Here’s a bit of blatant stupidity from Fox News, courtesy of Media Matters. Last Monday, Fox’s Terry Keenan said this:
“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.'”
That last part is said rather smugly, as you can see from watching the video clip available here.
Now, first of all, “The Da Vinci Code” fell to second place, not fourth. But more importantly, regarding “An Inconvenient Truth,” the truth that proved inconvenient in this case is that it was only playing in FOUR THEATERS when it grossed its $367,311. That’s an average of $91,827 per theater, which is in the top 25 highest per-theater averages in history. (It played on a total of nine screens in those theaters, by the way: three locations had it on two screens, and one had it on three.)
A per-theater average of $91,827 is HUGE for a four-day weekend, and it’s three times higher than “X3’s” average. It means every screening was sold-out or close to sold-out. In other words, the only way the film could have earned more than it did is if it had played on more screens, or if the four theaters it played in had installed more seats. Sorry to disappoint you, Fox News, but that makes it a success.
(By the way, I haven’t seen it yet. When I do, I’ll post a review. Stop asking me. Love, Eric.)
