Newmarket's very controversial Death of a President (91 theaters) did only $.06 mil Friday with a pathetic per screen average of $673 for should be a $0.21 weekend. The Weinstein Company's Dixie Chicks documentary Shut Up & Sing (4 theaters) took in $0.01 mil Friday and a disappointing $2,867 per screen average for what should be a $.04 mil weekend.
October 28, 2006
Do you think we can predict what's going to happen in the election...
... by looking how certain movies are doing this weekend?
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28 comments:
Yeah, people want to be out with friends and family... watching "Saw."
Funny, I haven't seen a single ad for either one of those movies.
Do people even know they're out?
I think this could cut the other way as well. F911 does booming business, dems loose. Similarly lame caricutarized lefty positions didn't do so well this year. Maybe the result will be different . . . .
Geesh. Law of Small Numbers.
no, but we can predict what happens when studios release awful movies.
If you haven't seen ads, it's because you don't live in the few cities where they are released. (I've seen the ads in the NYT!) The point is that the per screen average is terrible, that with a small, focused release in the places that are expected to be most receptive, the movies have been big disappointments. This isn't a question of the competition with the widely released, highly commercial movies.
I guess my point is that the fact that even the faithful doesn't come out to see these movies means that they are becoming wiser!
The movies sound terrible and probably should not have been released to begin with.
Also, you should take into account two other movies:
Talladega, which fared pretty well at the box office: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=talladeganights.htm
and Borat, whose pre-release buzz has sparked a bidding war:
http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=723d67f8-d64b-44ab-8c5d-16fd0dac70e4
Both of those films comedically smash everything red (including gratuitous shots at Bush in both). They did (and in the case of Borat will probably do) pretty well.
Even here in ultra liberal land of Monterey California, I believe it is only on one screen between here and Santa Cruz, and it is in the art movie theater that maybe has a 100 seats or less.
Christy,
I remember when country music wasn't in lockstep with the establishment or a political party. Go back and listen to some Johnny Cash, some Porter and Dolly. I'm a longtime country listener--since birth, basically, and I'm a big fan of the Dixie Chicks. There's nothing to forgive in my view. They're not the only Texans who disavow George II.
On the other hand, I also have zero interest in seeing the assassination movie. I haven't talked to anyone who's even vaguely interested in it.
Maybe movie goers are sick of politics.
Does anyone remember when we had a decent movie season...I would hate to think our political state could ever be congruent with what Hollywood is or isn't putting out or making money on.
Ditto about Flags of our Fathers. I heard the author of the movie interviewed on a radio show.
I wanted to fly to California and choke Clint Eastwood myself for directing such trash, careful not to finish him off completely since it could be considered euthanasia, but just to incapacitate him enough where he could stop putting out STUPID movies (Million Dollar Baby--Oscar?--ARE YOU BLEEDING KIDDING ME?).
Basically this guy--the author--the son of a WWII vet honors his father's memory by selling out his war history, giving Hollywood free reign to jump on it and do its best to make WWII into Vietnam.
Disgusting.
The problem with the Dixie Chicks wasn't Maines' statement. That could have been forgiven. It was the totally classless way they acted afterward they killed their careers.
"Yeah, people want to be out with friends and family... watching "Saw.""
The family that slays together, stays together.
Well let's hope Republicans think that simplistically.
I'm looking forward to seeing them in shock on Nov. 7th about how many seats they've lost. They need to see how out of touch they are with this country.
I know political orientation plays a part in some of this, but the fact is that I haven't seen anything that can drag me into a theatre for 3 hours. I've got two little ones, and when I get out with my beautiful wife, I don't want to deal with politics. The only thing I'm looking forward to is the 300 coming out next year. I've got the trailer at http://www.lapeerliving.blogspot.com - now this looks like a movie I'll spend my money and time on.
I guess it shows that people really can tell simulated blood and gore from the real thing. We pay 8 bucks a seat for the former, but can download Zarqawi sawing off an American's head for real from the internet. Funny, though, how the Hollywood crowd keeps making ultraviolent films while contributing to anti-war causes. It's hard to see them as "pacifists" when they turn out dreck like
"Saw N".
I think that the teen gore genre is fueled by men and boys who like being grabbed by their girlfriend during the scary scenes.
The only thing the Chicks and Death of a President receipts show is that people are really sick of politics, especially the kind that reeks of hate.
The former is typical of cranks who aspire to be avant-garde but are only in bad taste. The latter is just a case of silly whining. They're Barbra Streisand times 3.
"It was the totally classless way they acted afterward they killed their careers."
Yeah, they've had a number one album since and make millions... you should have such a "killed" career, you fucking loser.
Meanwhile, that "boot in the ass" guy can't get a gig as a janitor in Branson. Oh, well...
Umm, the "boot in the ass" guy, better known as Toby Keith, had a new album this spring that hit #2 on the Billboard Country Charts, with over a million copies sold.
He's also got a disturbingly popular restaurant/bar at Harrah's casino in Vegas.
The till does not seem to point in any direction. Who cares about the "Death of a President"--it sounded pretty stupid when it made waves with its initial release and it does not appeal any more now. The conservative talking heads tried to claim--with absolutely no substantiation--that this crap would appeal to liberals. Clearly, it did not. Besides, it's not a major production, so the numbers may or may not be disappointing.
As for the Dixie Chicks, I don't understand the appeal that this could possibly have. First, it's a documentary, which pretty much means that it's a dud. Aside from the March of the Penguins, the Al Gore spectacular and, to a lesser extent, the Michael Moore releases, there has been no success among documentaries. This one sounds like a turkey from the start. Dixie Chicks do not appeal to the kind of viewer who would be intelligent enough to care and they no longer appeal to the idiots who are too dumb to uderstand the message. Besides, the latter would not be caught dead at a documentary.
So, it seems that these films are lost without a niche. This has nothing to do with politics.
I think movies like "Saw" are noting but porn for sadists. Very disturbing.
Fenrisulven, is Red Dawn, then, porn for rednecks? If you mean that this kind of horror films have no redeeming qualities other than a very narrow one-off sort of entertainment, then there is a parallel with porn here. However, you specifically mentioned sadists, which is puzzling--given the success of this crap, there must be a lot of sadists in the good ol' USA, and most of them are Republicans.
To answer the post's question...
Absolutely not. There's no evidence that October election-year box office figures reflect election results. Farenheit 9/11's excellent grosses were cold comfort to John Kerry's campaign headquarters in 2004. The fact that no one wanted to watch a leaden, self-serious film about a dead veteran's parent killing the president has no bearing on the GOP carrying the House next month.
As for the artistic merits of "Assasination" and the Dixie Chicks film, most reviewers quickly rejected them. Aping various political tropes doesn't help if a film amounts to a two-hour collection of trite, self-satisified cliches designed for cheap amens from 3/4-empty art theater sceenings.
The failures of these two movies does say something rather important about the voters, or at least those that vote with dollars.
F911 had a very good take, but fairly well limited to big cities, mirroring the Kerry vote. Gore's eco-monster movie was quite the same. The dismal showing for the two new films in these key locales suggests that the market for BDS is waning. The remainder bins at the bookstore tell a similar story.
The races are going to be close, no wipeout either way, but I see less success for the BDS crowd.
P.S. I am so disappointed to read the comments about Eastwood's flick, I am not going to see it tonight. Rats.
The Dixie Chicks are country - did country ever sell well with elitist liberals? Nope.
They lost their base and like someone said before, anti-Bush types who never liked country types were only capable of buying maybe one CD and attending one concert at most to prove a point. After that, they left. Now the Chicks are heading to the bargin shelf and the casino circuit.
And how about Air America? It just failed so is that another indicator of how the election is going to go? If so it doesn't bode well for the Dems taking too many seats back.
Finally, if you want to hear a great country music song that involves politics about the war, do a search for Australian artist Beccy Cole and check out her "Poster Girl" video. It is a fantastic song that presents a reasonable message on the war and politics - not that angry Dixie Chick tripe.
I think that the problem with many polls is that they are agenda driven rather than information seeking. I mean, who trusts the NYT to seek the facts? Seriously!
So the way that movies sell MIGHT actually be a valid means of inferring the public's mood and this MIGHT yield some decent predictive data.
In regards to the Dixie Chicks, I enjoy the couple of their records that I have. (Yes, I have the records!!!! Not small and silver but big and black.) While we disagree on our politics, I expect entertainers to be self-absorbed ninnys so while I listen to their music I do not care one whit about their politics. Just as I am not interested in Dick Cheney's thoughts on songwriting.
Now, some entertainers are so obnoxious and vapid that they become repugnant: See Alec Baldwin. Others become hilarious: See Sean Penn. Then there are those that become sad: See Mel Gibson.
Trey
50 Years Ago....
Films of 1956...
The Searchers
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The Ten Commandments
Written on the Wind
Forbidden Planet
The Man Who Knew Too Much
High Society
Moby Dick
The Wrong Man
Godzilla
Giant
Davy Crockett and the River Pirates
and
Plan Nine from Outer Space
Let Hungary burn in hell...we're too busy going to the movies!
Re: the Dixie Chicks
They forgot what their product was. They bore the market consequences. Life is a great teacher.
Re: Toby Keith
I like his James-Taylor-style song about the Taliban. Just googled and found out it's on the Shock'N Y'All album. (I'm not generally a country music fan, although I do have some Dixie Chicks!) Frequently requested and played on Bob and Tom.
Make of it what you will, but "Death of a President" isn't showing in Dallas yet. The theatre owners say it's a shortage of screen space, but there are still some people here who are pretty sensitive on the subject of presidential assassinations, as you might well imagine.
Hollywood is indeed capable of making patriotic and/or military-friendly movies. They just only do it during Democratic administrations.
See, e.g., "Independence Day," "Air Force One," "Behind Enemy Lines," etc. Stupid movies all, but the Americans were the good guys. And can you imagine a President being portrayed as heroically as was done in the former two movies, with a Republican in the White House?
I think I'll vote for the donks in 2008 just so my screenplay will have a snowball's chance in Miami of getting made.
I think movies like "Saw" are noting but porn for sadists. Very disturbing.
I agree. I'm also of the perspective that a person doesn't have a true appreciation of film as a art if he cannot appreciate the artistic value of movies across all genres. In the case of "Saw," however, I think there is a point at which the director is simply abusing his audience. And then I'll do this, and that will be grosser than anything they've ever seen! I don't go to movies to have a director vomit a bunch of meaningless sick imagery into my head. This new strain of horror movies seeking to do just that are lazy. It's easier to focus on sick than on story.
Fen,
The comparison between "nigger" and "redneck" is certainly not apt. Sure, you can find both of them in contexts where they are meant as anti-insults (mostly the "in" crowd). However, I have a number of friends--and know others whom I do not generally consider "friends"--who have no problem with the word "redneck". I suppose, one could say that "redneck" is an insult if you mean it as such, but not otherwise.
As for your point, I suppose, you are suggesting that Roots has no artistic merit. I find that hard to understand. Red Dawn was blatant propaganda even when it was made, let alone now. It has no redeeming artistic or literary qualities (at least, no more so than Turtle Diaries).
As an aside, I noticed that a number of posts have been removed "by the administrator". I find it interesting that yours was not among them (although I don't think you meant any offense). I also find it ironic that a Con Law professor finds it necessary to censor her blog. Of course, this necessity is more of a condemnation of the posters than it is of the blog owner.
...the idiots who are so dumb they only want to hear messages that feed their hate.
Given the number of false and misleading election ads by the RNC this season (including what amounts to "You can't let them take Congress because they will investigate us! Oh, no!!!"), this seems to be a very accurate description of today's self-described Republicans. But that was not the target of my initial comment. I was talking about the book/music burning crowd that gathered in response to hate-mongering by talking heads. Some of them might have been Republicans, but that was not what they had in common--they were all easily led by demagogues. That's how Hitler came to power.
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