The numbers for weekend movie sales are in, and Al Gore’s new movie, a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth, called An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (AIT2) tanked at the box office this weekend according to numbers gathered by movie sites “Box Office Mojo” and IMDB.
The opening weekend for any new movie is usually when the public, rife with anticipation, lines up to buy tickets at theaters. In this case, the opening weekend seemed to signal a major lack of interest on the part of the public, but more importantly, lack of interest in promoting the film by the studio itself, Paramount, who limited the opening weekend to just 4 theaters nationwide.
According to Box Office Mojo, AIT2 opened in just 4 theaters, and earned a measly $124,823.00 and put it at number 28, well behind other movies opening that weekend:
This is quite a departure from how the film was received at the preview at the Sundance Film Festival back on January 19th. According to Variety:
“An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” kicked off the 2017 Sundance Film FestivalThursday night, bringing a strongly positive response from an audience of 1,200 at the Eccles Center Theater.Though Al Gore announced in “An Inconvenient Sequel” that he is a recovered politician, the audience at the Sundance Film Festival reacted to the follow-up to 2006’s “Inconvenient Truth” like they wish he would get back in the game.Many stood at the end of the film to applaud Gore, who compared the cause of slowing climate change to other great moral causes of the modern era — like women’s suffrage and civil rights.
…
Reminiscent of the original, “An Inconvenient Sequel” depicted dire consequences of a warming earth — from flooding in Miami and the Philippines, to the worst drought on record in Syria, bringing human suffering there that predated the ongoing civil war, to air pollution so bad in some parts of China that life expectancy has declined by six years.
The now 68-year-old Gore acknowledges that he “would be lying” if he didn’t admit slow progress on slowing greenhouses gases sometimes causes him despair. “In order to fix the climate crisis we have to fix the democracy crisis,” he declares.After receiving his standing ovation following the premiere, Gore told the crowd that despite repeated setbacks there is reason to have hope for progress on climate change.
In essence, Gore is admitting that there’s not a lot of interest for action on his cause. Could it be because the majority of people just don’t believe him?
I’m not sure Mr. Gore will recover any momentum like he had with the original AIT film in 2006. In my opinion he’s become largely irrelevant in the climate debate, mainly due to the multitude of failed claims and factual errors in his statements overs the years. For example, it was shown that in a Gore-produced “high school science experiment” film about carbon dioxide, that the results demonstrating warming had to be faked in post production to make the experiment work. We caught and called him out on it, and yet the video remains on his website today, years later.
If Gore really speaks “Truth to Power” you’d think he’d want to remove that video, especially when a rival has clearly shown his “high school science experiment” results to be entirely fabricated. Apparently, the man has no scruples.
In AIT2, there’s similar failures and fabrications, as Bjorn Lomborg points out in a Wall Street Journal article
The former vice president has a poor record. Over the past 11 years Mr. Gore has suggested that global warming had caused an increase in tornadoes, that Mount Kilimanjaro’s glacier would disappear by 2016, and that the Arctic summers could be ice-free as soon as 2014. These predictions and claims all proved wrong.
“An Inconvenient Truth” promoted the frightening narrative that higher temperatures mean more extreme weather, especially hurricanes. The movie poster showed a hurricane emerging from a smokestack. Mr. Gore appears to double down on this by declaring in the new film’s trailer: “Storms get stronger and more destructive. Watch the water splash off the city. This is global warming.”
This is misleading. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—in its Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013—found “low confidence” of increased hurricane activity to date because of global warming. Storms are causing more damage, but primarily because more wealthy people choose to live on the coast, not because of rising temperatures.
In the trailer, Mr. Gore addresses “the most criticized scene” of his previous documentary, which suggested that “the combination of sea-level rise and storm surge would flood the 9/11 Memorial site.” Then viewers are shown footage of Manhattan taking on water in 2012 after superstorm Sandy, apparently vindicating Mr. Gore’s claims. Never mind that what he actually predicted was flooding caused by melting ice in Greenland.
Mr. Gore declares in his new film that “it is right to save humanity.” No argument here. But is using scare tactics really the best way to go about it?
Gore is clearly mostly about propaganda, and both sides of the climate debate now recognize this. One wonders if Mr. Gore isn’t past his expiration date when it comes to climate.
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“Mars rover concept vehicle looks to inspire next generation
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5528035952001/?#sp=show-clips
Kool !
“… places like Cupertino, West Hollywood, Upper West Side …”
Are these three (+1) the actual places?
Did Gore appear at each one to sign folk’s hats or whatever?
So, yes, the questions revolve around these 4, why, who picked them, what were the promotions?
I detect the smell of week old carp.
You spelled crap incorrectly.
“In order to fix the climate crisis we have to fix the democracy crisis,”
Democracy a problem is it???
That was my thought. And the cure is…?
This is his phrase that makes me worry…
“The now 68-year-old Gore acknowledges that he “would be lying” if he didn’t admit slow progress on slowing greenhouses gases sometimes causes him despair. “In order to fix the climate crisis we have to fix the democracy crisis,” he declares.”
To him fixing the “democracy crisis” means manipulating the media, science, and government to repress the will of the people. These stupid people need to be controlled so they do the “right” thing !
/sarc
Yeah, a number of green lefties have wistfully pointed to authoritarian China as a country whose government can Get Things Done. Of course China’s environmental record is lousy, but the government can just give orders and make stuff happen, unlike the US where people can disagree and elect people who disagree and put the brakes on the plans of his most eminent self-enriching windbag.
Their brand of “democracy” is practiced in places like North Korea, which prides itself on being the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
I’ve seen the film and there is one memorably impactful scene: Al Gore dressed casually is seen walking towards the camera along an old country road paralleling a wooden fence line. As he passes each fence post he dramatically intones, “There’s one. There’s one. And there’s another one…” while simultaneously pointing out turtles resting peacefully in the sun, one on top of each fence post. “These poor little guys are climate refugees, waiting for the coming deluge as the ice in our world melts away. These little fellas know it’s time to seek higher ground…”
About then a grizzled ole’ Tennesee Hillbilly approaches from stage left, whispers in the AlleGorical’s ear for a moment and exits stage right. Al nods and stops, peers into the very souls of all the viewers on the other side of the camera lens and earnestly, somberly and chillingly speaks, “When you see a turtle on a fence post, you can be pretty sure it didn’t get there by itself.”
The scene then dissolves to some calving icebergs and I was like totally, wow and thought to myself, “I can no longer deny climate change.”
I just threw up in my mouth.
DEBATE!
(Instead, he ducks like a quack.)
I saw Dunkirk in IMAX quality, and I recommend it if you know the story. It is full of real people and just as you’d expect, some of them are not heroes.
I will not be seeing either of the Inconveniences. I presume the second coming will be taken to UK court and, as before, disclaimers forced upon it if it is shown in schools. (Keep up the good work.)
Dunkirk is about an unexpected recovery from a man-made expected doom. Inconvenient 2 is about an expected disaster from what is claimed to be a man-made expected doom.
When the former disaster didn’t happen, the people rejoiced. When the latter disaster doesn’t happen, a certain large segment of the climate science community will be very, very unhappy.
Maybe it would draw more interest with a title of The Inconvenient Midwife?
I would guess that the nature of US politics is also hindering Al Gore’s cause simply because of his association with it: It always seems to me that a failed US Presidential campaign usually signifies the effective death of that person’s political career. In many other democracies a loser for the top job often gets to hang around, still wielding considerable influence and power, and may get a second and third bite of the cherry later on. If Gore’s political fortunes followed the common US pattern then it seems likely that causes associated with him may also take a dive in public attentions.
Speaking of people who coulda been a contender….what is HRC up to these days? We don’t hear so much in the UK media. Is she still stalking the halls of the Democrats like the Bloody Barron at Hogwarts, carrying her head under her arm?
: It always seems to me that a failed US Presidential campaign usually signifies the effective death of that person’s political career
Best not to forget Richard Nixon. His political death was delayed by quite a few years. While some may agree with Kennedy that the past is prologue, it can also be precedent..
“what is HRC up to these days?”
She’s incubating a book on the 2016 campaign.
Being cynical ,in the modern understood sense, as opposed to the original Cynics who disavowed all personal property, I would suggest that the profits will be gained by sales of the film to education authorities.
Maybe Mr Gore could become a Climate Cynic?
I suspect the $/theater number is incorrect. Checking Fandango, I found it in several locations (LA, SF, Portland, Seattle, Madison WI, Hollywood, Boulder, Denver, and even Houston (And of course Aspen). However, many just had one screen a night, and only one theater in each city carried it.
You mean they cherry picked their data? Are we shocked?
If you were smart, you would have saved your derision another week. Hollywood will laugh at you instead as the per screen average of $32K is exceptional and lead all limited releases.
It will undoubtedly fail and you could have great fun if it turns on less than $2,000 a screen which would indeed be a failure in anything over 100 screens. But for now you merely look like am ignorant rube who knows nothing about the movie business.
Jim, I believe the $32,000 for four theaters ($8000/theater, not per screen) number is incorrect. See my post (2 above this). First, there are more theaters than four showing the film. Second, $32000 is so high that other theaters would be clamoring to get the film, and media buzz would be immense – it is not. The weekend is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Mojo site says 13,900 tickets were sold. That would be 3,475 per theater over three weekend days, or 1,158/day. Since most theaters seem to have only one or two showings a day, the 1,158 number seems very high. As a comparison, Dunkirk averaged 264 tickets/theater/day. There is almost assuredly something wrong with the data.
I understand your confusion. As someone who distributes films – let me explain it to you. (Continued on my post – too long for here – https://therightjb.wordpress.com/2017/08/02/an-inconvenient-bomb-response/)
On IMDB, the rating for An Inconvenient Sequel is 4.8/10.
This puts it in the same bracket as the worst movies ever made-
” Plan 9 from Outer Space” and that other cult classic ” Reefer Madness”.
good now take a 4 month holiday Antarctica would be a good starting point
Well, I just watched Gore on CNN giving his CAGW pitch. It was nothing by one distortion of the facts after another. Fact checkers would have their work cut out for them. Not that his version of the facts are difficult to check, it’s just that thee were *so* many distortions that it would take a long time just to list them all.
68 and looking stuffed. He better start eating broccoli if he wants do a third bockbluster. Maybe “inconvenient sequel” suggested to movie goers that it was not a good time to see it. Millennial population has doubled since the last one and ‘inconvenient’ is likely a trigger word, too.
I feel a bit sorry for old Al. He must be tallying up what his life has been about. Yegads!
hey, let’s debate a film we haven’t seen. cool. you guys are a riot.
“hey, let’s debate a film we haven’t seen. cool. you guys are a riot.”
Well, if you are talking about my comments on the Gore townhall meeting on CAGW, I was discussing what Gore was saying during the townhall meeting when I described it as “one distorted fact after another”, I wasn’t talking about the movie. So it looks to me like *you* are the riot.
Listening to Gore, you have to wonder what planet he lives on because his dire descriptions can’t be about the Earth.
The movie opens in Concord NH on Thursday PM. Last weekend was not the national opening, whatever that means. From http://www.redrivertheatres.org/2017/07/an-inconvenient-sequel-truth-to-power-special-event/
Howard Moffet, IIRC, is a strong proponent of wind turbines. It’s about as one sided a panel as can be found in NH. (Somehow they missed Cameron Wake.)
The trailer is at http://www.youtube.com/embed/huX1bmfdkyA?iv_loading_policy=3&modestbranding=1 and features lots of wind turbines.
My wife and I will be there, I’ve notified NH WindWatch and Joe D’Aleo.
This is the man that lost to G Bush, which he could add to quite a list of failures.
His ‘sucess’ have come from selling AGW BS, although it has bought him the very type of beach front property he claims would already be under water.
Big Al: “In order to fix the climate crisis we have to fix the democracy crisis,”
So he admits that Democracy is a problem for him and the rest of the AGW_ascists…….
“So he admits that Democracy is a problem for him and the rest of the AGW_ascists…….”
Yes, when things are not going the Liberals/Socialists way, they think Democracy needs fixing. They refuse to accept any verdict that goes against them, so there must be somthing wrong with Demcracy, not with them.
Although I am sure the film is a disaster and the fact that Paramount only showed it in 4 theatres shows their lack of support, it did make significantly more per theatre than almost any other film listed for that weekend.
I assume that it did so well per theatre because the 4 where it was being shown were in the middle of areas where Paramount knew there were a lot of Gore supporters and that true believers would travel a considerable distance to see their hero’s movie. This weekends take will be interesting to see. I expect it will drop to almost zero because the die hard believers have already seen it and there are very few left who are interested enough to pay theatre prices to watch. I expect when it shows up on HBO or Netflix or wherever that many less die hard supporters will watch it and some that strongly oppose it will also watch to laugh and critique it.
http://polisat.com/Images/GAIA_HAT-TPC-Img-0aAa-Intro-600×450.jpg
Good picture, Doc! 🙂
“an ‘inconvenient bomb’ at the box office” Which is exactly why they will give copies free to elementary schools and force children to watch it.
Some inconvenient facts are revealed in this National Review review of Gore’s film.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449910/al-gore-inconvenient-sequel-self-serving
The $32,000 for four theaters ($8000/theater, not per screen) number is incorrect. First, there are more theaters than four showing the film. Second, $32000 is so high that other theaters would be clamoring to get the film, and media buzz would be immense – it is not. The weekend is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The Mojo site says 13,900 tickets were sold. That would be 3,475 per theater over three weekend days, or 1,158/day. Since most theaters seem to have only one or two showings a day, the 1,158 number seems very high. As a comparison, Dunkirk averaged 264 tickets/theater/day. There is almost assuredly something wrong with the data.
The $31204 figure is the average per theatre. The film grossed $123k.
There might be something wrong with the data. Alternatively, by showing in just 4 theatres and heavily promoting the film in the limited climate community it might be possible to sell over a thousand tickets per day. It might be nothing wrong with the data. It may be an indication that a large part of the potential viewing audience was catered for. It will remain to be seen if the revenue increases markedly when more theatres show it.
Yes, my error – thanks…