Obama Movies Yield Boom, Bust Over Opening Weekends
The market for films addressing Barack Obama's 2008 presidential candidacy and his term to date in the Oval Office has proven volatile at best: Hagiographies like the all-access, Edward Norton-produced By the People co-exist alongside a cottage industry of microbudget anti-Obama slam pieces like Hype, The Obama Deception and this past weekend's 2016: Obama's America. And thanks in part to election-year grassroots mania (and an interview with the president's Kenyan half-brother), the latter film may yet prove to be the most lucrative of the Obama subgenre to date. But this weekend's other release, The Obama Effect? Not so much.
Released on one screen in Houston by Rocky Mountain Pictures (the scrappy purveyor of such right-leaning fare as Atlas Shrugged and the sleeper hits End of the Spear and Expelled: No Intelligence Required), 2016 pulled in a handsome $31,750 over three days. The showing followed a free word-of-mouth screening last Thursday which featured author/interviewer Dinesh D'Souza (on whose book the film is based) and Oscar-winning co-producer Gerald Molen in attendance; "some moviegoers sat in the aisles Thursday and waited as much as 90 minutes to meet," according to a THR dispatch. An expanded release is foreseen, perhaps comprising 400 screens total in the lead-up to next month's Republican National Convention.
Meanwhile, down the box-office line (like, way down the box-office line) you'll find The Obama Effect. Written and directed by and starring Charles S. Dutton, the film focuses on a man circa 2008 who overlooks mounting health and family issues in his fervor to campaign on Obama's behalf. In a radio interview last week, Dutton described the film as a satirical look at a man who loses perspective on his life (and the political animals who come to surround him), but a glimpse at the trailer and other limited background on the film don't really combine for much of a message or even much of a story. Which (along with a lack of D'Souza-esque, Obama-thwacking source material) helps explain why the film, released by Arc Entertainment, stumbled this weekend to a meager $73,000 on 25 screens — a per-theater average of $2,920.
Lessons? Many remain to be determined, especially as campaign season chugs ahead, though producers and agents alike may immediately be advised that apparently the president's half-brother George can open a movie better than Andrew Garfield, at least per screen. And think what he could have done with Battleship! Ahem. Just throwing it out there.
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Having watched and listened to President O'Bama, and the rest of this adminstration, I truly believe this president's goal is to destroy our great country. It seems to me that having an education doesn't mean that one is very smart or that one can make great decisions. Practically all of O'Bama's decisions have been a negative towards our country. I'm a senior citizen and have gone through several decades of presidents. I have seen the good and bad. In finalizing, I urge all voters to please vote for the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ticket.
It is with deepest sympathy that I acknowledge the increasingly blatant fear and ignorance that is overcoming many. The fact that the mantra has become, "I believe Obama.blah blah" suggests among other things that certain people and groups have an ominous agenda. I say in response simply this: Change is inevitable. If, unlikely as it is, Romney gets elected, the country will have no choice by 2016. The damage that even some Obama-haters know is likely will be done and the Change Train will continue. Obama is the better choice. Not necessarily the best but clearly (if you think clearly, that is) the better of the two.
What the U.S. truly needs, in my opinion, is to move beyond the two-party system
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!
You have got to be kidding; beyond two party, three party? the problem is not the parties or how many, it's the selfish money hungry idiots that are elected by less than 50% of the voters; they're working for themselves, not America; put limits on Congress, 4 or maybe 6 years at best, no retirement; no life paid up hospitalization, they must participate in Social Security and Medicare; see how long it takes for the country to get back to prosperity and good for all! Read up on the fears of our great forefathers in what they imagined could drop this nation,,,,,,it's happening. I'm not a doomsayer; I'm for America and can't wait for us to once again feel good about ourselves and our jobs and families!
You are so right. For once someone sees the light. That is the way I think it should be also.
With more options (larger party system) come greater truths, less of a chance for everyone of the candidates to be corrupt or boughten by global Bankers
I agree, The Two-Party system is the weak link in this political rancor.
Should have a 4 or more party system, but then people would be confused....buts its better then getting stuck with two shitty choices.
FIGHT!!!!!!!!! USA! USA! USA!
I have to agree with you. I saw the 2016 Obama movie and it gives me much greater understanding that all of his heroes are on the side to advance the type of socialism that is in Europe and what the Soviet Union had before. All you have to do is be able to divide 16 trillion by the US population and you get 50,000+ debt per person. That also includes babes and children. This is scary. Algis
How can we see this important movie NOW? We live in the Bay Area and need the impact.
there is no obama conspiracy. we, the informed, few of us, know he is leading this country into socialism,or worse. obama will be the death of liberty and freedom. wake up
dumb americans before its too late. you libs aren't too brite are you?
where can we see this movie?
I pray Obama is re-elected. It will continue to be entertaining to read the crazy, non-factual tirades like the one above from Disgusted. Better that they waste their days typing away, then out doing damage.
God help us if Obama is re-elected! Please awaken those that are not aware of his destructive methods for our country.
where can I see the movie 2016 I live in Warren,Ohio ?
How in the world could anyone vote for this failure? Probably the biggest liar and crook ever. Hes a chicago hood and needs to be there. What he has done to this country is unreal. I use to be a democrat. They play so dirty. He wont answer questions cant run on his record. The peopl better wake.up. He only wanys to be reelected.If you dont have anything to hide, why cant we see 2016?
It's very sad that a single person, (Obama), has brought so much division among our citizens and so much of our working fabric that once helped hold our great nation together. I don't recall "division" as being part of his 2012 campaign platform nor his somewhat stealthy divisiveness used since then as being part of his many unkept promises.
That said, he did keep one promise and that was "change". Of course change is always inevitable, but why be naive enough to think that it's always good. Do you like being alive?
There's no doubt we are in a very scary place as a country right now. And what has already been done by the current and, yes, past administrations does indeed scare me. But I have to believe that many of the wrongs done can be set straight and put us back on a TRUE recovery path, even if a longer one than was originally necessary.
All of our countries citizens have been blessed with the privilege to make a very critical decision for the pivotal future of our country this November. Many will do so without enough knowledge or concern to even look at the objective facts that got us where we are today. Instead some will place their votes out of ignorance, or worse, placing their own personal gains over the greater interests of our countries and falsely believing they'll actually get something good in return for it.
Obama is a single person. We can likely recover from a single term of his administrations decisions. So, he's not who scares me.
I'm not sure we'll ever be able to recover from the many millions of critical and pivotal decisions to be placed in November by our own citizens that potentially put the wrong candidate in office AGAIN!!! Those are the folks who scare the hell out of me!!!
Big government programs built to "spend our way out" to an economic recovery are about as smart as the notion that more and more screwing will eventually give us our virginity back. Re-electing Obama will get you 2 out of 4. Guess which 2!!!
Gloria - the insane asylum let the inmates like you use the computer?
Obama is taking away the American dream, He has created A NIGHTMARE.
I am 76 years old and I fear for my children and g-kids future. Thanks to Obama.!
He is reckless and spiteful . GOD HELP US.
Don,
George W. Bush "(took) away the American dream. HE created A NIGHTMARE." Because of his two wars, near economic disaster, and increasing the debt $5 trillion, "I fear for my children and grandkids future."
"He was reckless" (I don't know what you meant by "spiteful," but neither do you.)
GOD HELP US, because of the damage George W. Bush caused the United States.
Georgey
Go and see the movie 2016 and mabe you might understand.!
Unless you have that liberal disease called socialism. It's one of the Ism's
2016 only gives facts how obama grew up and makes him what he is today ( socialist). Libs are afraid of truth. that is the problem. Democrats,your party no longer exists.Wake up morons, you don't know the truth. Its hitting you in face. I feel sorry for you.
Wake up, you're crazy.
georgette you are the one that should wake up from being brainwashed
Donald,
Read the news, instead of being duped by liars. You don't know what socialism means, and should be embarrassed by your ignorance. But I do know George W. Bush did his best to destroy this country, and educated historians, economists, politicians, journalists, and political scientists agree.
You have the disease called stupidity, and closed-mindedness. Try doing something about both.
Sorry Georgette, but bashing on Bush does not make Donald's argument any less valid. While I totally agree that Bush was a complete disaster and think he was a terrible president, Obama has actually been worse. He took an opportunity to unite the country and made it even more divided. The way he bashes rich people who pay ALL the taxes in our country (almost 50% of the people in our country pay no taxes) and acts like they are some how criminals is shameful. To suggest that the rich doesn't pay enough in taxes when all tax revenue comes from wealthy people is extremely divisive and teaches our young people to despise those who work hard and earn their keep.
And his "you didn't build that" comment is a slap in the face to everything that makes America great. Bridges and roads didn't build companies. Companies created products, leading to profits, leading to paying taxes, which in turn built the roads and bridges. That is how clueless Obama is. The REALITY is the OPPOSITE of what he said when he suggested that entrepreneurs and businessmen didn't build their companies. And that is what is so scary about him. I've never been more scared in my life of a person like him becoming a lame duck president. Might I remind you of what he told the Russian president when he thought his mic was turned off? He told him his hands were tied until the election. So he clearly has plans for us that he can't reveal now because of the election. What are those plans? Why can't he tell us what he has planned? Why can't he be honest?
It's like everyone forgets that this guy came from Chicago... a place notorious for political corruption.
So no, Georgette, Donald does not have a disease. You do. You are the fool who ignores what Obama is up to. You are the one duped by a liar. You are the one who is close-minded. You are the one who needs to wake up and study out the facts.
So colleges, with their federal funding, had no role in educating future business people and entrepreneurs? What we now know as cell phones were first used by the military, and so something fundamental in our lives first received government financing. The U.S. recovered from the Depression, because we went to war in 1941, and the government spent money to support the war effort. Both government research, development, and financing, and entrepreneurship are key components to our economic growth.
Worthless statement - because someone is from ____ (think Texas and George Bush,) then it follows all politicians from the area are corrupt. Corruption exists in every state.
Republicans in Congress had a hand in dividing the country.
Some wealthy people know how to exploit the system (think Romney and off shore accounts, etc.,) and the rest of us have been cheated. Someone needed to change the situation, and make it fairer for all, even if it didn't yield huge amounts of money.
All of my statements above are common sense.
Joe thank you for your informed comments, Georgette is on Obama's payroll- she is agent to destroy America.
President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated]
Yes, he's historic, alright.
• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government
• First President to Violate the War Powers Act
• First President to Orchestrate the Sale of Murder Weapons to Mexican Drug Cartels
• First President to issue an unlawful "recess-appointment" while the U.S. Senate remained in session (against the advice of his own Justice Department).
• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
• First president to intentionally disable credit card security measures in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures.
• First President to Defy a Federal Judge's Court Order to Cease Implementing the 'Health Care Reform' Law
• First President to halt deportations of illegal aliens and grant them work permits, a form of stealth amnesty roughly equivalent to "The DREAM Act", which could not pass Congress
• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party
• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs
• First President to sue states for requiring valid IDs to vote, even though the same administration requires valid IDs to travel by air
• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters
• First President to sign into law a bill that permits the government to "hold anyone suspected of being associated with terrorism indefinitely, without any form of due process. No indictment. No judge or jury. No evidence. No trial. Just an indefinite jail sentence."
• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat
• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases
• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government
• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler
• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions"
• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees
• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space.
• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places
• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present"
• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians.
• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It
• First President to Tell a Major Manufacturing Company In Which State They Are Allowed to Locate a Factory
• First President to refuse to comply with a House Oversight Committee subpoena.
• First President to File Lawsuits Against the States He Swore an Oath to Protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN, etc.)
• First President to Withdraw an Existing Coal Permit That Had Been Properly Issued Years Ago
• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case
• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts
• First President to Preside Over America's Loss of Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)
• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Weather Underground
• First President to allow Mexican police to conduct law enforcement activities on American soil
• First president to propose budgets so unreasonable that not a single representative from either party would cast a vote in favor ("Senate unanimously rejected President Obama's budget last year in 0-97 vote", Politico, "House Votes 414-0 to Reject Obama’s Budget Plan", Blaze)
• First President
what you have enumerated are the necessary things Obama must do and accomplish to impose martial law, however, before Obama can impose martial law he must create class divisions in America, he must weaken the Military and the American economy, then this will start civil unrest justifying imposition of Martial Law in America. I am familiar with all this because i immigrated from a country where Martial Law was imposed by our President. I love America just like most Americans do love America.
• First President to press for a "treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue" (The Law Of The Sea Treaty)
• First President to Golf 90 or More Times in His First Three Years in Office
This is a bunch of Propoganda garbage by the right to destroy this President becaise of the color of his skin!!! I wouldn't spend 1 penny of my money to see a rightwinged movie created by Karl Rove, The Koch Brothers Rush Limbaugh or any other Racist Bigoted Republicans!! Isn't funny how this Movie al of a sudden comes out just before the Presidential election!! It's probably been sliced and dicved and edited to trick liberals into voting the other way!! But guess what, yall hate him all yall want and it kills yall thatb a Black man is in yall's White House!! What yall gonna do after he and his family leaves, disinfect the whole White House!! This Black Man aint have chance the day he stepped in the White House!! I'm Black and I actually Voted for Bill Clinton a White man!! This man has been called the worst names been disrespected in the worst way and this is sickening to me!! Straight and Blatant Racism!!! Yall say your Christians? You got it all wrong because my God loves everyone and he don't like Ugly and this Ugly way to the Bone!!!!!! Obama/Biden 2012!!!
Susan Williams
Take off the blinders, Look at both sides, you sound like you hate whites, republicans and the USA
go and see the movie 2012, read dreams of my father. then spew out your " Blatant Racism " YAll!!!
What have you ever done to advance our society? Shoot for the American Dream.
PS are you A Commie ??? U SOUND LIKE ONE !
He's just as much WHITE as he is BLACK, so don't do the color of the skin bullshit.
Amen to that im tired of that card always being used when something goes wrong.
Sorry right-wing nut jobs, you're not going to win this one, even if you're scarily obsessed about this article more than a month after it was posted. Republican Presidents keep driving the U.S. economy into recessions, and unemployment soared to over 10% when Ronald Reagan was in office, and remained over 7.2% for the four years of his first term. We got his Iran-Contra disaster in his second term. We had the Bush team cruelly outing a CIA agent in that nightmare of a second term (sounds familiar, with Fox News revealing the name of the Navy Seal who helped get Osama, and has not put the soldier's life in grave danger.) The list is far longer with the damage done by Republicans.
I will happily defend President Obama, and am thrilled to see he's leading in so many national polls (must have been doing a decent job for so many people to want to re-elect him.)
Wow. Could you be any stupider? Everything you are saying here reveals just how insanely difficult it must be for you each day to justify how 2+2=5. Yes, Ronald Reagan, the guy who ushered in the end of the high inflation and high unemployment of JIMMY CARTER and created the longest economic boom in recent history, lasting all the way into Bush Jr.'s time... He is your example of a bad Republican president? What's sad is that you are actually that stupid. You should try reading some books on history. Try thinking independently. It will be hard for you, but it will help.
And last I checked, the Pakistani guy who helped us find OBL is in jail for 33 years because Obama refused to help him. That's how great of a guy Obama is. He won't even help the man who helped us find OBL. But he's quick to tout how he got Osama. Obama is full of it and so are you.
Joe -
Try using facts next time. Unemployment was above 7.2% for all four years of Reagan's first term. Look up the numbers at the U.S Labor Dept. (do you even know how to do that?) If you're going to blame Carter for all of what happened during Reagan's first term, then Bush gets the blame for what's happening now.
U.S. History and recessions - they occurred during administrations of W. Bush (twice,) H. W. Bush, Reagan, Ford, and Nixon. All Republicans. Certainly can't completely blame Democrats for the ones during the Bush, Ford, and Nixon terms.
Do you understand other governments make their own laws? Sovereignty? So you suggest other countries can dictate to us how we should run our country? You and some wing nuts stand alone on this.
Before you type, try reading up on the (any) subject. You might humiliate yourself slightly less.
Georgette, you are living in a fantasy land. Here's a fact, you fact twisting idiot. When Reagan got into office there was a recession starting and unemployment was 7.5%. It got a little higher during his first two years, while he fixed everything Carter was doing wrong. Then unemployment steadily declined from its highs in 83 down to 5.3 percent when he left office. Reagan's sweeping economic changes were so favorable for Americans, that his boom lasted until 9/11.
So yes, Georgette, I can quote facts too. In fact, everything I've said is true and factual. But you have cherry picked moments to try and say something about Republicans that simply isn't true.
The greatest example of bad presidential economic policies of all time is a democrat, FDR who took a two year recession and turned it into 12 years of the highest unemployment we've ever seen.
And Obama is right there with him making the same mistakes. Bush also made similar mistakes.
Deal with it. You are a wingnut. Unable to be objective about reality. Your limited knowledge has lead you down a path of loud stupidity. You can only find friendships in other people with your same disease of being a blind follower of your Dear Leader. Heaven help our country with people like you in it.
How sad. You really don't know how to look up information. Pathetic, actually. Your rants are getting increasingly disturbing. Please, for everyone's safety, up the dosage.
Unemployment under Reagan soared to 10.8% in Dec. '82, and you want to call that getting "a little higher?" 4 1/2 years of unemployment over 7.2%, going up and down '84-'86. Again, can't keep blaming Carter if your not going to blame George W. Bush for the rate these past few years. The unemployment rate then rose back up under George H.W. Bush (1 recession under his belt, debt doubled to over $4 trillion) to a high of 7.8% in June '92, and surged again during W. Bush's (2 recessions, debt rose from $5 trillion to $10-11 trillion) second term, going from 5.3% to 7.8%, so you don't know what your talking about when crediting Reagan with some kind of economic miracle up until '01. Statistics have been provided by the United States Labor Department at http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000, so call those who have compiled the facts liars, and take your scary anger out on them. And furthermore about Reagan's "economic changes" - you mean like nearly tripling the national debt from '81 to '88? Being the first president to increase the debt to a trillions dollars? http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
You have to go all the way back to FDR? The depression started when Republican Herbert Hoover was President in 1929. Give him some credit. And please, before mindlessly commenting again, read about the recessions that occurred during the Republican administrations I listed above.
US News & World Report, 7/2/10, "President Obama ranks 15th out of 44 in a poll of the best and worst presidents while former President George W. Bush earns a place in the bottom five, according to the Siena College Research Institute's recent survey of 238 presidential scholars." Also among the bottom half are Republicans H.W. Bush, Ford, and Nixon. http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2010/07/02/survey-ranks-obama-15th-best-president-bush-among-worst
I repeat, Fox News has now endangered the life of a brave Navy Seal by revealing his name in public.
Gwoegett. and williams. you r too emotional in your stupuidity thinking to have rational thought . Did u know thedifference between left and right is that left thinks with emotion andright with brains . And have nothing to say about Obama cause he has done nothing to talk about Obama.The reason they have to bash us. Feel sorry for them and pity them. Prayer may help too. But a lot of the left dont believe in a higher power cause they think they are the higher power...
The USMagazine puts Obama in 15placecause they r a left wing rag. like most journalism today leans left so everything they say is suspect. i know cause im a political junky
I have extra DVD copies of the Movie 2016 by Dinesh D'Souza on I bought off Amazon so any readers want a copy I can send you one!
Email me at:BartMcNeil@Hotmail.com
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