Lippard on Expelled

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Jim Lippard has a good post on Expelled and the fact that its distributor (Rocky Mountain Pictures) is know for pushing movies such as Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 and Carman: The Champion (above; for more on Carman see here). As Jim notes:

The two partners in Rocky Mountain Pictures are Ronald C. Rodgers and Randy Slaughter. Rodgers got his start in film with Sunn Classic Pictures in 1968, which made and distributed movies in the seventies and eighties like bad documentaries about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, The Bermuda Triangle, psychics, space aliens, conspiracy theories, and Noah’s Ark

Jim also has predictions about the future of Expelled:

I’ll offer five predictions for "Expelled"--if it opens in theaters at all on April 18, it will (1) be on fewer than 500 800 screens, (2) will have an initial weekend box office of less than $2 million, with (3) a per-screen take of less than $2,500, (4) won’t break the top ten despite it being a slow opening week, and (5) will make less than $10 million in box office take by the end of 2008 (though it may make more than that through DVD sales).

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I like the numbers he's talking about. I also like the qualifier " if it opens in theaters at all on April 18".

I would also like to remind our people, that if you just HAVE to see this drek, go to a multi-plex and buy a ticket for a different movie, then go in to see the train-wreck. Be careful you don't get expelled.

At the moment, it looks like my predictions may be too generous. Using a suggestion from Reed Esau, I used the "Expelled" theater locator to find out how many theaters it is scheduled to show in per state. Current total: 435.

And "nationwide" apparently doesn't include D.C., Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Jersey, Rhode Island, or Vermont.

The states with the most theaters showing the film are Texas (62), California (52), Florida (51), Illinois (21), Indiana (19), Tennessee and Wisconsin (17 each), Washington (16), Alabama (15), Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (11 each), Arkansas and Colorado (10 each), and Ohio (9). All other states have 7 or fewer theaters scheduled to show the movie. Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming each have it in only one to three theaters.