A Conservative scholar’s documentary about President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) has turned out to be the most watched documentary of the year, bringing in over $20,000,000, so far.
NYDailyNews.com has the story:
While pundits and critics are divided over whether “2016: Obama’s America” is a sobering documentary examining “the most mysterious U.S. president in modern history” or an 87-minute attack ad, there’s no debating that the film is a box office phenomenon.
Taking a page from his own book “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” conservative scholar Diniseh D’Souza’s film has shocked industry prognosticators by earning an estimated $20 million to date, more than five times what the second-highest documentary this year, “Bully,” earned. With virtually no promotional budget, the film has expanded in a little over a month from one theater in Houston to 1747 screens this weekend.
“People see the success and they think we have the marketing budget of ‘Dark Knight Rises,’ we probably don’t even have the catering budget of the ‘Dark Knight,'” co-director John Sullivan, who helped craft the promotional plan, told the News.
So they had to rely on the choir preaching to an even bigger choir. Sullivan says ahead of the film’s mid-July opening at the Edward Houston Marq’E Stadium 23 & IMAX, local right-wing radio host Michael Berry championed the film with an all-out publicity blitz on his show.
Roughly 200 movie-goers were turned away from the sold out shows that weekend, a theater manager told the Hollywood Reporter.
From there, the film opened in three additional Houston-area theaters, then a handful of other cities in the reddest of states. It helped that by the time it jumped onto 1,071 screens last weekend, it didn’t have to go toe-to-toe with Batman or Iron Man.
“This is a case of good timing,” says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. “If it would have come out even two weeks earlier, it would have been swamped by the big blockbusters.”
Through the week of the Republican National Convention, D’Souza and producer Gerald Molen, who won an Academy Award for “Schindler’s List,” have been doing dozens of interviews. Along the way they picked up some key endorsements from the likes of Glen Beck and Rupert Murdoch.
Despite the clearly partisan image surrounding the film, Mark Joseph, whose firm MJM Entertainment is handling marketing of the film, insists the ticket-buyers aren’t all coming from one side of the great political divide.
“The producers did some testing early on that yielded some surprising and counterintuitive results: it played very well among non-whites and independents,” said Joseph by email. “There was speculation that that could be because Dinesh is himself a native of India and the high marks from independents were because he rejects birtherism and gives no quarter to the suggestion that the President isn’t a Christian.”
“The Passion of The Christ audience was roughly half very devout and half not so devout,” says Joseph. “The latter wanted to see what the fuss was about.”
But it’s clear this film taps into Republican dissatisfaction with President Obama – not unlike the rage Democrats felt in 2004 that Michael Moore tapped with “Fahrenheit 9/11.”
It’s also clear that Hollyweird is having a bad year, per hollywoodreporter.com:
The number of people going to the movies dipped noticeably in North America this summer, putting increased pressure on the final four months of 2012 to bolster the bottom line.
According to preliminary estimates, 533.5 million tickets were sold this summer, down 4 percent from last year and the worst turnout since 1993. The lowest attendance before now came in summer 2010, when there were 534.4 tickets sold.
Total summer revenues also slipped. Initial estimates show the domestic box office generating $4.278 in billion in sales, down roughly 3 percent from last summer’s record $4.4 billion.
Final revenue and attendance figures will be released this week.
“You can’t just count on blockbuster superheroes and action movies alone,” said Hollywood.com’s Dergarabedian. Studios also need comedies and adult dramas to post record summer results, he said.
Hollywood often says box office swings are based simply on the appeal of films. This summer, moviegoers may have become more discerning when deciding where to spend their entertainment dollars, executives said.
“I don’t think you can fool audiences,” Universal’s Rocco said. “They are savvy, and expectations are high.”
Americans have grown exceptionally weary concerning all the anti-American, anti-God, pro-Liberal sentiments that are so prevalent in today’s box office offerings.
Additionally, thank’s to this president’s failed economic policies, average Americans can afford to go out to see mediocre movies.
Americans are looking for uplifting entertainment, and Hollywood has been giving us Horror movies, instead.
The reason that Superhero movies have been doing so well is simple: Americans always prefer to see good triumph over evil. Just as they prefer to our nation portrayed in a good light. That’s why those anti-American movies , such as “redacted” , of a couple of years ago did so poorly.
The money men behind Hollywood had better pay attention to the tremendous response that Clint Eastwood has received for his improvisation at the Republican National Convention.
They need to make movies for the majority of Americans, not the Liberal minority.
Liberals forget that Conservatives purchase tickets too.
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excellent movie…for those KJ viewers who have not seen it yet…please do
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“Americans always prefer to see good triumph over evil…”
Yep…
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