Now on ScienceBlogs: Oh, no! School wi-fi is making our kids sick! (2012 edition)

ScienceBlogs Book Club: Inside the Outbreaks

Search

Profile

pzm_profile_pic.jpg
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
zf_pharyngula.jpg …and this is a pharyngula stage embryo.
a longer profile of yours truly
my calendar
Nature Network
RichardDawkins Network
facebook
MySpace
Twitter
Atheist Nexus
the Pharyngula chat room
(#pharyngula on irc.synirc.net)



I reserve the right to publicly post, with full identifying information about the source, any email sent to me that contains threats of violence.

scarlet_A.png
I support Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Random Quote

Any Latter-day Saint who denounces or opposes, whether actively or otherwise, any plan or doctrine advocated by the 'prophets, seers, and revelators' of the Church is cultivating the spirit of apostasy. Lucifer….wins a great victory when he can get members of the Church to speak against their leaders and to 'do their own thinking'…. "When our leaders speak, the thinking had been done. When they propose a plan — it is God's plan. When they point the way, there is no other which is safe. When they give direction, it should mark the end of controversy.

[Mormon Elder Boyd K. Packer, The Improvement Era, June 1945, pg. 354]

Recent Posts


A Taste of Pharyngula

Recent Comments

Archives


Blogroll

Other Information

« So here's how I should teach science | Main | Let's all pack up and move to Great Britain! »

More articles by PZ Myers can be found on Freethoughtblogs at the new Pharyngula!

Radio reminder

Category: Godlessness
Posted on: April 20, 2008 8:26 AM, by PZ Myers

Don't forget: 9am Sunday morning, it's time for Atheists Talk radio!

Share on Facebook
Share on StumbleUpon
Share on Facebook

Jump to end

TrackBacks

TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/69990

Comments

#1

Posted by: 386sx | April 20, 2008 10:16 AM

Pope gets ticked off at reporter in 2002 before he was Pope: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK9b2O_Wdnc

I'm sure he's much nicer now that he's the Pope though!

#2

Posted by: arensb | April 20, 2008 11:23 AM

And this afternoon, be sure to watch The Atheist Experience.

#3

Posted by: arensb | April 20, 2008 11:43 AM

386sx @#1:

I'm sure he's much nicer now that he's the Pope though!

Was it The Daily Show that said that popes started being nice when they stopped having real armies?

#4

Posted by: Steve Ulven | April 20, 2008 12:11 PM

Oh Hell! I just woke up and missed it. I am going to see the guest (Lee Salisbury) at the Roseville Library today in a couple hours, though.

#5

Posted by: just john | April 20, 2008 12:59 PM

I wish somebody in the media would say this today:

Yankee Stadium isn't for MASS.

Yankee Stadium is for ANGULAR MOMENTUM!

#6

Posted by: brokenSoldier | April 20, 2008 1:10 PM

Was it The Daily Show that said that popes started being nice when they stopped having real armies?

Posted by: arensb | April 20, 2008 11:43 AM

Yeah, I believe it was on Thursday, and it took me a few minutes to stop laughing at that one. Just like when (on Real Time) Bill Maher showed a picture of the Pope walking with the President where you could see straight through his robe, and then commented "I thought this man ran an organization famous for covering things up?"

#7

Posted by: semi | April 20, 2008 2:09 PM

Speaking of religion... :) Here are the box office results for Expelled

Expelled(receipts are estimated)
Opening weekend, 1052 theaters, weekend gross $3.15M, avg per theater $2.99K

Here are some comparisons with other documentaries' opening weekends:

Fahrenheit 9/11
Opening weekend, 868 theaters, weekend gross $23.92M, avg per theater $27.5K

Sicko
Opening weekend, 441 theaters, weekend gross $3.5M, avg per theater $3.58K

An Inconvenient Truth (results show week after it debuted in 4 theaters)
Second week, 77 theaters, 2nd week gross $1.97 M, avg per theater $17.6K

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?yr=2008&wknd=16&p=.htm

#8

Posted by: firemancarl | April 20, 2008 2:33 PM

Gosh, and they were sure it was gonna be a box office smash!

#9

Posted by: semi | April 20, 2008 8:03 PM

Yeah, there was an article in the LA Times a few days ago with happy talk from Walt Ruloff, the film's producer, predicting an opening weekend box office gross that would exceed the $24M opening weekend of Fahrenheit 9/11.

Ruloff said the film could top the $23.9-million opening for Michael Moore's polemic against President Bush, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the best launch ever for a documentary.

Fat chance! With only $3M in receipts, yet playing on more than 1050 screens, I think the opening weekend was a dismal failure, considering the amount of money and energy that went into the marketing. (The marketing budget probably exceed the production budget.)

The downside for the film's producers is that, based on this weekend's pathetic gross, they won't be able to hang on to all those screens.

$3K per showing is does not give you a long run. Their "box office legs" have been cut off at the knees.

By contrast, Sicko opened in half as many theaters, yet generated more receipts and more avg $$ per showing. And it disappeared pretty quickly.

And unlike many other films, Expelled probably won't have much of an audience in other territories or markets, as many other countries have a reality bias.:) The theme won't resonate overseas.

Expelled is destined to make its revenue being sold on DVD to church groups.

#10

Posted by: semi | April 20, 2008 8:09 PM

One more data point:

The average cost of film release prints is around $2K per print. So figure that Expelled blew at least $2M on release prints alone, and now they will lose a bunch of screens because of their poor receipts, and you will understand the magnitude of this disaster.

#11

Posted by: Seth | April 21, 2008 8:35 AM

I was expecting it to be much worse (meaning Expelled would do much better) after listening to the Skepticality with Dawkins and Michael Shermer.

It was surprising to hear from Shermer that he thought Expelled would accomplish its mission with great effect. After all most of the people who are actually interested in seeing it would carry an ID bias to begin with.

Worse than anything I lament any respect I once had for Ben. I used to love Win Ben Stein's money. A pity.

#12

Posted by: mothra | April 21, 2008 3:54 PM

@9 After the lawsuits for copyright infringement from maybe Harvard, PBS, Yoko Ohno, the profit margin will be still further reduced (or extinguished) and there will be no DVD sales without substantial reworking- even more expense! +_+

I have brought up the subject of this movie to people outside of the sciences and who are not religious zealots. The comments have ALL taken the form that this is a poorly done comedy and not worth watching, i.e. the Expelled people also flunked Advertising and Media methodology 101. They targeted the wrong demographic.

Leave a comment

HTML commands: <i>italic</i>, <b>bold</b>, <a href="url">link</a>, <blockquote>quote</blockquote>

Site Meter

ScienceBlogs

Search ScienceBlogs:

Go to:

Advertisement
Follow ScienceBlogs on Twitter

© 2006-2011 ScienceBlogs LLC. ScienceBlogs is a registered trademark of ScienceBlogs LLC. All rights reserved.