Comments on: Flunked, Not Expelled: Tickets and Ethics

By: Austringer

Austringer — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:02:57 +0000

I’m still waiting for next weekend. The movie is leading the pack on making a decline in ticket sales. It has retained all but 11 theaters in its second week, so it may be that the theater in Lansing will still be showing it next week. Otherwise, I expect the DVD to be available shortly.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:21:18 +0000

I went to see it with two of my friends and we bought tickets. When we did do so the guy at the ticket counter said something like “You’re dragging them to see that?”

By: Austringer

Austringer — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:38:29 +0000

“Expelled” opened on far more theaters than is typical for a documentary, making “only” 1052 theaters an improper use of “only”.

“REC” at AtBC notes:

By the way…I can’t believe the UDers are comparing their mass-market, ads every 5 seconds on Comedy Central, subsidized ticket rollouts to documentaries choosing to premier on one screen (Sundance). Most of the documentaries I’ve heard of premiered on 1-4 screens, but if you click the title and look at ‘wide release” its clear its not that high:

March of the penguins:
Opening Weekend: 4 Theaters $137,492
Wide Release: Opening Weekend: 695 theaters $4,382,340

Sicko:
Opening Weekend: limited, 1 theaters $68,969
Opening Weekend: wide: $3,600,179 702 theaters, $5,128 average
Sicko

So if you look at ‘wide release’ stats, expelled falls down the list.

Another statistic that would be of interest is numbers of tickets sold proportional to promotional dollars spent. I suspect that “Expelled” ranks way up there in terms of the latter, though it isn’t at the top in terms of the former.

One wonders where Michael was when various other abuses of academic freedom were occurring.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:37:41 +0000

Guilty before proven innocent, is that your logic, Frank J? Or is it wishful thinking? Expelled pulled in pretty good numbers for a documentary this past weekend considering it was only in 1052 theaters…I believe it broke the top 10 at over 3 million for the first weekend.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was or will be a few people who paid for another movie and then sneak into “Expelled”. More than likely, I would assume that those who might have done so, didn’t support the film, but still wanted to view it anyway. At least there is one in this is blog who admitted he paid for a ticket to see the film even though he didn’t like it, most likely he didn’t like before he seen it…

Let academic freedom reign!

By: Tyler DiPietro

Tyler DiPietro — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:20:05 +0000

I’m waiting until the DVD release is in a bargain bin somewhere. From the at best sub-par numbers they’ve been pulling thus far, it probably won’t take long at all for that to happen.

By: Frank J

Frank J — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:39:39 +0000

Typical Dembski chutzpah to complain about his critics breaking the commandment about stealing, while he regularly breaks the one about bearing false witness (& possibly the one about stealing too if the Harvard video story is accurate).

But really, sometimes the foot-shooting among fellow critics of ID/creationism gets so bad that I almost root for the scammers.