6 million is alot of money, but it ain't huge.
I think it is pointless to wonder and worry how much money the Moore film is going to make. It is going to make a lot a money...It can already claim a lot of firsts - highest grossing documentary ever. Has it opened in Europe, South America,etc, yet? If it hasn't, then I wouldn't be surprised if this thing earns over a $100 million. Marketing strategy,as mentioned, worked...
Instead of worrying about how much money is made, the ultimate come-back and commentary on the movie would be for W to win a convincing victory in November...
I wonder why they spent $10m on prints and advertising, which seems very high for a movie of this type, where the publicity is all done by Mr Moore. I would have thought $0 on ads would have worked out just fine and wouldn't have affected the box office one bit.
Also, $6m seems like a pretty bloated budget for what he did. I would have thought you could have made this film for under $1m.
It looks like you folks are right about "no legs" due to the substantial sales drop-off for Sunday. Still, I'll bet most of you would have been pretty happy to make $6 million (less distribution fees, but they're probably not huge) for maybe a year of work that was probably a lot of fun for him. And the DVD's already been bought up by the DNC for distribution near November, and even at wholesale that's huge revenues for Moore.
Finally, note that I posted the article to disclose the facts, not because I agree with the writer's slant. There's no question that The Passion is a much greater hit for its maker and is far more profitable.
D