earlier work includes “Mansfield Park” (1999) for Miramax.

“I don’t think you talk down to children when you make a movie for them,” Ms. Rozema said. She spoke in a telephone interview about Kit’s rather intricate on-screen problem, which include doubts about a father, played by Mr. O’Donnell, who leaves home in search of work, and no small difficulties with a newspaper editor played by Wallace Shawn.

Still, Kit preserves her G-rated innocence, something Ms. Rozema said had become too rare, even in films aimed at the young. (“Bratz: The Movie,” which was based on a doll line and took in about $10 million for Lionsgate last summer, was rated PG.)

“They don’t need to be rattled,” she said. “They’re rattled enough.”