Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Box Office Prophets – The Art of Self-Censorship

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Box Office Prophets, in the weekend wrapup:

Eighth spot goes to Horton Hears a Who!, the six-week-old kids flick from Dr. Seuss. Horton earned another $3.5 million, and drops 41%. The CGI animated blockbuster has now earned $144.4 million, and is Jim Carrey’s seventh film to gross more than $125 million at the domestic box office. It recently crossed the $100 million mark at overseas cinemas as well.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a film that I am going to decline comment on. It earned $3.2 million from 1,052 venues.

Finishing tenth is George Clooney’s Leatherheads, a gamble that didn’t pay off. Leatherheads earned $3 million in its third weekend, and falls 52% after losing 51% last weekend. It has a total now of $26.6 million, but carries a budget of $60 million.

I wonder why he has no problem commenting on any other movie? Is it because he can’t bring himself to say that Expelled broke the top ten in total box office receipts? Or maybe he could but doesn’t want to read all the hate mail from the Darwinistas if he says something honest and objective about Expelled’s performance?

I’m betting on what’s behind door #2 – he doesn’t want the hate mail.

Maybe Mr. Hamman will enlighten us someday.

Comments
We’re Number 9! We’re Number 9!... Ruh-roh. Guess who didn’t do so well at the box office this weekend? “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” a rare documentary opening in wide release, debuted at No. 9 with $3.1 million. Released by Rocky Mountain Pictures, the film features...JABbering Stooge
April 21, 2008
April
04
Apr
21
21
2008
03:38 PM
3
03
38
PM
PDT
Nathan, Good question. I have no answers yet. I will say, that the marketing budget is not fixed. I expect if revenues are hefty, they'll reinvest some in coming weeks to market it even more. The LA Times reports Expelled's total budget up till now is in the single digit millions. So wiki seems reasonably accurate. Let's say that the movie makes $30,000,000 over the next few weeks. It would be wise for the Expelled producers to invest in international and DvD markets afterwords. The nice thing at that point is that the marketing budget will be scalable to profits versus having to fork it out of their own pockets like they did at the start. Note Expelled did better than any other movie on Sunday relative to Saturday. It is #1 in that regard. In fact that it was Stellar!! This bodes very well for the future of the movie in coming weeks!!! The movie has energized the viral marketing. I'm hopeful the Expelled crew will be wealthy and rewarded quite well for their good work.scordova
April 21, 2008
April
04
Apr
21
21
2008
09:31 AM
9
09
31
AM
PDT
Does anyone know what the budget to actually film Expelled was? I have been seeing banner ads for the film for months so I know they must have spent a fortune in advertising. Wikipedia says it was 3.5 million but there's no telling how accurate that is. I know its only been out for a week so there's still hope for it to do better. I was just curious and haven't had any luck confirming this elsewhere.Nathan
April 21, 2008
April
04
Apr
21
21
2008
08:44 AM
8
08
44
AM
PDT

Leave a Reply