Diluted History Hurts Disney's "Alamo"

Disney had a $100 million-plus budget riding on its version of The Alamo, a war epic directed by John Lee Hancock. Box Office Mojo had forecast gross receipts of almost $15 million during its opening weekend and, when it barely reached $9 million, it was clear that The Alamo was in trouble. More than a week following its release, it has become the year's biggest bomb.

Disney's "Hidalgo" also tanked this spring.

Unfortunately though, Disney usually rebounds in the summer when it releases an animated or computer-animated film. But their partnership with Pixar is history now so hopefully they'll crash and burn.

After reading the article, I must note that some still display the usual denial of what is obvious. Rather than admit that the revisionist politically correct crap isn't selling anymore, they theorize:

"Perhaps Americans, facing the grim reality of U.S. soldiers surrounded by the enemy, were dissuaded from watching a war movie during a world war."

"In a newspaper interview, Box Office Mojo president Brandon Gray suggested that today's younger audiences may not have been sufficiently aware of the Alamo. "[T]he ads just said 'this is about the Alamo.' That's probably assuming people know more than they do," Gray told USA Today."

There's a professor named James Olson from Sam Houston State University in Texas that says that the filmmaker didn't pander to the Left and blah blah blah. Finally, a rational thinking novelist named Edward Cline says it best:

"Cline insists that the Alamo's defenders deserve better than Disney's revised characterizations, which show the Alamo's fighters and leaders as embedded with doubts, flaws and fear. "The people in Texas wanted to be independent," he says. "They were investors, they were entrepreneurs, they were speculators -- they were the quintessential self-made Americans."

"In a newspaper interview, Box Office Mojo president Brandon Gray suggested that today's younger audiences may not have been sufficiently aware of the Alamo. "[T]he ads just said 'this is about the Alamo.' That's probably assuming people know more than they do," Gray told USA Today."

OK, there's the problem - you should never assume people know more than they do. In fact, you should never assume they know anything at all.

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