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Obama-Bashing Movie is #1 at Box Office, Brags Fox Nation: But There Are Loads of Asterisks

Posted by Margarita -3pc on August 25, 2012 · Flag

Anti-Obama Movie #1 at Box Office, trumpeted the headline to a post on Fox Nation today. It was celebrating extremely high advance sales for 2016: Obama’s America, during its first weekend of general distribution. But if you read the fine print in the article in deadline.com from which Fox Nation’s post is taken, you’ll find they’ve stretched the truth a lot.

The film, co-directed by Dinesh D’Souza (who's been strutting his stuff on Fox News a number of times) and based on his 2010 hatchet job political commentary The Roots of Obama’s Rage, grossed about $1.2M-$1.7M Friday according to Deadline, doing better in advance sales than The Expendables 2. But that was Friday, and advance sales. By today there were enough people going to The Expendables 2 and The Bourne Legacy to push 2016 to #4 at Deadline.com.  Rotten Tomatoes has it at #13, with $1.2M weekend gross compared to $28.6M for Expendables 2.

That is extremely good for a documentary. But will it last? Deadline doesn't think so. It attributes the film's initial success to "savvy marketing in advance of the Republican National Convention August 27-30. Exhibitors are reporting busloads of filmgoers arriving at theaters around the country in pre-organized trips. It also employed much of the same marketing techniques used to garner attention and support for faith-based films, understandable since the audience is overlapping.” In other words, once the conservative establishment stops aggressively propping the movie up, ticket sales will probably fall pretty fast. 

Loads of commentary on the Fox Nation, and a little of it was about the movie.

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But more of it, as usual, was about the subject.

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Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie 57% based on 7 reviews, which is lower than The Dark Knight Rises but better than Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Sorry, your humble servant hasn't learned how to embed videos yet, but you can find the trailers at the Rotten Tomatoes link. If you're interested. I'm going to stay in and watch The Hunger Games tonight.

 

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mj - the same one commented 2012-08-27 02:02:59 -0400 · Flag
@truman: “This awful movie will be available next week in the $1 DVD bin at Wal-Mart.” . . . included in a box set with “The Undefeated” and “The Christmas Sweater” . . .

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truman commented 2012-08-26 11:08:00 -0400 · Flag
This awful movie will be available next week in the $1 DVD bin at Wal-Mart.

Anti-Obama books are a better buy. They can be substituted for toilet paper when you forget to get some at the store.
mlp ! commented 2012-08-26 11:05:42 -0400 · Flag
They ought to have a ‘Double-Feature’ of this “movie” and Sarah Palin’s “Undefeated”. The theater will smell like David Vitter’s diaper…..or Larry Craig’s restroom stall.
Maybe Amy and Patel could sit together and enjoy the rapture!
Rick Patel commented 2012-08-26 07:14:35 -0400 · Flag
Thanks for the heads-up about this exciting & popular film from the brilliant immigrant Dinesh D’Souza. Will go see it this afternoon, if any seats are available.
Joseph West commented 2012-08-26 02:09:24 -0400 · Flag
According to BoxOfficeMojo, the figures are even less amazing. Sure, the movie did some decent business on Friday, but that’s only because it added more than 900 theaters.

Per BOM, the film has actually been in release for 43 days (as of Friday’s business), and on Friday, the film basically doubled its box office take but, again, that’s after adding 900+ theaters. Through Thursday, the film (which had been playing in only 169 theaters) had earned $2.8 million. On Friday, after expanding to 1091 theaters, it took in $2.2 million. The truly interesting thing, though, is that BOM doesn’t begin reporting the film’s take until 8/13—its 32nd day of release—when it was playing in only 61 theaters (that day, it took in a little over $50,000, putting its gross-to-date at just over $586,000).

A couple of other facts, Friday’s per-theater average was only $2067 which is the film’s 4th largest per-theater average (last weekend, when it was only playing at 169 theaters, its per-theater average was $2643 on Friday the 17th, $2621 on Saturday the 18th, and $2102 on Sunday the 19th).

It should also be noted that the film company’s last major film (“Expelled”) actually opened in nearly as many theaters as “Hatchet Job” is currently playing (“Expelled” opened in 1052 theaters back in 2008).
Aria Prescott commented 2012-08-25 23:42:01 -0400 · Flag
“I’m going to stay in and watch The Hunger Games tonight.”

Funny you should make this your closing line, because it’s a perfect example for what I was going to bring up: The “forced popularity” card.

I’ve read THG, and tried to see the movie; it’s even worse than Twilight, if you can believe that. I’ve also read Dinesh D’Souza’s work- he makes “The Undefeated” look like meticulous research.

So how do they survive? Pure manipulative bullying from the PR campaign. It’s #1 when it’s not, people are buzzing about it when they’re not, it’s tapped into some sort of social relevance when it isn’t, and (my personal fav) we have to believe that the actors created an end-all-be-all for playing the role that renders all future performances of the genre subject to comparison… even when someone who eluded the campaign thinks they flat sucked.

In more blunt terms: Everybody’s seen this movie but you, and we dare you to find someone who didn’t like it. Making you the outcast for speaking up if you’re the person who saw through them.

Fox is a master of this in all their divisions- I daresay they’re the best. Even Warner Brothers can’t quite silence critics with presumed isolation as well as they can. And that may be the only thing this movie really has going for it.
majii commented 2012-08-25 20:19:29 -0400 · Flag
There’s one body that you’ve neglected to hold accountable for anything, Amy Smith, and that’s Congress. Republicans in Congress have refused to work with President Obama. McConnell said that the republicans’ number one goal was to make President Obama a one-term president. Thank God, most Americans aren’t as partisan as you are because a recent poll showed that most of them are fully aware of the obstructionism that the president has faced from republicans. When I hear anyone complaining about what the president hasn’t done and who doesn’t hold Congress responsible for anything, I know the person has no idea how the Constitution says our government is supposed to work. People like you, Amy, don’t realize that an American president is not a dictator. The Constitution mandates that Congress creates the laws, and the president signs them into law. You should be questioning the republicans in Congress and asking them why we’re paying them $174,000/yr + benefits and they haven’t done their job. I value other ignorant people’s comments as much as I value the professor’s comments. Comments are like buttholes—everybody has one, so until you and the others like you have to actually step up to the plate and deal with what President Obama has had to deal with, please to be keeping your yap shut. Maybe some superglue would be useful for this purpose.
Amy Smith commented 2012-08-25 18:02:47 -0400 · Flag
Opinions are like A@#holes everybodys got one and they all stink.These are the facts the unemployment rate is double the government numbers. 23 million americans are out of work. The ACLU calls Obama the worst president in history on civil liberties. Obama’s own law professor Roberto Unger has made a VIDEO ASKING PEOPLE NOT TO VOTE FOR HIM. The professor went on to list his complaints:
•”His policy is financial confidence and food stamps.”
•”He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyed interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices.”
•”He has delivered the politics of democracy to the rule of money.”
•”He has disguised his surrender with an empty appeal to tax justice.”
•”He has reduced justice to charity.”
•”He has subordinated the broadening of economic and educational opportunity to the important but secondary issue of access to health care in the mistaken belief that he would be spared a fight.”
•”He has evoked a politics of handholding, but no one changes the world without a struggle








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