Come on man. You're really torturing the numbers to get to 20 people a showing, you know that. To start with, you're assuming every theater showed it five times a day and that they didn't discount those matinee showings at all. I think you're also behaving as if the film is playing in the theater's premiere screen they used for Avatar or Toy Story 3 this weekend. The reality is that this movie is probably playing on the smallest screen in the house.
You can torture the numbers all you like or discuss what films it beat but the objective reality is that it did better on a per-screen basis than seven of the top ten grossing movies in the country this weekend and it had to compete with itself as a VOD at home. For a documentary, that's a success. It already beat out well over 90% of all documentaries that are released in the U.S. every year.
Has anybody besides Katie and myself even seen it? Or are you all just hating sight unseen?
Whoa.
Torturing numbers? You said it made 42000. I am not torturing any numbers. I have no idea how long this movie is, but if it's about 90 minutes, then yes, it will average 5 showings a day -- in the summertime? On a weekend? Yes it will. Movie theaters program as many screenings of movies as they can, within whatever parameters their particular scheduling philosophy allows them to. It's in their interest to have more screenings per day, obviously. That's why theater chains are always encouraging movie studios to make shorter movies. That is not torturing numbers.
Where I live in Oregon, $8.50 is the matinee price to attend a movie -- I had the rather convenient number, at the end of my simple math, of 875. You see how easily that translates into the cost of a ticket. If I gave the impression that I had actually done research into the cost of the average current ticket price, or if I had contacted the theaters or something to try to determine how many people attended evening shows verses matinee shows -- or whatever... then I apologize. My numbers are based on simple calculations and estimations. They are not meant to be completely accurate, nor does my comment rely upon them being so.
If there were 25 people in each showing, it's still not that impressive. If there were 30, it still sucks.
Now, as to the question of why everybody is "hating on" this movie, I only wish to point out that I am not hating on this movie. I didn't say anything negative about the movie. I said that it seemed to me that the box office receipts were unimpressive. That is unrelated to the question of whether or not the movie is good.
For the record, here is where I stand on various issues....
I will watch this movie. (But I'll probably torrent it.)
I support and defend gay marriage totally and completely.
I think Mormons might be getting a bad rap in this whole deal.
(there is no conflict in holding both of those opinions.)
The movie does not seem, to my eyes, to have had a very impressive opening weekend, box office-wise.