By Now They Should Know

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is a misconception that Hollywood is busy making movies that everyone wants to see (e.g., movies with excessive gore; sex; and hateful, anti-American, anti-Military themes.) But when you look a little bit past the surface, you see that Hollywood makes these movies because they like them. Especially when it comes to the anti-American stuff, it's the message they want to spread and it's what they believe that counts.

Some of the recent anti-American/anti-Military movies released this year or last reveal that there is no money to be made in these types of movies. If Hollywood was interested in making money, they'd make more movies like The Passion of the Christ.

Let's look at some numbers. (all numbers based on "The-Numbers.com")
In 2006, Oscar-winning best picture, "Babel" took in $34,302,837 US box office which was about $14 mil profit from their $20 mil budget. The moral equivalency in "Syriana" drew a beefier $50,824,620 US box office earning, but was profiting a paltry $824k over their $50 mil budget.

Conversely, the conservative, family-friendly PG-13 "Pursuit of Happyness" drew $162.5 million in the US and profited more than the other two liberal films combined ($107.5 mil vs. $15.1 mil.)

The revisionist history of Flags of Our Fathers had a worse showing than that by LOSING $20 mil in the US box office only to get back in the black in worldwide box office tickets (+$8.9 mil).

The Chronicles of Narnia, on the other hand earned over $291 million in the US. Grossing 32x Flags' net and itself netting a total of $568 million (not counting the ad budget.)

Is there any question that American's don't like watching movies that root against America?

Let's look at some of 2007/2008 movies.

Openly anti-American, anti-American values, anti-American military films like "Lions for Lambs", "In the Valley of Elah", "Rendition", and the pedophile-friendly "Little Children" had US box office grosses totaling $38,217,868.

The Nativity Story, an under-advertised, heavily-protested, religious film about the birth of Jesus grossed $37 million by itself. There are no big name stars in this film, either, unlike Lions for Lambs which boasts past and present superstars like Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, and Robert Redford.

"Well, maybe it's because American's are just tired of war movies," you say? Well, you're not the first to use that excuse.

About "Stop-Loss", Paramount's mouthpieces made this excuse, "No one wants to see Iraq war movies. No matter what we put out there in terms of great cast or trailers, people were completely turned off. It's a function of the marketplace not being ready to address this conflict in a dramatic way because the war itself is something that's unresolved yet. It's a shame because it's a good movie that's just ahead of its time."

Oh really?

Then how come Michael Mann's politically neutral (notice I didn't say "Pro-American") "The Kingdom" still managed $47 mil domestically and $38 mil internationally as opposed to Stop-Loss' don't-laugh-out-loud $5.5 US box office sales?

This year's pro-American "Vantage Point" grossed $130 million worldwide ($69 mil domestically.) I don't think people are tired of war movies. They're just tired of war movies depicting American troops as idiots, killers, and rapists.

Don't forget that "The Passion of the Christ" grossed over $611 million worldwide with $370 of it coming from home.

From 1995 to this point in 2008, every top grossing movie has been rated G, PG, or PG13. This, in spite of the fact that 30.35% of movies in this span were rated R (second to PG13 movies at 44.14%.)

If you're really interested in making money instead of making movies you WANT to make or spread agendas that you WANT to spread, why make so many mone-losing movies? Why make 14% more rated R movies if they earn, on average, $24.7 million dollars LESS per film? Does this make any sense at all?

I think it's pretty clear that Hollywood has its head in the sand and is pretty content churning out crud that no one wants to see.