From the “let’s limit our losses on this stinker” department.
Last week I wrote about Gore’s movie, a sequel to “An Inconvenient Truth” coming in 35th on opening weekend, and being in only 4 theaters. I predicted it would be a bomb, and wondered why the film company Paramount, would only put it in 4 theaters nationwide. This past weekend, it went to “wide release”, except that it didn’t – it was only in 180 theaters nationwide. From BoxOfficeMojo.com
Also, look at the earnings gap between 14th and 15th place, it’s huge. Note also the difference in the number of theaters, equally huge.
Critics of my post last week suggested that I’d missed the critical factor; it was at the top of the list in earning per theater at $31k. I countered with the fact that it was likely due to acolytes:
The interesting thing here is that clearly, Paramount is not getting behind the movie at all. There are some states where the movie isn’t even being shown. Dr. Roy Spencer reports it isn’t even being shown in Alabama that he can find. It’s also not playing in Idaho, and Paramount has completely ignored the state capital of Boise.
The per-theater earnings dropped to $5000.00 this past weekend, and while that’s a good showing compared to the other movies, it still if mostly due to acolytes. if Paramount had done wide release, say 3000 to 4000 theaters like the top movies on the list, and that number held, that would likely put Gore’s movie in the top three. But, I think Paramount has done the math, and they realize that based on political bent, about half (or more) of the general population simply doesn’t care about Gore’s latest doom rehash, and won’t bother to attend.That’s why they are avoiding places like Boise and Bismarck. They know the population there, and know they just won’t be interested.
This is likely why Paramount has limited release to major cities – they are courting the left – and that’s not going to last long.
Next week, I predict this movie will take the path of cooling, and start dropping on the charts. It has a short shelf-life, much like Gore’s ideas that continually are being proven wrong by nature that just won’t cooperate with him.
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. – Bjorn Lomborg, in a Wall Street Journal article
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There is clearly a group of committed climate change acolytes who will watch anything that endorses their view of the world. The costs of production may be irrelevant – they may have been funded by Gore or some “charitable” institution.
No different to a cartoon designed to appeal to (say) 5-8 year olds – just a small part of the cinema going audience!
OK, let me put it this way. Why doesn’t some global heating sceptic make a documentary that supports their viewpoint. Problem is they would find it very difficult to find enough independently-reviewed scientific evidence to justify such an endeavour. If one has been made, then please send me a link. I would be very interested to hear about how there is no issue with human-induced CO2 and in fact we can keep on increasing its output ad infinitum because it goes — where exactly?
Ivan, you just continue to show your ignorance, and why Universities are bringing themselves into contempt…..
No problem, happy to help.
The Great Global Warming Swindle
It is very well done, and the issues are well presented by prominent climate researchers. I highly recommend you check it out.
I have long advocated that anyone who shows AIT, to also show this as a companion video. Then your audience can really decide, based on having a more complete set of facts.
Ok I will take a look it and also who is behind its production.
“OK, let me put it this way. Why doesn’t some global heating sceptic make a documentary that supports their viewpoint. Problem is they would find it very difficult to find enough independently-reviewed scientific evidence to justify such an endeavour. If one has been made, then please send me a link.”
Here you go, ivan.
The video “Climate Hustle” found at Climatedepot.com. It refutes eveything in Al Gore’s movie.
TonyL I decided to do a bit of research on the film before watching it and this is what I have read – which doesn’t inspire me with a lot of confidence about its veracity:
The film was publicly broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK:
“According to Hamish Mykura, Channel 4’s head of documentaries, the film was commissioned “to present the viewpoint of the small minority of scientists who do not believe global warming is caused by anthropogenic production of carbon dioxide.”[6]
And here are the reactions from scientists:
* The IPCC was one of the main targets of the documentary. In response to the programme’s broadcast, John T. Houghton (co-chair IPCC Scientific Assessment working group 1988–2002) assessed some of its main assertions and conclusions. According to Houghton the programme was “a mixture of truth, half truth and falsehood put together with the sole purpose of discrediting the science of global warming,” which he noted had been endorsed by the scientific community, including the Academies of Science of the major industrialised countries and China, India and Brazil. Houghton rejected claims that observed changes in global average temperature are within the range of natural climate variability or that solar influences are the main driver; that the troposphere is warming less than the surface; that volcanic eruptions emit more carbon dioxide than fossil fuel burning; that climate models are too complex and uncertain to provide useful projections of climate change; and that IPCC processes were biased. Houghton acknowledges that ice core samples show CO2 driven by temperature, but then writes that the programme’s assertion that “this correlation has been presented as the main evidence for global warming by the IPCC [is] NOT TRUE. For instance, I often show that diagram in my lectures on climate change but always make the point that it gives no proof of global warming due to increased carbon dioxide.”[23]
* The British Antarctic Survey released a statement about The Great Global Warming Swindle. It is highly critical of the programme, singling out the use of a graph with the incorrect time axis, and also the statements made about solar activity: “A comparison of the distorted and undistorted contemporary data reveal that the plot of solar activity bears no resemblance to the temperature curve, especially in the last 20 years.” Comparing scientific methods with Channel 4’s editorial standards, the statement says: “Any scientist found to have falsified data in the manner of the Channel 4 programme would be guilty of serious professional misconduct.” It uses the feedback argument to explain temperatures rising before CO2. On the issue of volcanic CO2 emissions, it says:
A second issue was the claim that human emissions of CO2 are small compared to natural emissions from volcanoes. This is untrue: current annual emissions from fossil fuel burning and cement production are estimated to be around 100 times greater than average annual volcanic emissions of CO2. That large volcanoes cannot significantly perturb the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is apparent from the ice core and atmospheric record of CO2 concentrations, which shows a steady rise during the industrial period, with no unusual changes after large eruptions.[11]
* Alan Thorpe, professor of meteorology at the University of Reading and Chief Executive of the UK Natural Environment Research Council, commented on the film in New Scientist: “First, let’s deal with the main thesis: that the presence or absence of cosmic rays in Earth’s atmosphere is a better explanation for temperature variation than the concentration of CO2 and other gases. This is not a new assertion and it is patently wrong: there is no credible evidence that cosmic rays play a significant role…Let scepticism reign, but let’s not play games with the evidence.”[24]
* The Royal Society has issued a press release in reaction to the film. In it, Martin Rees, the president of the Royal Society, briefly restates the predominant scientific opinion on climate change and adds:
Scientists will continue to monitor the global climate and the factors which influence it. It is important that all legitimate potential scientific explanations continue to be considered and investigated. Debate will continue, and the Royal Society has just hosted a two-day discussion meeting attended by over 300 scientists, but it must not be at the expense of action. Those who promote fringe scientific views but ignore the weight of evidence are playing a dangerous game. They run the risk of diverting attention from what we can do to ensure the world’s population has the best possible future.[25]
* Thirty-seven British scientists signed a letter of complaint, saying that they “believe that the misrepresentations of facts and views, both of which occur in your programme, are so serious that repeat broadcasts of the programme, without amendment, are not in the public interest. In view of the seriousness of climate change as an issue, it is crucial that public debate about it is balanced and well-informed”.[10]
*According to the Guardian in 2007, a study published by, among others, Mike Lockwood, a solar physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory was partially inspired in response to The Great Global Warming Swindle.[26] Lockwood then had co-authored a paper about solar data from the past 40 years.[27] He found that between 1985 and 1987, the solar factors that should affect climate performed an “U-turn in every possible way”,[27] therefore 2007 cooling would have to be expected, which was not the case then.[27][28] Lockwood therefore was quoted several times as critical evidence against various claims made in the film.
*Volume 20 of the Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society presented a critique by David Jones, Andrew Watkins, Karl Braganza and Michael Coughlan:
“The Great Global Warming Swindle does not represent the current state of knowledge in climate science… Many of the hypotheses presented in the Great Global Warming Swindle have been considered and rejected by due scientific process. This documentary is far from an objective, critical examination of climate science. Instead the Great Global Warming Swindle goes to great lengths to present outdated, incorrect or ambiguous data in such a way as to grossly distort the true understanding of climate change science, and to support a set of extremely controversial views.” [29]
A public forum entitled “Debunking “The Great Global Warming Swindle”” was held at the Australian National University in Canberra on 13 July 2007, at which scientists from the Australian National University, Stanford University, USA, and ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies exposed what they described “as the scientific flaws and half-truths in the claims of climate change skeptics”[30]
I tried posting this earlier, maybe it got caught up in moderation. I will try again.
The movie’s financial success is secondary to its purpose. The important part was all the free air time that Gore got in the run-up to the release. He got to appear on the TV talk-fests and in glossy magazines making his case with no opposition. Only a few in the MSM made a peep about questions about the failure of his forecasts in the previous film, or the self-serving nature of both films. Even now he is able to get face time by complaining about Paramount is undermining his efforts. The only people who care about the film’s bottom line are Paramount’s accountants and shareholders. The studio big-wigs will suffer a loss or two if it’s for a good cause, which gives them much credit in Hollywood circles.
How much could it cost? 5 million instead of one? It was super low budget.
Paramount will make a few million on this one when it has been around the traps internationally. If the cost of making it was indeed around a million they stand to make 200% or more. Don’t think too many movies can claim that sort of % return on investment.
And of course if Al does stand for (and becomes) president guess who will come knocking for special favors.
Plus the movie theaters were just for show. The real money will be when all the schools buy a blue ray of it, and it gets sold to Netflix and Amazon. Paramount will do fine even if they spent a few million more on this one – but I don’t see the extra money from the snippets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zyqdk
He’s plugging the film on the BBC this coming Friday.
“Edith Bowman and Robbie Collin sit in for Simon and Mark. Former US vice president Al Gore talks about his new film An Inconvenient Sequel. “
An interesting comparison, but I think it a bit inapt to compare a “political/documentary” movie with summertime popcorn muncher movies.
It might be interesting to contrast AIS to another political/documentary from the opposite end of the spectrum, such as Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.
After the theater run is complete, we can see how the two stack up.
I agree, we should compare apples to apples. However, none of D’Souza’s films received the positive media blitz that accompanied Gore’s. And, as a result, far few theaters were willing to book them. Gore’s films are gonna out score any conservative-leaning film simply because the Zeitgeist favors them.
Suspect that AIS will continue to flop. The inconvenient truth is that nothing in Gore’s first movie has come true. Doubt the sequel points this out. However all but dedicated warmunists know it is so. Rising temps? Nope. Imcreased Storms? Nope. Dying polar bears? Nope. Drowning Miami? Nope. Climate refugees? Nope. Gore practicing what he preaches? Nope.
Nice finish.
“But, I think Paramount has done the math, and they realize that based on political bent, about half (or more) of the general population simply doesn’t care about Gore’s latest doom rehash, and won’t bother to attend.”
True. Further, it is no longer ungodly expensive to do a 3,000 theater roll out. When films were silver nitrate on celluloid they were expensive to print and expensive to ship. It is all digital and neither reproduction nor shipping is a material cost. The biggest cost of a roll out is now advertising.
So I went to see Dunkirk last weekend and was subjected to the preview for this propaganda piece. My amygdala was overloaded with dire feelings of fear and guilt. No wonder Al Bore’s religion is failing. You watch 5 minutes of this stuff you want to put a gun to your head. Wasn’t the world suppose to be under boiling water by now according to his first inconvenient propaganda piece? This guy is a classic case of bad casting he is just not believable.
The Toronto sun has columnists who appear in WUWT due to their anti-warming columns. But their movie critic still gave this three stars out of four. I’ve been trying to figure out why ever since. And the only thing I can think of is that the reviewer only looked at the presentation and didn’t really care about the truth. After all they usually review totally fictional movies so real world facts and truth are not all that big a deal to a movie critic.
They have to be PC in Toronto or they’ll get scads of subscribers screaming at them. Not even 3 stars can save this trainwreck.
It’s not the box office numbers that matter,what matters is school boards across the country,and elsewhere for that matter,will pay for the movie to show in every classroom and know one will be the wiser until after your kids see it.
I doubt that Algore is very concerned about the numbers for theaters. It will be done with its run by the time school starts and will surely be shown in nearly every class in nearly every public school in the US. The goal is indoctrination of the kids, not education of rest of us.
AIS is not a “sciency” movie. It’s a lot more likely to be shown in a “current affairs” class than a science class, but why bother?
The movie is to reassure his followers and encourage them to keep up the good fight. (Such as is was.)
The box office will pick up considerably, once the Left hears about the problem. School children will be ordered to attend the movie, as will many State and local government employees. Lord knows what happens if the NEA insists that members see the fairy tale.
I am enjoying the coincidence that the movie is premiering while unseasonably cool weather is dominating most of the country.
An independent European news channel that seems to paint a very different picture to what you are stating here:
http://www.euronews.com/video/2017/07/29/extreme-weather-hits-europe—scientists-blame-climate-change
That’s over a week ago, and not “the country” I’m talking about.
Same dog, different lamp post.
Nonsense. His comment was very specific.
Huh? You don’t know what a red herring, or a strawman is, do you?
😎
You left the “3000” out of the title.
It won’t be long before they move the goal post out that far! 😎
… a creative decision — the joke seemed clear without the “3000”. Climate science has enough confusing numbers to deal with, as is. (^_^)
Al Gore patiently explains to some lovely people of the Third World why they can nor should ever dream of living like him:
http://media.aintitcool.com/media/uploads/2017/capone/inconvenient_sequel_1_large.jpg
Is that guy in the doorway holding up a blue Obamaphone?
Reading around, and from the comments, I get the impression they may have spent considerably more on the promotion budget than the production itself.
That’s actually quite believable for a picture with no big league stars or expensive production costs, where everything can be faked with CGI (just like climate science itself). Another movie of the same genre, and same ultimate fate, Ghostbusters rebooted, is estimated to have spent hundreds of millions on promotion to little effect.
Gore’s con game was based on a gamble that naturally the naturally occuring warm period of the 1980s to mid 1990s would continue – giving him a “smoke screen” for his hoax. But mother nature refused to cooperate and August temps in the U.S. are cooler than normal right in time for this stinker to debut. There is karma for con men like Al Gore, Michael Mann et al. I love it!
My recollection of the movie distribution business is that theater owners (including chains) choose which movies that are ‘in distribution’ they want to take – – and they choose the ones they think/know their local audiences will want to see. There’s pushing and shoving at the margins between screen-owners and distributors who want their movies on screens vs. other producers’ movies, but the screen owners have a lot of power. For example (I was told) the Cannonball Run movies with Burt Reynolds would be shown all through the South, but not, say, Annie Hall. And the reverse was true for, say, Manhattan and Boston. (I know, I’m dating myself.) But if it’s still this way then imagine screen owners in most of the country being pressured to show Gore’s lunatic sequel! The only ones who’d take it would be diehard warmists or screen-owners who know their local audience is made up of warmists. I’m surprised they found 180 to even take it and I bet almost all of them were in New York, San Francisco, Boston and LA…..
Listen all y’all, it’s a sabotage! http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/08/07/under-performance-gores-sequel-comes-in-dismal-15th-at-box-office-gore-fans-allege-film-was-sabotaged-by-paramount/
When you perform worse than anything titled “Detroit,” you’re pretty awful.
Peter
Wow; I had some serious vertigo there for a second – you were talking chick-flicks (Annie Hall) and said you were dating yourself. I’m ok now.
Is the reported dollar gross per theater an actual number or a guesstimate? Every other movie reports the gross to the nearest dollar, but the Gore movie gross is rounded to the nearest thousand. This makes me wonder if the accounting is as dubious as the subject matter.
Anyone know how the data on per theater gross are acquired? Could this value be hoaxed?
Is the reported dollar gross per theater an actual number or a guesstimate?
The “actual” number is probably adjusted upward. No, no, I got that wrong — dollar numbers for other movies are adjusted downwards to make Gore’s number look greater.
The movie didn’t make $5,000 per screen. It’s being faked by theater buyouts. (You seriously believe the movie did EXACTLY $5,000 per screen and $900,000 even on 162 screens?) See my explanation. https://therightjb.wordpress.com/2017/08/07/an-inconvenient-box-office-bomb-deception/
Also the first film expanded to about 550 screens, not bad for a documentary. 162 means about 70% of the theaters that carried INCONVENIENT I, wouldn’t take the sequel
A partially government funded TV station in Australia, SBS, dedicated 5min of an hour evening news on promoting the film. No mention of any news like Gore spends the equivalent energy of 6 family homes to heat his home.
“The science is settled” – St. Algore the Large of the Church of Globull Warming.
SCIENCE IS NEVER SETTLED
1) The scientific method REQUIRES skepticism
2) The scientific method DEMANDS that when a hypothesis is proposed, ALL SUPPORTING DATA is submitted for review by interested parties.
3) SKEPTICS are invited to investigate ALL of the data, and ALL of the work that led to the conclusion, and allowed to poke holes in the theory WITHOUT INTERVENTION… Physicists are still debating Einstein’s work.
Hide the Decline – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMqc7PCJ-nc
“Only a very weak idea demands that it must be protected from any criticism” The Globull Warming “idea is so weak it cannot be subjected to the normal vigorous debate of free society.” – Mark Steyn