2016TheMovie
Scene from Dinesh D'Souza's '2016: Obama's America 2016.'
nydailynews/While
pundits and critics are divided over whether "2016: Obama's America"
is a sobering documentary examining "the most mysterious U.S. president
in modern history" or an 87-minute attack ad, there's no debating that
the film is a box office phenomenon.
Taking a page from his own book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," conservative scholar Diniseh D'Souza's film has shocked industry prognosticators by earning an estimated $20 million to date, more than five times what the second-highest documentary this year, "Bully," earned. With virtually no promotional budget, the film has expanded in a little over a month from one theater in Houston to 1747 screens this weekend.
"People see the success and they think we have the marketing budget of 'Dark Knight Rises,' we probably don't even have the catering budget of the 'Dark Knight,'" co-director John Sullivan, who helped craft the promotional plan, told the News.
OUR TEAM'S LIVE COVERAGE FROM THE DNC
So they had to rely on the choir preaching to an even bigger choir. Sullivan says ahead of the film's mid-July opening at the Edward Houston Marq'E Stadium 23 & IMAX, local right-wing radio host Michael Berry championed the film with an all-out publicity blitz on his show.
Roughly 200 movie-goers were turned away from the sold out shows that weekend, a theater manager told the Hollywood Reporter.
From there, the film opened in three additional Houston-area theaters, then a handful of other cities in the reddest of states. It helped that by the time it jumped onto 1,071 screens last weekend, it didn't have to go toe-to-toe with Batman or Iron Man.
RELATED: OBAMA COUNTING ON 'HERALD AND KUMAR' IN NEW AD
"This is a case of good timing," says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. "If it would have come out even two weeks earlier, it would have been swamped by the big blockbusters."
Through the week of the Republican National Convention, D'Souza and producer Gerald Molen, who won an Academy Award for "Schindler's List," have been doing dozens of interviews. Along the way they picked up some key endorsements from the likes of Glen Beck and Rupert Murdoch.
Despite the clearly partisan image surrounding the film, Mark Joseph, whose firm MJM Entertainment is handling marketing of the film, insists the ticket-buyers aren't all coming from one side of the great political divide.
"The producers did some testing early on that yielded some surprising and counterintuitive results: it played very well among non-whites and independents," said Joseph by email. "There was speculation that that could be because Dinesh is himself a native of India and the high marks from independents were because he rejects birtherism and gives no quarter to the suggestion that the President isn't a Christian."
"The Passion of The Christ audience was roughly half very devout and half not so devout," says Joseph. "The latter wanted to see what the fuss was about."
But it's clear this film taps into Republican dissatisfaction with President Obama - not unlike the rage Democrats felt in 2004 that Michael Moore tapped with "Fahrenheit 9/11."
We knew this would be a word-of-mouth movie, because we knew we didn't have the marketing budget that say a Paramount or a Sony would have," said Sullivan.
"Yes, we don't have any stars, but we have a recognizable figure at the heart of this movie - President Obama - so from that standpoint you have almost 100% name recognition."
Taking a page from his own book "The Roots of Obama's Rage," conservative scholar Diniseh D'Souza's film has shocked industry prognosticators by earning an estimated $20 million to date, more than five times what the second-highest documentary this year, "Bully," earned. With virtually no promotional budget, the film has expanded in a little over a month from one theater in Houston to 1747 screens this weekend.
"People see the success and they think we have the marketing budget of 'Dark Knight Rises,' we probably don't even have the catering budget of the 'Dark Knight,'" co-director John Sullivan, who helped craft the promotional plan, told the News.
OUR TEAM'S LIVE COVERAGE FROM THE DNC
So they had to rely on the choir preaching to an even bigger choir. Sullivan says ahead of the film's mid-July opening at the Edward Houston Marq'E Stadium 23 & IMAX, local right-wing radio host Michael Berry championed the film with an all-out publicity blitz on his show.
Roughly 200 movie-goers were turned away from the sold out shows that weekend, a theater manager told the Hollywood Reporter.
From there, the film opened in three additional Houston-area theaters, then a handful of other cities in the reddest of states. It helped that by the time it jumped onto 1,071 screens last weekend, it didn't have to go toe-to-toe with Batman or Iron Man.
RELATED: OBAMA COUNTING ON 'HERALD AND KUMAR' IN NEW AD
"This is a case of good timing," says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com. "If it would have come out even two weeks earlier, it would have been swamped by the big blockbusters."
Through the week of the Republican National Convention, D'Souza and producer Gerald Molen, who won an Academy Award for "Schindler's List," have been doing dozens of interviews. Along the way they picked up some key endorsements from the likes of Glen Beck and Rupert Murdoch.
Despite the clearly partisan image surrounding the film, Mark Joseph, whose firm MJM Entertainment is handling marketing of the film, insists the ticket-buyers aren't all coming from one side of the great political divide.
"The producers did some testing early on that yielded some surprising and counterintuitive results: it played very well among non-whites and independents," said Joseph by email. "There was speculation that that could be because Dinesh is himself a native of India and the high marks from independents were because he rejects birtherism and gives no quarter to the suggestion that the President isn't a Christian."
"The Passion of The Christ audience was roughly half very devout and half not so devout," says Joseph. "The latter wanted to see what the fuss was about."
But it's clear this film taps into Republican dissatisfaction with President Obama - not unlike the rage Democrats felt in 2004 that Michael Moore tapped with "Fahrenheit 9/11."
We knew this would be a word-of-mouth movie, because we knew we didn't have the marketing budget that say a Paramount or a Sony would have," said Sullivan.
"Yes, we don't have any stars, but we have a recognizable figure at the heart of this movie - President Obama - so from that standpoint you have almost 100% name recognition."
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