Box Office Magic
I just wanted to share this, because lots of conservatives complain that Hollywood censors them, makes it impossible for their message of conservatism to get out, and that given the chance, people would flock to their movies. So this weekend, "An American Carol" officially opened. It had press, it had advertising, the whole works. I saw a handful of the commercials myself. So how did it fare?
Click the image to embiggen.
Ninth, just ahead of Bill Maher's anti-religion film "Religulous." Well, at least they beat the dirty god-haters, right?
Not really. Maher's film did almost exactly three times as much per screen as "An American Carol." I get the feeling Maher's film will be in the theaters a bit longer than the Kevin Farley vehicle with the Bill O'Reilly cameo.
Now, you can't really credit this to the taste of the movie going public--"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" led the weekend after all--but here was a movie that had some names in it. Kelsey Grammer, Leslie Nielsen, Dennis Hopper, James Woods, and Jon Voight have all led big time movies--okay, Grammer has been in a few blockbusters, but never as lead--but these aren't nobodies. You'd think that if conservative movie goers were champing at the bit to go see conservative actors take a whack at everybody's favorite lefty whipping boy, Michael Moore, they'd have done better than $2,325 a screen.
I guess that's because conservatives have absolutely NO sense of humor. Hell, even the trailers--you know, where they pick the "best" scenes--weren't funny.
Paul in Boca said...
9:35 PM
When did Dennis Hopper -- Mr. easy rider -- become a conservative?
veteran novice said...
10:21 PM
novice: I wondered exactly the same thing. Turns out he became a Republican during the Reagan revolution. (Warning! Freep link!)
Judging by that Freep article, he doesn't sound like a particularly ideological Republican, but rather like the victim of his own acid-head illogic.
Cris said...
4:42 PM
... actually, disregard my warning: go read that article. Read the last two paragraphs, and the comments. Remind yourself that Freepers have always hated John McCain.
Cris said...
4:44 PM
You've already hit on it-the counter argument would be that they opened on half the number of screens as larger films, but at an average of twenty-five hundred or so per screen, it's not likely to get you a lot more when those screens can go to opening movies that will get a thousand or more dollars a week.
The real telling point, however, will be next week. Will word of mouth drive the film, or will it have a drop off? Most films can survive a 30% drop if they have strong opening weekends, but if American Carol gets that you can expect it's third week to look like Religious' first week in number of screens, if that.
Walrus said...
2:13 AM
I don't know if you'll see this or care (damn you blog moves fast these days, I feel like such a slacker...)
but Religulous has moved ahead of American Carrol, which suffered a 61.8% drop to make $861 per screen-Religulous earned twice as much on almost a third of the screens.
Stressing that again-American Carrol, which has wider audience access with almost three time the screens, made half as much in its second week as Religulous. Religulous is about to top Expelled as top grossing documentary of the year, as well.
Walrus said...
5:08 AM