April 11, 2005

Why Fahrenheit 9/11 Wasn't the Blockbuster You Think

Numbers are a funny thing...they don't lie.

Michael Moore, everyone's favorite Leftwing hack, claimed that his film was the "number-one movie in every single red state in America." Of course, looking at raw data, one might think Moore was correct...or maybe close to correct.

But Byron York over at National Review looked closer at the data, and it doesn't shine a very flattering light on Moore's claims.

To make a comparison: Which film had a better opening weekend, Fahrenheit 9/11 or Barbershop 2: Back in Business? The correct answer is Barbershop. In terms of opening receipts, Mean Girls also beat Fahrenheit 9/11, as did Starsky & Hutch, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, Alien vs. Predator, 50 First Dates, and several others. The yearÕs big hits, like Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Spiderman 2 all had openings between four and five times the size of Fahrenheit 9/11Õs. In the end, Fahrenheit 9/11 had the 32nd-best opening weekend of 2004, taking in $23,920,637 in its first days.

There's more (I've edited due to the length of his comments; the entire article is available here):

Overall, Fahrenheit 9/11 did extremely well in North AmericaÕs top eight markets, according to the numbers compiled by Nielsen EDI...

In all, two things stand out from those numbers. One is that the picture overperformed only in blue states, and even then only in the most urban parts of those blue states. And the second is that it did very well in Canada. Fahrenheit 9/11 consistently overperformed in Canadian cities; without that boffo business, the filmÕs gross would have been significantly smaller than it was...

ThatÕs the upside of the story. The downside revealed by the Nielsen EDI numbers is that Fahrenheit 9/11, far from being the runaway nationwide hit that Moore claimed, underperformed in dozens of markets throughout red states and, most important Ñ as far as the presidential election was concerned Ñ swing states.

Be sure to read it yourself to get a clearer picture.

There's another aspect to the "popularity" of Moore's movie...being awarded with the People's Choice Favorite Movie award.

To hear Moore play it, his win was significant. On his Website, Moore gushes:

21 million people [emphasis mine] voted in the People's Choice Awards. They chose our film over "Shrek 2," "Spiderman 2" and "The Incredibles." If we can beat that many superheroes, surely we cansurvive the next four years...

It was an historic moment as no documentary had ever won the People's Choice Award for Best Picture. And I thank each and every one of you who voted and made that happen.

However, all of the votes this year were collected via the Internet, a fact that didn't go unnoticed (all emphasis mine):

Some critics have contended that the change in procedure has led to a less scientific determination of the people's favorites, as overzealous fans could vote for their personal preferences more than once...

However, it's unclear just how "amazed" Moore could have really been. In addition to the fact that he was allegedly tipped off to his victory, the outspoken documentarian campaigned for votes for his film on his Website, contending that a vote for Fahrenheit 9/11 was a vote against President Bush.

"He may have been (barely) the people's choice on Nov. 2, but now the people get to vote again, this time for a movie," Moore wrote on his site. He did not mention his call for votes in his acceptance speech.

The moral here, kiddies, is not to believe everything you hear. Especially when it comes from charlatans like Michael Moore.

Hat tip: Confessions of a Political Junkie

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