"Capitalism: A Love Story" earns a "staggering" amount on only 4 screens

On Wednesday, Overture Films released the latest from documentarian Michael Moore. "Capitalism: A Love Story" debuted in 4 theatres has earned $306,586 since that day and over the weekend pulled in a staggering $260,000 for a per-theatre average of $60,000. This is an amazing start as the film build to a 1,000 theatre release on October 2. Always controversial, eerily prescient and never boring, Moore once again brings his unique and politically-charged point-of-view to the big screen. His 2004 release "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the highest grossing documentary of all-time with nearly $120 million in domestic box-office receipts. Moore has been taking on social ills, the military-industrial complex as well as the healthcare industry during his more than twenty year career. 1989's "Roger and Me" put Moore on the map as he pursued then General Motors president Roger Smith, in an attempt to find out why Moore's home town of Flint, Michigan was decimated by the failures of GM. The film earned $6.7 million at a time when documentaries were lucky to make a dime in theatres. Given the economic climate and perhaps a feeling that the economy may be on the rise, the timing was evidently just right for people now willing to face the realities of the situation on the big screen without being scared to stare down the issues.


http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice/

I love Michael Moore and his politics, but you have to admit this is kind of ironic. An anti-capitalist movie makes a ton of money.

I think his movies perform well in markets that aren't dominated by crony capitalists, too.

That's the 'good' side of capitalism. There are rules he and everyone else have to follow to be able to produce something tangible and sell it to the public.

The Wall St. crooks had their bought and paid for members of Congress remove regulations that would have prevented them from deceiving people by selling something that had no value, with full knowledge they were doing so. I don't see any comparison really. Wall St. operates under a different system than people like MM and the rest of us who actually produce something for the money we make.

devil-take-the hindmost, no-pride, no-shame capitalism.

he would probably have been unable to create a movie critical of capitalism. I think that Michael Moore is not against capitalism per se, he is opposed to the unbridled greed that accompanies the unregulated, predatory practices of much of today's capitalism. If he didn't make money on his movies, he wouldn't be able to make more movies. And he has offered to show his movies for free on some tv or cable stations, which isn't how most capitalists would behave.

Nice post.

...the "capitalism" he's decrying is "capitalism" as it's defined these days -- where every other industrialized country in the world is "socialist" because the government either runs or tightly regulates health care, where cronyism and "free markets" work hand-in-hand, and where the only measure of success is quarterly profits.

He talks rather fondly of the kind of capitalism he grew up with: where there was a network of economic checks and balances (some governmental, some outside of the government but empowered by it) to ensure that the rank and file workers also got a piece of the action.

I do think Moore needs to more clearly point out that there is more than one kind of capitalism, and we've been veering toward the bad kind for far too long.

I too love MM and I don't mean it as a dig at him. I look forward to the movie and hope it comes to my BFE town. But, yeah it's irony. Irony is cool

That is, Mike's labor benefits others to a far greater extent than it will benefit Mike.

Moore is talking about capitalism gone beserk to serve only the wealthiest at the expense of the rest of us. He is not condeming it , he is pointing out that something has gone terribly wrong with it.

that this movie will likely do well in foreign markets.
Sweden, for example.
In Sweden you have a good mix of socialism to secure the basic needs of the people while allowing for capitalist business.

A good mix is the best of both worlds.
Moore is criticizing the American hyper-capitalism of the past 25 years.
Anyone who thinks this version of capitalism is above reproach is woefully under-informed.

it's okay for the Ann Coulters to make money off their books, but the Noam Chomskys should do it for free.

...of conservative think (spin) tank jobs and "fellowships", and (sugar-daddy-subsidized, unprofitable) conservative magazine gigs, well-paid to extoll the free market while being comfortably insulated from its realities.

:hi:

if he did a documentary that was anti-documentary, talked about the evils of filmmakers, that would be ironic.

and if he charged money to tell you that money was evil, that would be ironic.

or if the film were anti-success or anti-profit, that would be ironic.


but making money criticizing capitalism is not ironic in the slightest.

Being a critic of a system and simultaneously being good at working within that system aren't mutually exclusive exercises. IMO, his commercial successes give him more credibility as a critic of the system, not less.

I got the idea that it opposed the American form of capitalism, in which rich people repeatedly rape the public.

Your comment reminds me of the people who said that Al Gore could not possibly advocate for poor people since he had a big house. But how is a guy living under a bridge going to influence American policy the way Gore could?

:shrug:

He worked, they don't. He studied, they don't. He honed his talent, they don't. He gets paid very well for his labor, they sit on their butts, make phone calls to shift money around and open dividend checks, taking their cuts of our 401Ks, which they conned us into giving them.

You may not agree with what they do, but it's not an easy job. And while the system may be in need of reform, the fact is that some system of saving and investing is needed in order for an economy to function. And that means somebody needs to do the work to make that system function.

Doesn't equate a good to society.

The problem is their firms aren't really "doing their job" if they were evaluating businesses and providing capital even as a marxist I would say the firm was doing its job. If they were taking investment dollars and putting them into places that employ people and provide something society needs than they were doing their job. If they were actually building something for the future, I'd say they were doing their job.

What we have right now is a Casino. The firms have realized placing bets on commodities or existing capital provides more of a profit. Manipulating those said markets provide even a bigger profit.

I will never say that what they are doing isn't hard work, I will say the hard work they are doing is fucking dangerous and screwing the majority of Americans.

A lot of people work hard. I'm pretty sure Mafia bosses work hard. Hit Men work pretty hard. Guards in concentration camps work hard. People involved in genocide work pretty hard. Doesn't mean the provide something for the common good.

I'm just saying the notion that they don't work hard is incorrect. So is the notion that our society doesn't need a financial sector of some sort and people to work in it is also incorrect. But I agree that the work they have been doing and are still doing, in many ways, fucking up the country.

and currently the rules to hide things and inflate things make me tell anyone who thinks about investing, you have no clue what you are buying. The only way you can reasonably see if things are going right with a company is the statement of cash flows because the rules concerning the balance sheet and income statement have been so fucking twisted the only way you can guage the health of any company is looking at it's inflows and outflows of cash.

We have a turn around culture in this country right now that is ridiculous and the financial firms on Wall street are the major ones responsible. This pump and dump culture we have is destroying us and preventing any hope for the future.

Or short-selling a stock? Or speculating on gas & oil futures?

Moore has produced a thing of worth - an intellectual property that people will value in the future, long after anyone REMEMBERS any slick investment banking deal.

I'm just saying that in general having a financial sector benefits society and we do need people to work in said financial sector.

After all, financial services are the number one export of America in terms of dollars and profit.

But why? The world's wealth is being tied up in these obscure "financial instruments" that provide no capital for legitimate tangible ventures and seem to exist only for the few that can understand them.

Investment banks need to return to their former purpose - casinos for the rich.

Glass-Steagal needs to be repealed - for the sake of the WHOLE WORLD's economy.

He introduced the bill that repealed the Depression-era regulation that prevented investment banks and commercial banks from consolidating, ostensibly to avoid conflicts of interest that arose in the years prior to the stock market crash of 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass-Steagall_Act#Repeal_of_the_Act

The Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress found:

"In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, bankers and brokers were sometimes indistinguishable. Then, in the Great Depression after 1929, Congress examined the mixing of the “commercial” and “investment” banking industries that occurred in the 1920s. Hearings revealed conflicts of interest and fraud in some banking institutions’ securities activities. A formidable barrier to the mixing of these activities was then set up by the Glass Steagall Act."

Thanks for the correction.

"You may not agree with what they do, but it's not an easy job." Well, robbing trains and banks wasn't easy, either. Just ask Jesse.

But for a more germane response, we should probably ask both the people who lose their funds to bank robbers (see, it was pre-FDIC) AND those who lose money to investment bankers, which group they would prefer to see inappropriately (when not, strictly, illegally) abscond with their money.

Ethically, it seems a toss-up. But, with the James Gang, there may be more excitement and entertainment value. Just sayin'.

BTW, you say "And that means somebody needs to do the work to make that system function." Why not just unrestricted, non-monopolistic capitalism, but with no corporations or "corporate personhood"?

Just let the capitalists be prepared to lose every last dime they have or ever will have access to and, possibly(?), they might be less likely to try to pillage the rest of us as they have with corporate personhood?


One more thing. You said "the fact is that some system of saving and investing is needed in order for an economy to function". So, pray tell, how did we handle these functions prior to corporate capitalism?

edit:spelling

And I'm sure societies functioned before that but not in any way that is comparable to ours. I'm not arguing that the economy needs hedge funds in order to function. I'm arguing that it needs banks and it needs bankers.

So they bribed our government to bail them out. Shouldn't those that preach the so-called "free market" be free to fail regardless of how hard they work, hmmm? :hi:

Working hard to educate the public about that fraud, as in MM, is quite another. Regulated honest capitalism is vital to a healthy society; The socialism that must come from that capitalism is also vital to a healthy society. Without either a society is doomed to crooked, jackboot corporatism or ragged, desperate poverty at the end of either extreme. Balance, moderated by regulation, as in most things, is the illusive, mercurial key. MM understands this as did the framers. It is just that balance the framers strived so hard for and when the constitution is the basis for our society they did very well. It is when we stray from these concepts that we fall miserably and dangerously short.

MM produces something of value - a tangible work of art that will be around for as long as it can be reproduced.

And this is his point.

So MUCH of the "financial services industry" produces NOTHING of lasting value. Profits are made, taken - and nothing is left as a benefit to society.

he pays his employees well and otherwise treats them as people, not money makers...

...and you think Lennon and Moore are different enough to point out.:rofl:

thinking he deserved ten times as much?

"timeforpeace"? There's no peace without justice, Mr timeforpeace. Why not change your username to "timeforjustice"?

Unlike White Out, this one is worth the $10.

Saw it in Hollywood.

Slumdog Millionaire pulled in $35,000 per screen on its 10-theater opening weekend. Titanic averaged a little over $10,000 on 2500 screens. $60,000 really is staggering.

change will come of this movie. Maybe, just maybe...

If nothing else, the timing couldn't be better. Everyone KNOWS something's terribly wrong, but their sense of why is inchoate. Too much data whizzing around and no narrative structure to hang it on, to help them grasp it. If we're lucky, this'll be Mike's breakout from liberal audiences to widespread populist appeal. If we're REALLY lucky, it'll be a seminal work, spurring real action, like Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Jungle. I don't have much hope of that, but Jeebus knows, we need something to make the enervated masses quit stewing in their own juices and take a hard look at what's going on around them.

As Michael Moore has said, just because someone has been fortunate or lucky enough to be successful in the current system, does not preclude them from working to change the system or helping those who have not been as fortunate.

Mike also has health care and does not need to worry about what happens if he suddenly becomes very sick. That doesn't it's hypocritical for him to advocate for universal health care or other reforms.

Not calling Moore, Martin Luther or anything. Just that this is valuable information the ordinary American should see and know.

A movie attacking capitalism, it was always an open question if it would get wide distribution in a capitalist movie industry.

I think I'll visit the local cineplex to catch this one, even though I was just there five years ago.