After repeatedly make the same "up is down" blunder Tim Blair has at last switched from talking about An Inconvenient Truth's average take per theatre to the total take:
Nathan Goulding discovers an inconvenient fact: "You may not have heard, but the film WordPlay is the only movie on this BoxOfficeMojo chart that's been out for 4 weeks or longer and has grossed less money than Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth."
This can mean only one thing -- the average take per theatre has increased. And sure enough, the weekend take per theatre increased from $2,044 to $2,273. And on a per theatre basis it beat all of the movies that Goulding referred to. It's about to become the third most popular documentary ever made, but Goulding calls it a "big flop". What has been a big flop are the desperate attempts to pretend that a very successful documentary flopped. And there is no excuse for Gould's conduct the article clearly states:
Thanks to his labor both on and off the screen, An Inconvenient Truth has grossed $15 million in the U.S., and it is projected to earn another $10-15 million with its release overseas next month (along with nobody-knows-how-many-more-million when the DVD arrives this fall). No, these aren't Pirates-size (or even Penguins-size) figures. But they're pretty impressive for a documentary that cost just over a million dollars to make, based on a slide show about global warming that Gore has been presenting over the past two decades. The movie has sped by Hoop Dreams and Super Size Me at the box office, has just passed Madonna's Truth or Dare to become the fourth-highest-grossing non-IMAX, non-concert documentary of all time, and may even have a shot at snatching third place from Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine
These pathetic creeps change the standard every week, switching from total box office to weekend receipts to national ranking -- whatever measure declined or could be distorted to paint An Inconvenient Truth as a box-office flop. They are conscious liars, scumbags who think their political agenda is more important than actual truth -- to say nothing of inconvenient truth.
Bastards.
I'm fairly sure that Al Gore doesn't care much how much money the film makes, but how many people actually end up seeing it. And that's what really counts anyways. So why are they trying to argue that the film isn't doing too well, when in fact great many people have seen the film already? Exactly what are they trying to prove?
This being a movie shown in theaters with Hollywood movies, I know I'm dreaming when I say this, but ....
When the theatrical run is finished, I wish that they'd release An Inconvenient Truth under a Creative Commons license, in order to help it be seen by as many as possible. Do that and sell DVDs. Some DVDs still would sell, but more people would see it if they could download and watch it.
Tim - what are you expecting? Since when has truth, facts and/or rational discussion ever been a feature of Tim Blair's blog?
Blair is a blog shock jock.If you expect any sense coming out of Blair's circus you may be waiting a long time. The best way to handle Blair ( contrary to what I have previously written) is not to ignore him but ot estabilish a TimBlairwatch to publish more egregious examples of his twitterings.
If all I'm looking for in that chart is movies where the gross figure is less than An Inconvenient Truth and the weeks figure is four or more, there are loads: all the IMAX movies, Strangers with Candy, Who Killed the Electric Car, Heading South, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Peaceful Warrior, Water, Keeping Up with the Steins, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, The Heart of the Game...
I think it's a pretty meaningless measure of success, but still, their claims about it are rubbish.
Paul, that's partly because the links are out of date. On July 24, Tim Blair quoted Nathan Goulding's July 17 post, which linked to the "current" weekend BoxOfficeMoJo. That link always points to the current one, so while now the list of at-least-four-weeks-less-gross-than-AIT is as you state it for the July 21-23 weekend, it was different for the July 14-16 weekend when Goulding wrote. Was the Goulding post out-of-date at the time Tim Blair linked to it? I dunno, as maybe the new BoxOfficeMoJo numbers hadn't been posted yet.
See An Inconvient Truth is like the perfect storm for media dissembling. It has both Global Warming and Al Gore! Two topics that must be lied about! And two topics the media will publish lies about!
(My favorite Gore attack was by Marueen Dowd. Gore was asked what his favorite TV show was, and he said "Futurama." Now Dowd goes on on how this shows Gore is trying to hard to be hip and wanted toreally say the Simpsons but went for something "edgier". Of course he said Futurama because his daughter wrote for Futurama)
Tim, Life is too short to waste time reading blair's crap. Ignore him.
"they're pretty impressive for a documentary that cost just over a million dollars to make..."
Oh really, next you'll be suggesting that just because he's a best-selling author; on the board of Apple, a senior advisor to Google; owns a national cable channel and runs an investment fund Gore actually knows more about making money than the typical libertarian wing-nut on the internet (who'd be just as rich if not for the government conspiracy to keep middle-class white heterosexual males ground down and oppressed).