Weekend Estimates by Klady – April 19
The big story of the weekend is not The Wizards Of Kick Oz or Trying To Forget Segel’s Penis, but Expelled being the widest doc opening ever, leading to being the third biggest doc opening ever. Ever.
Yes, all the Michael Moore movies will overshadow whatever the final number on this film is, but they all went into theaters in exclusives or, with Sicko, under 900 screens.
Expelled is pretty much assured of being amongst the Top Ten doc grossers of all-time before it’s done… and passing Super Size Me and Winged Migration is not out of the question. Just this weekend’s number makes it the #5 doc of the last two years, with Shine A Light and Grizzly Man both likely to be passed this week.
Is this the “Christian Movie” that Hollywood has stumbled chasing since The Passion Of The Christ… meaning more that audience than anything like those numbers? A good question, I think.
Meanwhile, on the Top Two front, neither film had a particularly strong Saturday upturn. Some would argue that Forgetting will outleg Kingdom, but I see no evidence of that, especially with Tribeca opener (snark, snark) Baby Mama and Harold & Kumar 2 landing next weekend, offering comedy options for both women and men. The best shot Sarah Marshall has is to be the date choice somewhere between the two new comedies. Meanwhile, Kingdom has a pretty-much open week until The Man of Iron lands a week later.
Wow!
Those are some catastrophic second weekend drops for both “Smart People” and “Street Kings.”
While I’m not a big fan of either movie, I can’t believe that w.o.m. could have been that frigging poisonous. Anybody got a theory they’d like to toss around?
Glad to see that “The Visitor” is hanging in there; not remotely surprised, however, to see “The Life Before Her Eyes” drop dead. After seeing “Eyes” in Toronto last fall (where it was called the Nirvana-ish “In Bloom”) I predicted that it would go straight to
cable or dvd. Guess it will…sort of.
Is the failure of Osama” a rejection of Spurlock, a response to the tepid reviews or continued proof that nobody wants to see a movie that has anything to do with 9/11 or Iraq (and yes, I know they’re not the same thing)?
“Is the failure of Osama” a rejection of Spurlock, a response to the tepid reviews or continued proof that nobody wants to see a movie that has anything to do with 9/11 or Iraq (and yes, I know they’re not the same thing)?”
It doesn’t help that the film wasn’t very good, according to critics, only a 30% fresh rating on rottentomatoes. That’s a kiss of death for a doc.
Then again, Expelled was hated too and look what happened.
Yep, America doesn’t care about the war on terror when it comes to entertainment.
I mentioned the tepid reviews as a possible reason/excuse for its failure to connect in my original posting.
But it was probably the subject matter more than anything else that kept people away.
Kind of surprising, though, than none of Spurlock’s “Super Size” fans bothered turning out.
Looks like yet another commercial non-starter for the beleaguered Weinstein Brothers.
(Good thing they have their names on “The Forbidden Kingdom.”)
I really thought that “Under the Same Moon” might have a shot at some crossover business beyond the (largely) Hispanic audience that turned out in its opening frames.
At this point, I’m guessing that it’ll never go much farther than its current 450-screen count.
Still, $11-million is pretty good for a Spanish-language movie released thru a studio specialty division these days.
I still think that it could’ve done better with all of its positive w.o.m.
I wouldn’t be so sure that Expelled will pass Super Size Me or Winged Migrations. It dropped 18% Friday-to-Saturday (the only movie in the Top 40 to drop at all). And it’s dropping again today, Saturday-to-Sunday. This could be a total Friday pre-sale and nothing else. Or the churches could rally next week. I guess only time will tell.
I don’t think that Expelled’s performance was that great… maybe only because it wasn’t tracking at all and it got into the Top 10 but that’s a pitiful per-theater average and I doubt it will be able to keep that many theaters for long. It might also set a record as the “worst-reviewed doc” ever, granted that I was one of the few critics who gave it a passing mark, though I doubt it will end up in my Top 50 for the year.
You would give it a passing mark, wouldn’t you Ed? Check and see how much of that was group sales. How hard is it to get people rallied? And don’t forget, the Pope’s in town, so it’s easy to see people might be extra motivated this weekend.
I wonder if Expelled would have done better if they had stuck to their original Darwin Day release. It might have got some extra publicity from News sources if it had.
Yay on “The Visitor.” I saw the list of theaters it’s heading out to next weekend – Miami, Baltimore, Houston, Austin, San Diego, etc. – and it’ll probably keep on keeping on for a little while. Might not set any records, but it’s always nice when a good festival film actually makes it to an audience beyond said festival.
ED… it’s almost double the per-screen of Spurlock. How is that pitiful?
If you don’t think a $3 million doc opening in this theatrical climate isn’t impressive, I can’t imagine what you would think is… except for Michael Moore.
It’s going to pass The Rolling F-ing Stones and Marty Scorsese released by Vantage to rave reviews in less than 2 weekends… unimpressive?
Third biggest doc opening ever?
One of a dozen $3 million docs in the last 3 years and one of seven to get to $4 million when it does?
I didn’t see the film. I might hate it. But a little perspective about the numbers, ED. You know better. You’re using micro spin to avoid the obvious macro success.
Expelled opened on ten times the amount of theaters than Osama. I’m not going to be so quick to compare them.
The box office gross of “Expelled” actually dropped about 17% on Saturday.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=daily&id=expelled.htm
So I also doubt the box office legs of this movie.
Yeah, doesn’t this movie scream second week heamoraging? Street Kings and Smart People would fall more than Prom Night?
Remember that Expelled was distributed with an odd geographic distribution. Normally a 1,000 screen release would have at least 5-6 locations in Manhattan. Expelled had 2, one of which is in a crappy house that’s usually reserved for late-run castoffs (Clearview 62nd. Also, I get the impression that some of its engagements are four-walled, and heavily pre-sold. Homeschoolers and private schoolers may give it some traction during the week, but especially in a world where folks are going to be clearing screens out as fast as they can for 7 new wide releases in the next three weeks (Baby Mama, Harold and Kumar, Deception, Iron Man, Made of Honor, Speed Racer, What Happens In Vegas), which need about 20K screens to cover them all, it’s going to have a hard time holding on to screens.
An interesting comparison will be next weekend’s “Standard Operating Procedure,” which will likely triple the “Expelled” PSA with early word being positive and Errol Morris fans.
Street Kings and Smart People are at least “technically” independent releases. So they can make 2 bucks and still call it a success! I am just curious what kind of legs Sarah Marshall will have with what’s coming in the next 10 days. Whose coming in 10 days? I wonder who it could be? I KNOW… TONY FREAKIN STARK! IRON-MAN! It’s about time. SAY HELLO TO HIS REPUSLOR RAYS… — WEEKS TO OSCARS COLUMN!
How is Street Kings “technically” independent?
And what does Iron Man have to do with Forgetting Sarah Marshall?
Expelled was also distributed by a group, Rocky Mountain Pictures, that doesn’t release films this wide. That, and had anyone even heard of this movie prior to last week? The result ain’t that bad. It probably won’t be in theaters long, but you never know. Amazing Grace and Facing the Giants were in theaters for months.
I first heard of Expelled a couple of weeks ago when a University of Minnesota professor wrote about being kicked out of an advanced screening.
Expelled had a targetted media campaign that was not overwhelmingly in the “mainstream,” heavily targetting the religious press and Internet and the right-wing press and Internet (it had huge banners on Drudge for a couple of weeks). When the two blurbs they can come up with were Rush Limbaugh and the Washington Times, you know what they’re going after. There’s an audience out there for this sort of stuff and they found it.
Three million bucks divided by an average ticket price of $7.50 works out to about 400,000 people. Given that over 100 million chowderheads in this country believe in Creationism, that doesn’t strike me as a particularly impressive opening.
Cadavra,
It’s dumb-ass statements like that, that efface everything of context that destroy your credibilty in arguing box office stats.
I have no problem with evolution (although I am sure there is – NOTHING – I can do to prove that to most of you) but to say that opening is not impressive is silly. Is it stellar?….no. Is it worth noting?…yes.
Try putting your politics aside and just analyze the context. It’s like when F-911 came out the summer after The Passion hit and I remember reading an interview with Michael Moore where he claimed his film outgrossed The Passion and many entertainment cites reported it as fact. It was a fact they wanted to be true. Not something that was true.
I have to agree with Nicol – it is indeed impressive. And like I said before, highly dismaying…right?
Likewise, I have no problem with gravity or germ theory.
But do you have a problem with Darwin’s Sexual Selection Theory…that directly links to his theory of evolutionary traits in the human species? That is the real question. We can’t pick and choose out science.
I believe Expelled was screened for at least a couple of weeks to friendly audiences in an attempt to generate buzz in the right circles. That it still grossed $3 million is pretty impressive, if not earth-shattering. Sounds like an awful movie though.
Nicol, I just don’t get you. I understand what you’re saying but I don’t understand the inner workings of your mind at all.
A couple of things about evolution. People like to point to Darwin’s original writings and some flaws in them as evidence of some problem with the broader theory of natural selection, as if a hypothesis cannot change at all over time to accommodate new data. It can, which is what makes it science. As such some of Darwin’s ideas have been confirmed over time and some have been discarded. Such is progress.
I don’t pay close attention to the cultural clashes over evolution, so I’m not sure what controversy stems from sexual selection. (I’ve read plenty of science-for-the-layman on the topic, and I haven’t specifically heard that term before.) I assume from the way Nicol mentions it that some controversy exists; so I suspect I’m walking into a trap by saying this, but on the face of it, after a cursory glance at the term on Wikipedia, I don’t see anything I would call prima facie objectionable. (But as with any scientific theory, it could be seized upon and distorted by anybody with an agenda; I preemptively disown any association with screwballs the above might imply.)
Anybody interested in a good, thought-provoking book on the ways that evolution has shaped human behavior– including sexual behavior– should look into Robert Wright’s The Moral Animal. Wonderful book.
Haven’t seen Expelled. But Intelligent Design is not a science, because its precepts do not fall within the scientific method. If offers nothing that can be proved or disproved, nothing that an objective third party could somehow test independently. Intelligent Design is simply an assertion.
bravo, eric. well said.
Yes, thanks Eric.
Actually, Nicol, I have to retract my statement: I don’t know what you are saying re: sexual selection. My first instinct was that it had to do with homosexuality and how, by Darwinian logic, it should be a narrowly reproducible trait (in spite of all obvious logic to the contrary), but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.
Eric,
There is an has always been much controversy in Darwin’s Sexual selection theory. If you do not know what I am referring to (I have no desire or time to get into that here) you have not read Darwin.
The problem is, most people do not know what it is…not because it has been disproven (it is true) but because it is not politically correct.
Upshot…evolution is much more complex than saying man came from apes to piss off evangelicals. It is a complex theory that involves many hypothesis and most of modern progressive views on human sexuality directly counter Darwin.
As I said to Jeff, you can’t pick and choose your science.
This is all I know: “Cultural critics have noted that Darwin’s ideas about sexual selection were strongly shaped by Victorian mores and at times reflect a distinct chauvinistic bias”
It sounds like another selection bias thing, Nicol. You seem to have a very deep knowledge of a very, very limited range of things.
Jeff,
Wow, Jeff. You read three sentences of critique off wikipedia.
You are a real smart guy. Genius. Way to dissect and dissolve everything Darwin wrote.
Did you get your degree out of the bottom of a Cracker Jack box?
You show about as much intellectual honesty as a new documentary out right now about evolution.
What’s it called again?
Nicol, in all honesty, cutting and pasting a couple of sentences off Wikipedia is what you merit.
Jeff,
Can you back up – any – of your views. Just saying “I agree” when you do or making a snarky remark when you do not does not get you admission to the intellectuals club.
You have to prove you have read and understood things. Many people have told you this, but I do not think you understand.
Nicol, I’m sorry but I don’t think I have anything to prove to you in the intellectual dick-measuring arena. If you wanted to have a discussion, let me know, but I’m not the one who started this particular tangent.
Jeff,
I am not the only person who tells you this. I am serious. Let’s have a discussion. Why do you never back up your views? It really makes me curious.
“Expelled” opened to $2.97M from 1052 theaters, emphasis multiplex/Bible Belt. By comparison “Fahrenheit 9/11” opened to $23.92M from 868, emphasis arthouse/upmarket/megaplex.
In New Jersey “Expelled” played only in chain theaters (AMC, Clearview, Frank Family, National Amusements, Regal). Independents got shut out. The doc also didn’t play lower Manhattan, not even the Loews Village VII or Regal Union Square.
Chucky,
Moore is a very different beast. One with huge corporations behind him, glowing positive media write ups and a large, slick ad budget. To compare – any – doc to Moore, even Morgan Spurlock, is to really miss the point.
Nicol, I’m not sure what you want. Are you asking me to be _more_ pedantic and long-winded? I’m trying to cut back on that, thanks. If you want merely to have a more detailed conversation that’s fine but as I’ve said before, I have little interest in long speechifying posts.
Then explain why right-wing pressure groups tried to get “F9/11” banned prior to its release.
Three US theater chains banned “F9/11” and a few others were queasy about playing it. Maybe 1-2 chains passed on “Expelled”.
nicol d, your smug comments burn my ass.
i’ve read darwin, who was, while brilliant and a revolutionary, a product of his time, the prevailing culture and his upbringing, just like you are of yours. his theories were a jumping off point for evolutionary science.
‘evolution is much more complex than saying man came from apes to piss off evangelicals.’ wow, what a gem, no one had better try to match wits with you!
Leahnz
“i’ve read darwin…”
Really? I didn’t get that from your post.
Chucky,
“Then explain why right-wing pressure groups tried to get “F9/11″ banned prior to its release.”
Can you source this please?
‘Really? I didn’t get that from your post.’
How _could_ one get that from a post? Are you asking her to provide footnotes and an appendix?
Jeff,
You should write a long post. One long, Dickens length post and tell us everything about yourself. Everything from what your favourite breakfast cereal is to what your sexual preferences are to what colour the blanket was you comforted yourself with when you were banished to the closet by your elementary school teacher in primary school. Then we could understand you.
Call it JeffMCM the Special Edition Post with Additional Scenes. It can be a one time only thing. We can talk about it for years to come and it will become a thing of legend and lore on these parts.
Then we would understand you. Because without that, you increasingly have about as much credibility as those people who hate Expelled but pick and choose their science to suit their ideological political views.
I’m flattered you have so much interest, but I’d rather read your version, since you obviously know so much about me.
In the meantime, if you wanted to actually lay out some detail as to what you really mean by “people who hate Expelled but pick and choose their science to suit their ideological political views.” it would be appreciated, because otherwise you sound like exactly the kind of person you’re railing against.
Jeff,
“…otherwise you sound like exactly the kind of person you’re railing against.”
Gee, isn’t that what I argued? See what I mean.
No, I don’t. You’re accusing people, specifically me, of ignoring science in favor of ideology, but then refusing to tell me what I’m ignoring and what I’m favoring, so it’s kind of a one-sided conversation.
The ball’s in your court. Ask me a question, give me a challenge…anything substantive.
Nicol, I took another look at your last couple of posts and I see the point you were trying to make. The difference is, you’re making what appear to be bizarre assertions, and I’m not, so I don’t have nearly as much burden to explain myself as you do.
Sorry, Nicol, but I stand by my initial assertion. Given the churches’ ability to get folks into seats for religion-based films, $3 mill is not that spectacular a number, especially when you figure a lot of those tickets were purchased in bulk and then distributed to the faithful. A decent number for a tiny indie? Absolutely. But given the potential audience, I expected much higher. And it has nowhere to go but down.
nicol, you sly devil, are you a member of the psychic friends network? oh man, i am so busted…
so you didn’t get from my post that i’ve read darwin; what part of what i said leads you to that conclusion? please explain, i can’t wait to hear it. then i’ll fill you in on my personal darwinian experience
aw come on, nicol, i thought we were gonna talk darwin after you tell me why you think i’m a liar.
i’ve still got my copy of ‘on the origin of the species’ from high school (got it right here, been brushing up) and i found my cultural anthropology textbook with a section on ‘the descent of man’, which we had to read back in the day but unfortunately i do not own (to be honest reading darwin gives me a fucking headache), PLUS i’ve watched pretty much every episode of ‘the wild thornberrys’ with my son and remember most of those…oh, wait, that darwin is a pet chimpanzee…
Sorry, been out of the loop because I’ve actually been working the last few days, but I still say that $3 million is not that impressive for Expelled. Maybe it’s impressive because it’s a doc but considering its heavy marketing through fundamentalist Christian church groups and based around the controversy among the scientific community, it still opened lighter than “One Night with the King” and “End of the Spear” which both opened in fewer theaters. Sure, you can look at it from the doc perspective but how many docs have opened in that many theaters? Right, none… the last one to get that wide an opening in its first week was Fahrenheit 9/11 and look how that did compared to this. (Heck, the producers were practically PAYING people to see this movie by offering money to schools and churches who form groups to go see it.)
Expelled did most of its business on Friday and after losing a lot of its theaters this coming Friday, it will lose the rest by May 2. I personally will be amazed if it winds up with more than $5 million total. If it made that amount opening weekend, I might be more impressed.