Bush Derangement Syndrome Not As Profitable As it Once Was

Don Surber describes the lukewarm reception to Oliver Stone's leftist agitprop movie "W":

BDS may have waned as it doesn’t look to cover its costs.

Nikki Finke tried to put a nice face on it but if a film costs $30 million to produce and promote and it draws only $12 million the first weekend, I doubt there is enough of an audience out there to cover costs.

Then again, it didn’t cost that much.

According to Finke, “Farenheit 911,” drew $24 million that first weekend on its way to $100 million all day in the US.

And maybe there’s a foreign market for this.

But when in a land of 300 million people you draw 500,000 to 2,000 theaters at $8 a head, you realize even his most rabid critics have lost interest in him.

The end of a presidency looks like this.

I don’t think Oliver Stone was dumb enough to think this movie had much of an audience. He’s an artist and businessman. He wanted to make it. He did.

As I understand $30 million dollar production cost is low, possibly by a factor of two. I read elsewhere that the cost of making the prints and the extensive TV marketing campaign increased their costs significantly.

The most ardent Bush-haters will go see it and probably do unmentionable things to themselves as they get their jollies watching their fantasies play out on the screen, but as a historical document, this movie will quickly be laughed away.