The reason these movies bomb is very simple. We want to see movies about our soldiers bravely fighting a war. We’ve yet to have a movie about Iraq in which soldiers fight terrorists. But Hollywood thinks that our soldiers are fighting the evil DoD, the military industrial complex, and the Republican party.
Why haven’t moviegoers watched war movies since halfway through Vietnam? Because since that time, every movie has been critical of the war. If you look at the movies that HAVE been successful, they were the ones that told the story of the soldiers and their combat. Black Hawk Done, Saving Private Ryan, etc.
We don’t want some producer or writer’s “social dialogue against war” when we go to movies. We want to see soldiers fighting alongside their comrades. The last real movie like that was Black Hawk Done, and go figure it did really well.
Since then we’ve had Jarhead, Stop Loss, etc. And when the movies bomb, Hollywood can’t figure out that we don’t want to see that crap. They think that it’s because the war is unpopular, and keep churning out garbage.
I meant Black Hawk Down, btw.
Well we had ‘The Kingdom’ that came out.
Haven’t heard anything lately about FALLUJAH. Hope to God it’s a fighting man’s picture and not more anti-Bush/DoD manure.
THE HITS
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Black Hawk Down
Domestic: $108,638,745
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We Were Soldiers
Domestic: $78,122,718
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Saving Private Ryan
Domestic: $216,540,909
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AND NOW THE FLOPS
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Stop-Loss
Domestic: $5,579,333
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Lions For Lambs
Domestic: $15,000,115
Some people never learn.