Farhenheit 9/11 has outgrossed all other films distributed by Disney

[LynneSin]

http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1269401,00.html

The anti-Bush polemic made another $5m to take its box office haul above the $100m mark, a remarkable achievement for a documentary which once looked as though it might struggle to find distribution.

It became the first ever documentary to top the mark, the previous best being Moore's own Oscar-winning film, Bowling for Columbine, which made $21.6m (£11.8m).

Moore pointed out that the film had now made more money at the box office than any film this year made by Disney, which funded the film through its ownership of the Miramax studio but refused to distribute the finished product.

circuitcity.com
"If you had told me when we were going through all the pre-distribution problems with Disney that this film would gross more than any other Disney film this year, I don't even know how to respond to that," he said.

I read that statement and thought I'd check out the grosses to date for movies. Disney distributes their films through Buena Vista pictures plus there is their Miramax division. Here are some of their pictures and their YTD grosses:

• King Arthur - $45mill. This pic came out after F9/11 and is already dropped to 9th place while F9/11 is still in 7th.
  
• Around the World in 80 days - $22mill. This one cost Disney over $100mil to make and it's not even in the top 25 anymore
  
• Raising Helen - $36mill
  
• Home on the Range - $49mill
  
• Hidalogo - $67mil
  
• The Alamo - $22mil (another big budget movie that flopped)
  
• America's Heart & Soul - $300k (this was their answer to F9/11)
  
• Kill Bill Vol. 2 - $67mil
  
• Ella Enchanted - $22mil
  

I'm sure there are more, but this is a pretty dismal year for Disney

[gmoney]

1. Awesome!

Of course, this just points out how horrible this year has been for feature movies... still, it's nice to see that F9/11 has outperformed these other "blockbusters" -- maybe this will teach the industry a valuable lesson, that people don't want the dumbest lowest-common-denominator crap anymore.

[Jim__]

2. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch - n/t

[wildeyed]

3. Never even heard

of allot of those films.

[DS1]

4. Hidalogo?

:shrug:

[HamdenRice]

5. Philosophical question about Disney as capitalists ...

There is an old cliche (by Lenin was it?) that capitalists are so driven by the profit motive that they would sell you the rope you would use to hang them.

We know that Disney, in refusing to distribute F-9/11, was motivated by both profit motive (fear of brother Jeb taking away tax breaks and fear that RW backlash might hurt other Disney films) and by ideology (Disney owns RW media ABC/Cap Cities, which distributes Rush, Hannity et al in NYC).

Now that we know how much money F-9/11 made, if Disney could have known this in the beginning, would they have made a cost benefit analysis and distributed the film? Or would their RW ideology have caused them to forgo profit and not distribute it?

[el_gato]

6. It just shows you they are more interested in power than profit

With power you don't need profit, and power extends primarily
from the ability to control the thoughts of others.

The Disney example demonstrates why the corporate media refuses
to talk to a massive demographic that would be profitable, i.e.
the progressive demographic. They could serve this sector of the
market by giving air-time to progressive voices, just the same
way they give air-time to right-wing voices, but they won't do
it because it would undermine their hold on power.

[HamdenRice]

9. Sadly, I agree

If ideology is more important than profit, than we are no longer in a capitalist society, but the beginnings of a fascist one.

There have been so many cultural studies of the 1960s that showed that the capitalist media was willing, in those days, to market the counter-culture back to the population in order to sell products and make money.

Remember the Coca-Cola (or was it Pepsi?) commercial, "I'd like to teach the world to sing...", which was basically capitalist commercial media adopting multi-culturalist, environmentalist, counter culture to sell a soft drink. Oddly, media today has a political-cultural agenda that they will push even if it is unpopular.

Bizarrely, the only exception is Fox. Contrary to what most DUers believe, there is a lot of evidence that Fox just panders to power. They may be permanently RW in America, because they perceive America to be dominated by the repug RW -- but in China, Fox is down with the Communist Party, because they are in power.

[LynneSin]

7. You're talking Chicken & Egg ideology here

It's an answer we'll never know.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. Hi Mr Eisner - how's shareholder relations goin'?

Dick!

[CrownPrinceBandar]

10. Just saw it yesterday and was impressed..................

Sorry Disney, you had yer chance!