Fox's Keenan issued misleading attack on An Inconvenient Truth's box office earnings
SUMMARY: Fox News' Terry Keenan pushed a misleading comparison between the national box office earnings over Memorial Day weekend of two recent blockbusters -- X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code -- and those received during the limited release of An Inconvenient Truth, a new documentary on Al Gore's campaign to raise worldwide awareness of global warming. Keenan neglected to mention that An Inconvenient Truth's "limited release" consisted of only four theaters nationwide, while the most recent installment of the X-Men series and The Da Vinci Code were shown in 3,690 and 3,754 theater screens respectively.
On the May 29 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, guest host Terry Keenan pushed a misleading comparison between the national box office earnings over Memorial Day weekend of two recent blockbusters -- X-Men: The Last Stand and The Da Vinci Code -- and those received during the limited release of An Inconvenient Truth, a new documentary on former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise worldwide awareness of global warming. Keenan noted that X-Men is "expected to earn more than $120 million ... as The Da Vinci Code fell to fourth place." She then added: "Al Gore's global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth? Well, it earned less than half a million dollars during its quote, 'limited release.' " But Keenan neglected to mention that An Inconvenient Truth's "limited release" consisted of only four theaters nationwide, while the most recent installment of the X-Men series and The Da Vinci Code were shown on 3,690 and 3,754 theater screens respectively. In fact, Gore's documentary earned nearly three times more money per theatre than X-Men and over eight times more per theatre than The Da Vinci Code over the three day holiday weekend.
According to figures compiled by Box Office Mojo, an online movie publication and box office reporting service, X-Men topped box office earnings over the May 26-28 Memorial Day weekend, bringing in $103.1 million. The Da Vinci Code came in second place, earning $34 million, while An Inconvenient Truth earned $282,000. But according to the same estimates, An Inconvenient Truth averaged $70,500 per theatre screen, while X-Men averaged $27,927 and The Da Vinci Code just over $9,000.
The per-screen revenue discrepancy is even larger when including figures from Memorial Day, May 29, the day that Keenan downplayed An Inconvenient Truth's earnings on Fox News. According to Box Office Mojo, over the four-day weekend, X-Men earned $120.125 million, The Da Vinci Code earned $43 million, and An Inconvenient Truth earned $366,000. Similarly, Entertainment Weekly, which also included earnings from May 29, reported that X-Men earned $120.1 million, The Da Vinci Code earned $43 million, and An Inconvenient Truth "put $366,000 into the lock box on just four screens." Although Entertainment Weekly has not yet released its per-screen figures, based on these estimates, according to Box Office Mojo, An Inconvenient Truth averaged $91,500 per screen, while X-Men averaged $32,554 and The Da Vinci Code just over $11,454.
Keenan also incorrectly stated that The Da Vinci Code "fell to fourth place" at the weekend's box office. In fact, in terms of weekend total box-office receipts, the film finished in second place behind X-Men; it is also currently ranked second in total box-office receipts among films released in 2006.
From the May 29 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
KEENAN: And X Men: The Last Stand, the dominant force at the box office. The film expected to earn more than $120 million over the Memorial Day weekend as The Da Vinci Code fell to fourth place. Al Gore's global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth? Well, it earned less than half a million dollars during its quote, "limited release."
It simply amazes me how Faux news will go to any lengths to make ridiculous comparisons.
Believe me the company that is distributing An Inconvienent Truth is extremely happy with the earnings of this film over the weekend. As MMFA stated per screen earnings are what counts and the strategy for films like AIT are to start small and slowly build out with word of mouth, good reviews and lots of press which it is getting.
Naturally it is not going to sell tickets like the X-Men sequel and it is not expected to.
Fox News just cannot stand the fact that the movie exists much like Michael Moore's documentary about Iraq.
Did he actually visit Iraq and sit with the troops as mortars went off around him? I have not seen it, but I doubt you could call it a documentary.
I agree! The fact that this movie would be attacked by FOX means that it is goring Roger Ailes backside.
Al Gore has been slandered, laughed out and denounced so many times on FOX, (Brit Hume has a snarky giggle every time he mentions his name) and now he is receiving accolades. In other words, FOX hates seeing Gore because it reminds everyone that he beat George Bush in 2000 and more importantly, he was right and still refuses to quit.
Fox style.
Apples and oranges. What's really nice is since the movie obviously did well in very limited release, it will be added to more theaters nationwide.
why the limited viewing area? I'm sure that plays a great role in the overall earnings!
Gore's new production is a documentory which is likely to attract less people that fiction/action movies.
And they failed to mention that it cost a fraction of those other movies as well and will make a profit very easily. I looked at the release schedule on the website for the film and it it is going wide in a step by step process in June. They are really not going to like how well it is going to do just like with Fahrenheit 9/11. Although it will not do the kind of business that film did.
This snarky "comparison" is so absurd that all but the most braindead Fox viewer should be able to see right through it. And I love how he managed to sneak in a jab at the Da Vinci Code for good measure with a blatant lie.
The Faux viewers are exactly the ones they're shoveling this stuff at, extraordinarily uncritical viewers who will nod and go, "Ah-yup" to pretty much anything because Fox News says it. I think, at this point, they're not trying to gain any new converts so much as bake dry their core audience's muddied thoughts.
I don't know how "braindead" Fox News viewers are. They're just dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who are deliberately hiding in the comfortable right-wing womb of Fox News. This is the same crowd that drools over their daily dose of Rush Limbaugh.
But you're completely right. Fox News has been running a coordinated effort to trash "The DaVinci Code". The criticism of church doctrine has social conservatives' panties all in a wad so Fox News spoon feeds them comforting spin trashing it at every opportunity. O'Reilly has featured it in his 'news analysis' (I gag typing that) Mo' Spin Zone. Their pin-headed movie reviewer McCutty furiously ridiculed it. And so on and so on...
Obviously, Gore - a favorite Fox News whipping boy - is going to get no respect. Other favorite lib targets like George Clooney, too, have been singled out by Foxies like Bill O'Reilly.
Yep, the right-wing chuckles are non-stop at the Fox New Funhouse!
A small correction to your report:
You say that Box Office Mojo says that X-Men is playing at 3690 "theater screens." Actually, they say it is at 3690 "theaters." They define the difference on their web site: "Theaters refers to the number of locations where a movie is playing, but it does not reflect the number of screens. One theater location, for example, may play a movie on several screens—this is a necessary distinction since print and Web references routinely and mistakenly refer to theaters as screens."
Other places in the report also mistakenly refer to "screens" while some places correctly say theaters. This could incorrectly lead some readers to believe that Media Matters is mixing apples and oranges in its comparisons. Actually it appears that the report consistently counts theaters even when it mistakenly states "screens."
I'll definitely be buying Gore's movie on DVD.
Not so for X-Men 3 or DaVinci Code.
Off of the official website, "…And a quick box office update: An Inconvenient Truth grossed $78,994 on 4 theaters yesterday for an opening day screen average of $19,748!"
Fox Interviewer: If we pay you enough, are you willing to say anything that we put forward to you on the teleprompter no matter how ridiculous it is?
Interviewee for Host Job: Yes
Fox Interviewer: You're hired.
I don't generally watch any of the news channels, but from the limited viewing I do get, I don't really see how any news channel is any better.
listening to these Faux news movie guys- with my aversion to crowds, I rarely go to the theater to see movies, but after hearing Fox and Repub radio gloating about how The Da Vinci Code was bombing, I went to a Sunday afternoon showing (2:30, after the lower matinee prices, before the night time rush), figuring I'd have the place to myself. I got there 15 minutes before showtime and had to sit in the 4th row, it was so packed.
I guess this film is bombing like Gore got swept in that landslide. And GW is doing well in his approval ratings, if you account for the liberal medias sabotage efforts.Har Har!
Life's good in the "fact based community"
The 24/7 Fox "News" fanatic: "Hahaha--see honey? Hear that? They just said no one went to see that dam tree-huggin' movie! Say--I wanna see that DaVinci's Codes but it's so dam hot out again today."
As if the jury was still out whether the documentary was in limited release.