It's not showing in a lot of cinemas though. That's something you have to take into account. Box Office Mojo has it listed as the fourth most popular film out right now- I guess adjusting for the number of cinemas the film is showing in at the moment.
It doesn't come out in the UK until January. I always hate that. By the time I'm ready to discuss a film Freepers in the States have already moved on to other subjects.
The film's producers and distributors are using that to their advantage. Just as making too few X Box 360's stimulates a desire for them, the limited release of this film while stoking the buzz on it in the major media markets will give it an appeal that it would not have had, if it had been released to two or three thousand theaters all at once.
Anyone taking comfort from the so-far low numbers is only fooling themselves. Not everyone in the US is filled with automatic revulsion at homosexuality as the average FReeper posting on this thread. Some will go out of curiousity, but many will rent this film, especially if they can do so facelessly (Netflix, for instance).
The VCR is responsible for changing a lot of attitudes across parts of flyover country. Folks out in the sticks couldn't often get to a movie house many hours away in a big city, but there was always the convenience store with a supply of R-rated movies, waiting to change the culture. Now, with Internet DVD services, you don't even have to face someone you know in town with an R-rated movie in your hands. Even your mail carrier will not know.
I do think that the timing of this film is to change attitudes about homosexuality in America as we face the issue of gay marriage. It's not necessarily a bad thing, one of the laments of most of the posters I've seen on other threads is that the men in this film left a lot of pain and wreckage in their lives, with their wives and children. If they had been able to just go off and peacefully be with each other, then straight women would not been fooled into marriages with them.
I'd much rather keep gays out of straight marriages, than I'd want to keep gays out of gay marriage.