Posted on 04/21/2008 4:00:27 PM PDT by Between the Lines
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the pro-intelligent design documentary featuring actor Ben Stein, made history this weekend as it propelled full speed into the top 10 box office. It opened as the widest and one of the most commercially successful releases for any documentary film.
In an impressive opening weekend, the film debuted at No. 9 at the box office, earning a respectable $3.2 million while only appearing on 1,052 screens.
“Leatherheads,” the story of a struggling football team based in Duluth, Minnesota, and written and directed by George Clooney, trailed the new documentary film, placing at only No. 10 its third week at the box office, despite showing at over twice as many screens.
Although the new pro-intelligent design documentary had struggled with a reported marketing and production budget that ranged only in the single digit millions – a miniscule figure compared to the standard $117 million regularly burned by Hollywood productions – the film proved to defy expectations and panning by critics.
From the beginning of its conception, the film had been heavily criticized by scientists who dismissed the film as inaccurate, misleading, and dishonest in its portrayal of the shortcomings of evolution.
Reviewers were also among the film’s vocal critics, and in an article written for the Orlando Sentinel, Roger Moore was among those who believed the film would fail commercially, describing the film as a “mockery.”
“'Expelled’ is a full-on, amply budgeted Michael Moore-styled mockery of evolution, a film that dresses creationist crackpottery in an ‘intelligent design’ leisure suit and tries to make the fact that it's not given credence in schools a matter of ‘academic freedom,’” Moore wrote in his description of the film.
Producers of the film, however, had hoped that while disadvantaged and outmanned in the realm of Hollywood, active marketing and outreach with Christian groups and homeschoolers could help propel the movie, in the manner of David versus Goliath, into a box office hit – a strategy that appears to have worked.
In one such campaign, the producers of the film offered to award as much as $1,000 in a contest among church groups to bring the largest crowds to see the film.
Christian groups in general proved to be receptive to the film’s message.
Anthony Horvath, executive director of the Athanatos Christian Ministry, an online apologetics academy dedicated to the defense of the Christian faith, praised the film.
"The outrage expressed by the atheistic community at Ben Stein's movie, ‘Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed’ has been so palpable you could bottle it up and sell it as an energy drink. They are practically foaming at the mouth," he said in a statement.
"The blogosphere reveals the utter disdain that the hard core atheists have for anyone who merely suggests that it might be possible to scientifically detect design. If all Stein's movie accomplishes is revealing more publicly what many in the scientific community have been saying quietly all along, that is a major accomplishment,” he added.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, gave the film a thumbs up, commenting, "I think it should be required viewing for anyone who wants to understand what is going on and what is at stake in the debate over worldviews in this society,” according to Baptist Press. "This is one of these times when you can vote with your pocketbook. You can vote with your economic franchise, and Hollywood will listen when they see the dollar signs.”
“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” is a feature-length documentary film about researchers, professors, and academics who claim to have been marginalized, silenced, or threatened with academic expulsion because of their challenges to some or all parts of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Makers of the documentary said the movie doesn't seek to champion intelligent design as the sole truth but calls for more academic freedom, where challenges to any scientific theory including Darwinism would be fairly considered.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/daily/chart/
According to this, if you take into account the number of theaters it opened in, it did almost as well, per theater, as the #4 film.
Free Republic readers. SEE THIS MOVIE!! Tell your friends (and even your enemies) to see this. It should be mandatory viewing for any college freshman.
Thanks for the info!
The beauty of this is that it is doing so well despite a lack of media buildup as Michael Moore got with his “documentary.” If Ben Stein is able to at least have people legitimately question the “theory,” then he has done a great thing!
If Intelligent Design is such good science, why is it being pushed almost entirely by religious groups and opposed by the vast majority of scientists?
The ID side is welcome at the science table if they are willing to do science.
It isn’t exactly evident that they are willing to do this.
>If Intelligent Design is such good science, why is it being pushed almost entirely by religious groups and opposed by the vast majority of scientists?
If creationism is so faulty why has the vast majority of scientists in history held to it?
Both answers are that the culture drives whether religion is popular or not, not science. Currently culture is hugely post modern and secular, thus the majority of scientists are headed in that direction.
However you might agree that truth is found not in popularity but in inquiry. Shutting out discussion of intelligent design does nothing for the quest of finding truth, but rather direct it away from a possibility that most simply ignore due to their presuppositions.
Have you seen the movie?
Do you believe colleges and other academic organizations should shun anyone who dares to ask questions and follow the evidence, where ever it takes them?
What evidence is there for ID?
Saw it on Sunday - we were a group of 8. I thought it was very well done. There really wasn’t anything new for me in the movie (since my addiction to FR keeps me up to date on all the controversy!) but it was very eye opening for some of my friends and family.
I highly recommend going to see it, especially if you can take someone who may not realize the hatred many atheist darwinian evolutionists have for any person of faith.
Have you seen the movie?
Your post does not deal with the issues raised by it.
Your post is a red herring.
What evidence do you have that you have seen the movie?
Do you believe that inquiry is no longer allowed in science?
What would the assumption of intelligent design add to the process of scientific inquiry? How would you test it, and what will the results tell you?
[If Intelligent Design is such good science, why is it being pushed almost entirely by religious groups and opposed by the vast majority of scientists?]
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Almost entirely by religious groups - to your knowledge, what other groups are pushing it?
By the vast majority of scientists - are you saying that you are aware of some scientists that are not opposed to it?
If they are not opposed to it, do you consider them to be “real” scientists?
One would think that since ID wants to be recognized as a valid scientific field that those that support it would be able to answer such a simple question.
Yet they refuse to do so.
Kind of gives the appearance that there isn’t any evidence to support ID.
So scientific inquiry begins with apriori assumptions that if “science” doesn’t confirm the prevailing views (evolution)? Sort of makes inquiry useless. When you decide up front what pigeon holes your “science” has to fit in, you have dogma, not science.
Evolution is a cult dogma, and evolutionists who fear Stein’s movie are evolutionary ayatollahs.
You can worship the creature or you can worship the Creator.
Make your choice. Or, as Joshua once said, “Choose this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
You might want to sit down an talk with a scientist who is not part of the “vast majority” and who does believe in a Designer. After all, as a scientist, you surely support a rigorous inquiry in search of truth, don't you?
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