Expelled #2 Highest Grossing Political Documentary

_{April 20, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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Expelled easily ranks as having the second largest gross box office receipts on opening weekend of any political documentary ever. It is bested only by Fahrenheit 9/11. As of Sunday morning it has an estimated $3.2 million gross.

Even better, in just the first two days of ticket sales it ranks as the 8th highest political documentary by lifetime total receipts.

I wonder if Judge Jones has seen it yet? Will he pay for a different movie and sneak in to Expelled? Or will he download a pirated version? Inquiring minds want to know! LOL

Comments

Per screen receipts are rather meaningless. The screen it was on in NW Austin was sold out much of the time (200+ seats). The screen it was on 20 miles away in cow country probably didn't sell 200 tickets for the entire weekend. The producers wanted everyone everywhere to have a chance to see the film even if it meant putting it in rural theaters with little traffic.DaveScot_{April 21, 2008
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[...] couple of patents and a self-reported IQ a couple of standard deviations above the mean. Here he is claiming that Expelled had the Second Highest Opening Box Office Gross Ev4r!!!! Expelled easily ranks as having the second largest gross box office receipts on opening weekend of [...]JABbering Stooge :: We’re Number 9! We’re Number 9! :: April :: 2008_{April 21, 2008
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DLH, I was simply comparing the per-screen receipts to the other top documentaries, as per DaveScot's original post. The data are in the first link of the original post. My point is merely that the high total opening-weekend are a result of the extremely wide opening.evo_materialist_{April 21, 2008
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For the weekend of April 18-20, Box Office Mojo ranks Expelled as 10th in gross receipts with $2,970,848, and 20th out of the top 131 movies in average earnings per theater with $2,824/theater. Here are the daily details evo_materialist, please provide objective commentary with references, rather than trying to repeatedly discredit Expelled.DLH_{April 21, 2008
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Actual numbers are lower than expected by over $200,000. The film earned less than $3 million for the weekend. Expelled also had a terrible per-screen gross ($2,824 per screen for the whole weekend. Wow). I took the data from Box Office Mojo, where Expelled was #2 overall, and calculated per-screen opening weekend grosses. Excluding those for which no screen numbers were available, there were 80 movies in the table. I divided opening weekend by total screens. Expelled ranks in the bottom half (52 out of 80), just below Bush's Brain, and would probably rank lower if the numbers were adjusted to account for inflation and the higher ticket prices of more recent films. (Of the 28 movies below Expelled, 13 were released in 2005 or earlier.)evo_materialist_{April 21, 2008
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By my calculations, Expelled did fairly well. In $USD/theater, it ranked #5, but was within a horseshoe of #3. Like you, I wonder if the evolanders sneaking into the theater might have something to do with this.William Wallace_{April 20, 2008
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Expelled is a political film? I thought it was about science.
It only touches on science. It's primarily about the political attacks on those who question Darwinism and/or support ID.russ_{April 20, 2008
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Reg:
Expelled is a political film? I thought it was about science.
The primary theme of the film, from opening to closing credits, is freedom, academic freedom, using the motif of the Berlin wall to represent that force in today's academy which limits freedom of inquiry. ID is merely the thread, the example, the motivation to illustrate where academic freedom is totally absent in the US.EndoplasmicMessenger_{April 20, 2008
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Reg After the first two days receipts, Box Office Mojo ranks categorizes Expelled 18th in the Genres of Christian, , 26th in Documentary and 8th in Documentary-Political.DLH_{April 20, 2008
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Don't forget that Moore's junk had the backing of the Leftmedia and Leftacademia. Expelled reminds me of something that Dr Thomas Sowell said (although in this case about general leftist articles of faith): "No belief can be refuted if it cannot be discussed."Jonathan Sarfati_{April 20, 2008
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Expelled finishes fifth, earning $3000/theater... Expelled will finish fifth this weekend, according to my analysis of Yahoo’s Weekend Box Office Estimates, earning nearly $3000/ theater. Comparisons: Expelled earned over $1000 more per theater than the the sixth place film, Sony Picture’...Coincidence Theories_{April 20, 2008
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Reg: Who are you trying to kid?godsilove86_{April 20, 2008
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I would say that Expelled is about how science has been politicized to exclude ideas the powers that be find unpalatable.SeekAndFind_{April 20, 2008
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No, Reg. Contrary to the Darwinists' claims, this movie isn't primarily about the science of ID. It's about the politics of people trying to even simply discuss ID and finding themselves vilified.jinxmchue_{April 20, 2008
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Did anyone else notice that the box office receipts went DOWN on Saturday? It was the only movie in the top thirteen to do this.IHS_{April 20, 2008
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Expelled is a political film? I thought it was about science.Reg_{April 20, 2008
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Expelled also opened in the highest number of theaters of any Documentary - Political. It is already 26th among all documentaries. If life time gross is 10 times opening, it could well to go to number 3 among all documentaries, behind Fahrenheit 9/11 and march of the Penguins. It is fascinating that Rotten Tomatoes' critics rank it at 9% while at Box Office Mojo, 66.4% of viewers give it As vs 28.7% give it Fs. At 95.1% As and Fs, Expelled's viewers are even more polarized than the 72.8% As and Fs of Fahrenheit 9/11. 66.4% of viewers give Expelled an A so far compared to 46.5% to Fahrenheit 9/11.DLH_{April 20, 2008
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Expelled did pretty good, relatively, in my opinion. Comapring it to Michael Moores film seems is not exactly fair. I think the economic climate is a factor to consider. Markets aren't the most robust, with a recession considered official. So, comparing it to current films out seems a better approach thna comapring it to films when people were looser with the9ir wallets. How did Expelled do? Well, it was about #8 out of all the other films this weekend. And the weekend is not over until Sunday's (tonight's) showings. ALSO, on a per theatre basis, Expelled looks like it is 5th nationally - not bad imo. My stats are from the commerical website boxofficemojo. One bad review (here's an excerpt):
The only other newcomer in the Top 10 was conservative commentator Ben Stein's documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which makes the intelligent design argument. Playing in 1,052 theaters, the pic distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures fell over the weekend from 8th to 10th place after earning $1.2M Friday and $989K Saturday for a $2.9M weekend. But the per screen average for Friday was a low $1,145 and for Saturday $940 (and $2,830 for the entire weekend), showing there wasn't much pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive publicity campaign on right-wing media. So much for the conservative argument that people would flock to films not representing the "agenda of liberal Hollywood". (Just for comparison purposes: left-wing Michael Moore's most recent Sicko did $4.4 mil its opening weekend from only 441 theaters, and his Fahrenheit 9/11 did $23.9M its opening weekend from 868 venues.)
- deadlinehollywooddaily The author apparently thinks the media is right wing. Unless he is underscoring a segment of the media as right wing. If he is referring to a seegment, then he is admitting in some way that the media overall is better at supporting left wing films. If he is suggesting that the media is right wing in general, then he is clearly deluded. {DLH I deleted your duplicate posts. Patience. Most comments are being held up in the spam filter.}JGuy_{April 20, 2008
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