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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Oy!

Evan Almighty is a film that is going to underperform.
Fine.
This spin on the spin that it has a lot to do with “faith based marketing” is making me NUTS!
The notion that a studio, even with a budget of $175 million, was relying on Christians to come out to make the film a giant grosser is INSANE!!!!
The Chronicles of Narnia, which was a much more natural religious fit, barely made enough to get the second film greenlit. No other film since Passion of the Christ has done much at all based on pitching to Christians – though a bunch of films have hired Christian marketing groups to push their films – and Universal knew that. It doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t take the shot at that market. But it has become like some sick little not-enough-to-write-about joke that everytime a studio includes Christians in their marketing plan, the media starts hyping it up as their PRIMARY marketing plan.
You want to know why I get crazy about coverage

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53 Responses to “Oy!”

  1. hendhogan says:

    well, no film except the obvious one: “the passion of the christ”

  2. teambanzai says:

    The only sign that I saw that even remotely looked like a “Christian” marketing campaign was the approval stamp from the what ever that family council oraganization is on the print ads.
    I heard it was going to underperform months ago because it sucked not because of any religious content.
    Does anyone know if there’s any truth to the rumor that the studio changed the focus of the film to gear it towards a religious audience in hopes of saving it?

  3. Wrecktum says:

    “The Chronicles of Narnia, which was a much more natural religious fit, barely made enough to get the second film greenlit.”
    The first one made $745m worldwide. It’s a top 30 movie both domestic and international. A second film is in production and the third movie is already greenlighted and dated. How does this jibe with your statement above?

  4. Goulet says:

    “The Chronicles of Narnia, which was a much more natural religious fit, barely made enough to get the second film greenlit.”
    The United States total was $291,710,957, making it the second highest grossing film of 2005 behind Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and surpassing the gross of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Source: Boxofficemojo).

  5. Sandy says:

    I do think that too much is made of Evan’s disappointing opening weekend; yet on the other hand, Nikki Rocco’s defense of it in the press today (that Evan will have legs) is a bit naive in light of the family films to come (Ratatouille, Harry, the Simpsons) that will erase Evan away from the multiplexes.

  6. The Carpetmuncher says:

    Well, to me, any reasonable person would say that it’s a matter of overbudgeting a Steve Carrell vehicle by at least $75 million rather than a bad marketing job. Spending $175 mil to make a comedy is just crazy in my book.
    Narnia isn’t really a more natural religious fit in my mind either – yes, it has a lot more depth religiously, but it requires extrapolating a metaphor…
    Evan Almighty is about God telling a guy to build an arc. Seems like an easier sell to me.

  7. hendhogan says:

    my mother is a catholic and my father is a baptist. i was raised both, but the family quit going to church in my mid-teens. i’m not really for any organized religion. respect it for some, but it’s not for me.
    that being said, isn’t it more indicative of how out of touch hollywood is with the that christian market? if that was the market they were aiming at, the numbers indicate it quite clearly missed the target.
    “narnia” is tougher. i think there is just as much nostalgia for the actual stories (ala “the oz” books) as there is in the christian message underneath. it’s more like “narnia” had good crossover potential to that market than was aimed at it

  8. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Big Media has always had a soft spot for hardline religion — Aimee Semple McPherson, Father Coughlin, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson. That’s why the media tries to push a religious angle if there is one.
    I saw “The Passion of the Christ” and took to it more as a political drama than a spiritual film.

  9. Hopscotch says:

    To my understanding the budget went so high because of weather delays when shooting on location and the fact that animals and CGI usually mean chaos on set, not to mention water.
    It’s not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but EA is not particularly memorable and the laughs are pretty non-creatively thrown at you. I’m half expecting Knocked Up to gross more than Evan, saints be praised.

  10. movielocke says:

    If they were seriously going after the Passion audience (which is well educated and middle class) they should have had some explanation in the advertising from Morgon Freeman’s God character that justified him contradicting the Bible’s claim that another flood would not happen. Without that explanation Evan Almighty looks like an ignorant exploitation job to the audience in question. Sort of like casting a black actor as a Step-n-Fetchit character (in blackface) and expecting African American’s would definitely support it because the main character was black.

  11. hendhogan says:

    which media are you referring to, chucky? again, not my strength, but i’m pretty sure none of those suggested are hollywood based (with maybe the exception of aimee semple mcpherson).

  12. Don Murphy says:

    The Chronicles of Narnia, which was a much more natural religious fit, barely made enough to get the second film greenlit.
    I am calling shenanigans on you David. Film was a monster smash. Sometimes you just talk.

  13. Ian Sinclair says:

    I think David didn’t want another Narnia picture greenlit as he was traumatised by the talking beavers.

  14. Wrecktum says:

    Who wasn’t?

  15. hendhogan says:

    careful, there are women posters here too

  16. James Leer says:

    Let’s not forget that Narnia’s total worldwide gross beat out the first Pirates film by $100 million, and those two sequels did OK.

  17. Uhhhh…I think the crowd for PASSION OF THE CHRIST was largely HISPANIC Christians. I still remember seeing the film at the Arclight and being just about the only Anglo person in a 3/4 full theater.
    I’ve never really seen (nor have I researched) any articles about the Hispanic population flocking to the PASSION, but I think they accounted for at least half the money it made.
    That being said, I am surprised the Evangelicals and so forth didn’t go see EVAN ALMIGHTY and as my colleague on Film Threat, Michael Ferraro pointed out, how did they spend $175 million on this movie??

  18. jeffmcm says:

    I’d be curious to see a source for this ‘well educated and middle class’ contention for The Passion of the Christ, I thought it was largely a Latino audience as well but of course, being in Los Angeles, there are a lot more of them here than in the country as a whole.

  19. Wrecktum says:

    A movie doesn’t get to $300m from largely Latino audiences. You guys are smart…why come to such obviously silly conclusions?

  20. David Poland says:

    Do any of you remember how long it took them to greenlight a Narnia sequel? Do you recall that the expectation going into the first was that they hoped it would do enough to greenlight shooting 2 and 3 on a single schedule… which they bailed on.
    That said, yes, the film accelerated powerfully over the holiday, ending up $80 million or so higher domestically than the opening might have suggested. And the film did play great overseas.
    Of course, if you want 20/20 hindsight, Evan may be okay.
    They are much happier and much more on schedule and budget on the second film. And that led to the #3 greenlight while #2 was still in post.
    Still, it is fair to say that I didn’t offer the details to support the comment against final gross.
    NEXT… I have little doubt that Knocked Up will outgross Evan Almighty. It might have already passed Evan’s domestic total. The M&D Movie Factory is surely thanking their lucky stars that they have Sandler and Bourne om the way. And the early look at The Kingdom, it just occured to me, might actually be a smart distraction, not a marketing strategy for that movie… cause it’s a winner.

  21. jeffmcm says:

    I never said ‘largely Latino’ which is why I asked where ‘middle-class and educated’ came from…because a movie _definitely_ doesn’t get to $300m from ‘educated’ audiences.
    What’s “M&D Movie Factory”?

  22. Blackcloud says:

    “Big Media has always had a soft spot for hardline religion”
    Chucky’s simplifications as usual have things exactly backward. (Surprising, I know.) It could just as easily, and probably more accurately, be said that religion, hardline and not, has a soft spot for big media and little media. They are trying to get their message across, after all. That goes whether you’re talking about Pat Robertson’s 700 Club or George Whitefield’s revival meetings. Goes all the way back to that “Good News” stuff those crazy Jews were ranting about in Palestine about 2000 years ago. Or, in terms of the previous entry, maybe it was really “Good Gossip.”

  23. MASON says:

    I love ya, Dave, but admit your mistake here. Narnia made almost 800 mil worldwide, something you obviously didn’t know before you were called on it. Hey, it’s no big deal — I had no idea either and was shocked by it — but man up and admit your mistake instead of spinning it.

  24. David Poland says:

    Not spinning, Mason. Just clarifying. History is history. But thanks for worrying about me.

  25. I remember many people were shocked that Narnia beat King Kong. But, yes, it was a hit so I don’t know why anybody would bother pretending it wasn’t.

  26. James Leer says:

    “Do any of you remember how long it took them to greenlight a Narnia sequel?”
    Uh, yeah. Less than a month, according to Variety.
    You can try again, or eat crow, dude. It happens.

  27. Don Murphy says:

    The Chronicles of Narnia, which was a much more natural religious fit, barely made enough to get the second film greenlit.
    This is a completely incorrect statement. And instead of acknowledging it, you made it again!
    You are right- Evan is a turkey.
    But your statement still needs retracting.

  28. popechild says:

    “If they were seriously going after the Passion audience (which is well educated and middle class) they should have had some explanation in the advertising from Morgon Freeman’s God character that justified him contradicting the Bible’s claim that another flood would not happen. Without that explanation Evan Almighty looks like an ignorant exploitation job to the audience in question.”

    Actually, the Bible doesn’t say that. What it actually says is found in Genesis 9:11. “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

    I don’t see this in any way precluding a flood through a single valley.

  29. anghus says:

    It’s amazing how quickly people forget things like Narnia.
    That film did massive numbers overseas and made it to almost 300 million domestically during the holiday season.
    At the time, everyone was expecting King Kong to take all the cash. Narnia crushed it domestically and worldwide.
    Anyone who saw Narnia as a underperformer or not a hit really hasn’t examined the numbers.
    Domestic: $291,710,957 39.2%
    + Foreign: $453,073,000 60.8%
    = Worldwide: $744,783,957
    Budget = 180 million
    And i have to imagine the DVD sold pretty well too. If anyone at the studio hedged on a sequel, then they’re idiots.

  30. Wrecktum says:

    Not only did they not hedge on a sequel, but they’ve greenlit two more.
    Remember, Narnia rights are owned by Walden and Disney is co-producing and releasing worldwide. Negotiations like these are very complicated and certainly contributed to what Poland is calling “how long it took” to announce the sequels.
    But, that said, the second Narnia is coming out only 2 1/2 years after the first one, which isn’t a particularily long time for a franchise film.

  31. movielocke says:

    Passion may have been driven by hispanic audiences in L.A. but it also underpreformed (by comparison to US numbers) in the predominantly catholic central and south american countries it played in.
    What drove Passion’s numbers was the WASPy churches scattered across the country. folks that usually have a high school degree and probably at least some college for one of the spouses in a single family. Their kids/teens see movies all the time, but the parents probably rarely go to the theatre.
    Also interesting the implication here that if a hispanic population drove the Passion’s numbers that hispanics are not well educated…
    I saw the flick at the Grove, it was a mostly white audience. The audience leaving was as somber as an audience leaving Schindler’s List.
    Still I couldn’t tell you from EA’s advertising that only a single valley was being flooded, it appeared the entire world was being flooded again. Like I said, if you’re targeting the Passion audience, have enough respect to understand they’ll know the bible better than you and will expect some sort of justification for contradicting the bible before that audience will buy it.

  32. jeffmcm says:

    I think the fact that Evan Almighty is a family comedy precludes most people from thinking that God is somehow breaking a promise to never have a Flood again – there couldn’t be a lot of suspense as to how many billions are going to die. I was interested to hear somewhere, though, that a tiny fraction of people were upset at the depiction of God in a human form that wasn’t specifically Jesus.
    Also I don’t think there’s anything wrong in saying that Hispanics, who have higher dropout rates than Whites in America, are therefore on average less-educated, all other things being equal. I’m still unconvinced that people who saw The Passion were so thoroughly educated and middle-class, though as to make up the bulk of its audience.

  33. a1amoeba says:

    I think the Christian collective is starting to get savvy about them being targeted as “sure things”, and are less willing to be exploited.
    Except when it comes to politics of course…
    Still, I’m surprised Carrell didn’t draw more people. He’s a great comedic actor – maybe the mainstream audience was afraid the film would be back-door proselytizing. Just a guess.

  34. Joe Leydon says:

    Movielocke, you raise a good point. Truth to tell, I, too, wondered about how the flooding business might be seen as contradicting the Bible (or at least what the nuns told me about the Bible back when I was in grade school). But, hey, Universal couldn’t get the Hulk mythos right in Ang Lee’s film, so why should the Bible mean anything to them?
    Also: Based purely on my own observations at multiplexes throughout Houston, I would venture to say that, yes, a huge percentage of the Passion audience was Hispanic. But I wonder how many ticketbuyers (Anglo included) were repeat viewers, and whether that may have inflated the gross? That is, I wonder if the film was seen by far fewer people than we might assume.

  35. Ian Sinclair says:

    I was stunned by the viciousness of a lot of the negative reviews of PASSION, which if you believed them was the worst picture ever made, a sickening and evil thing. So, I was curious enough to see it and found myself moved to tears by it. I believe it is a criminally underrated picture. I saw it in a sold-out perf in New York with what looked to me like a regular audience, slightly older than usual.

  36. Direwolf says:

    Has anyone noticed the early positive reviews for Live Free or Die Hard? 86% on Rotten Tomatoes so far with more than a dozen reviews in. In the meantime, Ratatouille is still at 100% with 19 reviews.
    Now that we have a couple of well-reviewed pre-ordained blockbusters hitting theatres it will be interesting to see if box office numbers on either film surprise to the upside, even modestly. So far this summer only Knocked Up can claim to have surprised to the upside.
    Early reads calling for upper $50s on Rat and upper $30s on Die Hard for the weekend? Die Hard opens Wednesday though making predictions more difficult. Cars opened at $60 million and showed excellent legs getting to 4 times domestically. Cars was poorly received compared to Rat. Rat might also play well abroad where Cars severely lagged other Pixar films. For what it’s worth, Incredibles opened at $70 million on a November weekend.

  37. RudyV says:

    I remember watching the trailers for EVAN thinking “Finally–a studio that doesn’t give away all the best parts in the trailer! They must be saving them for the ticket-buying audience, because, frankly, these scenes aren’t all that funny.”
    How was I to know that the film just plain sucked?

  38. LexG says:

    Jeff, I was going to come up with another colorfully ridiculous rant about some of your comments in this thread, but I’ll err on the side of seriousness and ask: Were you not shielded by anonymity and the bravado the Internet engenders, would you in real life want to be quoted on some of the dicey generalizations you’ve just made about “Hispanics”?
    (FYI, I’m pretty sure the preferred term is “Latinos.”)
    Surely as an Angeleno you’re aware of the “controversy” Schwarzenegger has encountered by publicly opining that Latino immigrants should steer away from Spanish-language TV and immerse themselves for fully in the American culture. Can you imagine if a similar public figure, which you no doubt aspire to someday be, went on or into a public forum and blithely, blindly started bandying about the non-researched generalizations about another ethnicity you’re engaging in here?
    I also have issue with the way you refer to “Hispanics” as some other entity, some great unknown to your lily-white ass, despite having living for years in this city with a Latino majority. I might cut you a little slack on this, since it is a mere post on the Internet and there’s no way to divine your true intent. But read unawares, it just comes off as a mildly xenophobic person making a simplistic assumption– “We have a lot of those there Hispanics here in Los Angeleeees. I sure don’t know of ’em, but when I saw The Passion, that’s all was in the theater! It must be some sort of Hispanic Movie! I can’t imagine it played to, you know, well-educated people…like me.”
    Though it is amusing that you on one hand opine that well-educated people wouldn’t see The Passion, and yet you were there front and center to catch it on the big screen. You couldn’t have said it better yourself.

  39. jeffmcm says:

    Lex, I am myself partially Hispanic. The terminology varies according to what part of the country you’re in, and what your ancestry consists of. It is factually accurate to say that Hispanics/Latinos are in general less-educated than Caucasians in the U.S. I am suspicious of the claim that The Passion’s primary audience was well-educated because very few movies can make that claim, much less huge blockbusters.

  40. LexG says:

    “I am myself partially Hispanic.”
    Assuming this is true, looks like I just got OWNED. Oops.
    Not knowing that aside, it still read as a bit of a generalization that your singular moviegoing experience would be representative of the ethnic makeup of audiences the country, not to mention the world, over. It would be kinda like me saying that if one random screening of “Wild Hogs” was filled with fat, unintelligent white people, then–
    Oh, wait. Never mind.

  41. jeffmcm says:

    Lex, you’re confusing me with someone else. I saw the movie at the Arclight, where there were plenty of Latinos/Hispanics but not really more than at any other movie, so my perceptions are not based on a singular moviegoing experience. There aren’t enough Latinos in the country to get a movie to what The Passion did, but there also aren’t enough ‘educated middle-class’ people who go to movies to make a movie like it successful, either.
    Anyway, if you saw me on the street you think I was very lily-white.

  42. movielocke says:

    I wasn’t especially surprised at the viciousness of the attacks on The Passion because that’s exactly what was expected, it’s the sort of culture war moment that really builds up the persecution complex a lot of evangelicals use to build their worldview.

  43. Nicol D says:

    Kids, kids, are we still doing mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that:
    a) The Passion was – NOT – a hit
    or
    b) The money it earned was invalid
    or
    c) The people who saw it were stupid
    Some of the mental hoola-hoops I’ve read here are quite amazing and a few even racist.
    The Passion of the Chist is one of the biggest hits of all time. Deal. Y’know who saw it? Freakin’ everyone and their brother. That’s who. Deal.
    As for Evan Almighty; I am laughing at how the MSM is trying to spin it as a Christian movie failure. The movie is not any more Christian than it is Jewish or secular or liberal or environmental. Nor was it conceived with Christians in mind.
    The producers tried to court the left-liberal environmental crowd as much if not more than the Christians…why not blame them?
    Truth is, the opening was only bad in terms of what it cost. For Carell, its not bad at all. It’s only the damn cost that turfed it.
    For my money the most ‘Christian’ film I’ve seen all summer is Knocked Up.
    Still, all this talk to discredit The Passion, 3 years after it’s release actually speaks to how powerful it actually was as a piece of cinema.
    That’s why people saw it.

  44. bmcintire says:

    Nicol D – all this talk to discredit The Passion, 3 years after it’s release actually speaks to how powerful it actually was as a piece of marketing.
    And my brother successfully avoided seeing it, so there.

  45. jeffmcm says:

    “Still, all this talk to discredit The Passion, 3 years after it’s release actually speaks to how powerful it actually was as a piece of cinema.
    That’s why people saw it.”
    By this logic all the attempts to discredit Michael Moore and his films are an equal sign that his ideas are valid and ‘powerful’ (whatever that means); or if financial success means that a movie is artistically valid, then we should all be debating Shrek 2 endlessly.
    Obviously, both ideas are untrue. The Passion was a hit movie because, like every hit movie, it gave an audience something they wanted, and because it got butts into theaters. In the case of this movie I believe that a lot of people saw it who typically never, or rarely, go to movies. Also, that its audience was not ‘everyone’ (like Pauline Kael, not many people in my circle ever saw it) but a larger-than-usual number of Catholics and Evangelicals and a relatively smaller number of secular urban dwellers.
    And now I’ve forgotten the point of this whole discussion.

  46. Nicol D says:

    Jeff,
    People discredit Michael Moore because he lies. That is no longer in dispute.
    The people, like yourself, on this board who try to discredit The Passion, do so, in the hopes that you will never have to see a film like it again.
    Period. Very different context; and context is everything.

  47. Nicol D says:

    Jeff,
    “…but a larger-than-usual number of Catholics and Evangelicals and a relatively smaller number of secular urban dwellers.”
    Prove this.
    And what’s your point?

  48. jeffmcm says:

    Nicol, in your first statement you baldly ignore my point, and in your second statement you reveal your defensiveness. I have not tried at all to discredit The Passion, but rather I asked for some proof that its audience was in some way ‘more well-educated’ than the average movie audience, an idea I find dubious if for no other reason than because I think the notions of ‘$300 million domestic gross’ and ‘primarily well-educated audience’ are mutually exclusive.
    And I would absolutely love to see more movies like it – especially if they were a little more episcopal in their attitudes.

  49. jeffmcm says:

    I can’t prove that second statement, but it sure as hell makes sense. I hang out with a lot of secular urban dwellers – few of them went to see the movie. Catholics and Evangelicals are its target audience, so are you telling me they stayed at home for it?

  50. jeffmcm says:

    Nicol, you seem to be working under the assumption that I hate The Passion and Mel Gibson. Neither is correct. I have deeply mixed feelings about the movie (but I very much enjoyed Apocalypto), and I have great respect for Gibson as a filmmaker and sympathy for him as a person.

  51. Nicol D says:

    Jeff,
    “…but rather I asked for some proof that its audience was in some way ‘more well-educated’ than the average movie audience,…”
    You tried to prove they were less educated and used some racism to do it. You were called on it.
    I just said a broad demo of everyone saw it. You always paint yourself into a corner with your extreme views.
    “I hang out with a lot of secular urban dwellers – few of them went to see the movie. ”
    I only hang out with secular urban dwellers. All of ’em saw it. What’s your point?
    “…you seem to be working under the assumption that I hate The Passion and Mel Gibson.”
    Jeff, I can only react to what you and others write. If you or others hate the film or Mel Gibon I couldn’t care less. I just laugh at the continual childish views that try to excuse its success.

  52. jeffmcm says:

    Once again, you are the one projecting. I was never trying to prove the audience was less-educated, I was trying to _disprove_ that they were _more-educated_. And nothing that I said was racist, and I thoroughly resent your accusation. I’m not extremem in any way. This is a common rhetorical technique and you should be above it.
    “I only hang out with secular urban dwellers. All of ’em saw it. What’s your point?”
    So we can clearly deduce that about 50% of secular urban dwellers saw the movie.

  53. I’m with you all the way. You have a right to your own ideas, and you must never let anyone tell you anything else. Keep it up!

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And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

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