UPDATE: How badly did the gun control movie, Miss Sloane, end up doing? Fewer than 10 people per movie theater per day this past weekend

Dec 20, 2016 | Featured

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After its second full weekend of national release it is clear that the new gun control movie, Miss Sloane, will soon be yanked from most of the theaters showing it.  The movie has so far made $3.2 million, but its budget was reported $13 million.  In addition, they spent $15.9 million on television advertising.

Those are pretty bad numbers, but exactly how empty were the movie theaters this past weekend?  During its second weekend, it averaged just $102 per movie theater per day.  With a ticket price of $10.30 per adult, that indicates just 9.9 people saw the movie in any given theater during the entire day.  Given that the movie was being shown more than once per day, you get an idea of how empty any showing was.  In addition, you have to figure that those who showed up were still pretty sympathetic to the gun control message, yet Rotten Tomatoes gave it an audience rating of just 56%.

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Here is some information on the big advertising push for the movie.

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It is interesting to see where the ads for the movie were placed (more detailed data here).  As to networks: 185 on MSNBC, 176 on Bravo, and 150 on TNT.  Regarding shows, the top ones were: 95 on Law & Order SUV, 59 on Bones, 46 on Morning Joe, and 41 on Law & Order. To get an idea of how much money was spent on advertising this movie, we looked at other movies that Box Office Mojo ranked between 101 and 200 in box office sales during 2016 (advertising spending wasn’t listed for many movies, which may mean that their promotional efforts didn’t involve advertising).  Miss Sloane currently ranks at 170th on that list.  Of those that did advertise, Miss Sloane did by far the worst in terms of revenue per dollar spent on advertising, bringing in just 21 cents per dollar on advertising.  The next worst movie was Collateral Beauty, which 53 cents per dollar on advertising.  Then there was Hands of Stone, with 59 cents per dollar on advertising.  The average ratio for 37 movies between 101 and 200 that had advertising was $3.70 per dollar spent on advertising.  One better hope that this ratio is well above one or you won’t be covering any of your production costs.   Only one movie between 101 and 200 in sales had more television advertising.  That number goes up to ten movies for the top 200, though only three movies spent more than 20 percent more on television advertising.

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Of course, all these numbers miss the important fact that Miss Sloane received all sorts of often fawning praise from the news media before its national release on December 9th, but even that couldn’t save the movie from bombing.  The movie even had an almost 6 minute clip on the Today Show.

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But despite this being a flop and not being well received by the public, Jessica Chasten, the lead in the movie, has landed a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination.  The award is given out by Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Back in January 2014, Harvey Weinstein promised a gun control movie that would make the NRA “wish they weren’t alive.”  Meryl Streep was scheduled to star in the movie (“The Senator’s Wife”), but almost three years later it is still listed as “in-development.”   Miss Sloane will make the release of the Weinstein movie even less likely to see the light of day.

Unfortunately, these pushes for gun control in movies and television aren’t alone.

gun control groups point to NetFlix’s House of Cards and CBS’ The Good Wife. Everytown worked with House of Cards to push gun control during season four of the series, and “the Brady Campaign consulted on an episode of The Good Wife for a gun control campaign, as well.

johnrlott

8 Comments

  1. david bushing

    Right off the bat, if anybody watched the massive red areas of conservative voters across our country, people who firmly believe in the 2nd amendment and our constitution, were never, ever going to support this movie and its leftest Hollywood elite agenda. You already knew that the investors were going to take a financial beating on this film. I don’t think they care as long as they get their anti – gun message out. What I don;t understand is that the only people that will go and support this film are already anti gun people and that this very expensive so called message will not change anybody’s mind and as such, the money lost would have been far better served helping the homeless or some other great cause. We, the vast number of Deplorables, do not care about the opinions of a bunch of overpaid actors who can pay thousands of dollars for a pair of shoes or handbags , as if they somehow think that by their wealth and fame hold some influence over us as a result. Everything in their life revolves around money and as such, a certain power. We can send our message to them by simply not buying their product. If enough conservatives boycott any movie that stars a leftest Hollywood loudmouth, their money, and hence, their power, will be diminished.

  2. John Simpson

    And of course the commercials mentioned the mind-numbing horror of assault rifles! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in this movie talked about the control of “magazine clips” or other demonstrations of their ignorance about the subject they’re trying to make a point about.

  3. Candace Conradi

    It is not unusual for a current movie to become popular years later. Miss Sloan arrived on the heels of the worst election in history. The general populace was exhausted from all the real life, relentless, distasteful, and unending drama we were subjected to on a day-in, day-out basis by media, candidates, and political pundits. Ms. Sloan’s depiction of Washington politicians may have been just too real for current audiences to tolerate. Each actor in Ms. Sloan was accomplished and talented; the script had enough twists and turns to keep it interesting to the end. This may well be an “in time we will know more” kind of production. I personally found it entertaining and well worth the price of admission.

    • johnrlott

      Dear Candace: Thanks for your note. Interestingly, as noted in this post, the movie got a fairly low audience score. Given that most of the people who would have seen it would presumably be sympathetic to gun control, this is a surprisingly low number. What do you attribute this low score to? More interesting is how much false information there was in this movie, with repeated lies about background checks and the whole underdog with little money theme being completely false (the NRA wishes that they had the money that Bloomberg was putting into his efforts). Did it bother you at all how inaccurate the movie was on a factual level? Thanks.

      • AR15shooter

        Excellent questions Mr. Lott. If you’re really who your name says, I love your book and have a copy!

  4. AR15shooter

    Anyone in the rest of the country beside the coasts could have told you this would flop. It even flopped worse than I thought it would. That makes me smile and laugh. So, I’m off to shoot the new rifle I just bought yesterday to celebrate! See you later!

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