This coming Friday will mark the beginning of the summer 2008 movie season, the first big-budget film to make an appearance being Iron Man. What does that mean for the unfunny and atrocious propaganda piece Expelled? If the theaters near me are any indication, it means that Stein's film flunked at the box office and is being expelled to make room for summer blockbusters. Of the three theaters that carried the film in my area, all of them are going to drop it this coming Friday, although I'm sure Expelled will soon re-appear on DVD.
The fact that Expelled is getting dropped from theaters doesn't mean we can all breathe a sigh of relief and claim victory over creationism, though, and Chad has recently proposed that someone start up an online science film festival. I think it's a wonderful idea (if I had the equipment I'd be tempted to make a film myself), and hopefully I'll have more news about such an endeavor in the not-too-distant future.
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Terra is a showcase for films created by students in the Science and Natural History filmmaking major at Montana State University in Bozeman:
http://www.lifeonterra.com/aboutus.php
Expelled is not going away fast enough here in San Diego.
According to the uniontrib.com movie listings, Expelled will be continuing in 8 of the original 12 theatres for at least another weekend.
I think it is our duty as scientists and custodians of the Enlightenment to see those summer blockbusters, make them more profitable and complete the expulsion of Expelled! It will be in my capacity as a scientist, then, that I will attend Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo.
A post here:
http://friendlyatheist.com/2008/04/19/expelleds-weekend-box-office/#com…
explains the box-office situation with Expelled:
For what its worth
EXPELLED cost just over $3MM to produce. More than that to market and distribute. For example, outside of digital media, a film print can cost upwards of $2,200. Multiply the print cost by 1,000 screens. This is the print portion of your P&A. Essentially, with Lauers help they used P&A financing to rent the screens. For every ticket purchased to date, they have spent close to double the P&A.
Typically, less than half of the box office flows back to the producer, which means for Premise to recoup their production, distribution and marketing costs, they need to do more than $12-15 MM of business. By the way, this does not account for overages, multiple release delays (more than 18 month late!), carrying costs of monies invested, etc.
Foreign will not bite (ID is an American issue). DVD rental/sell-through is not going to generate enough $$. So, at the end of the day, Walt and Logan will not be able to repay their investors
How do I know all this? I live on Bowen Island. I was solicited by Premise. I have seen the business plan. I know the producers. For reasons listed above (and for many, many other reasons) we passed.
The multiplex in Christiansburg, VA, with its fourteen screens, is dropping Expelled after a two-week run.
Big Comics wants you to believe that Iron Man is merely metaphor or fictional entertainment.
In fact, he's real: machines are too complex to exist without Iron Man personally making them.
Modern manufacturing is a fraud based on dogmatic veneration of Henry Ford,
but anyone with the courage to say this is blacklisted from the comic shop.
Also, anti-Iron Man-ism caused the Holocaust.
In light the bruhaha over Expelled's opening weekend box office numbers and what they do/don't mean, I checked it's 2nd weekend numbers. I had trouble finding them because it didn't even make the top 50.
It seems that, after an initial bump from the bused-in-from-church crowed, it sank like a stone.
In light the bruhaha over Expelled's opening weekend box office numbers and what they do/don't mean, I checked it's 2nd weekend numbers. I had trouble finding them because it didn't even make the top 50.
It seems that, after an initial bump from the bused-in-from-church crowed, it sank like a stone.
$2200 per print is somewhat higher than figures I've seen quoted elsewhere, but I know nothing about the business, really. What with inflation and all, it seems reasonable.
Blake; Ben Stein in 3-D... the horror, the horror....
And, indeed, some sources give figures as large as $2000 per print.
I'm not too excited about Iron Man. I've always thought he was kind of a dumb superhero, anyway.
"I still say he's naked under there!"
"Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense."
"Aw, shut up."
Wow, first Big Science, then Big Media, and now Big Summer Box Office! Ben Stein just can't get a break!
Don't forget any outstanding lawsuits.