Daily Archives: February 7, 2006

Once again the powers that be in liberal Hollywood are doing all that they can to try to convince America that Brokeback Mountain is the greatest movie since Gone With the Wind. This is a blatant by attempt by Hollywood to “normalize” homosexuality. This last weekend the movie went into whats known as “wide release.” It is now showing in 2,089 theaters nationwide. This is still below average for blockbuster movies. For example, a movie like “Gladiator” opened to more then 3,000 screens nationally.

Brokeback Mountain used what is called a “slow roll out” technique. This is so the producers and distributors can wait for some “buzz” to start up about the movie, thus putting asses in seats at the theater. Well as an avid reader of Entertainment Weekly, the buzz on this movie started back in October of 2005. E.W. has been claiming that Brokeback Mountain was released on December 9, 2005. In reality this movie was out in limited engagements as early as November 3, 2005. They were showing it at 169 theaters in the “Gay Mecca” cities across America in an attempt to help build momentum leading up to the Academy Awards.

Where Entertainment Weekly fits into the conspiracy puzzle.

Entertainment Weekly has been under a lot of scrutiny over Brokeback Mountain. In the latest “Oscar” issue dated February 10, 2006, EW mentions Brokeback Mountain forty nine times. They even acknowledge the conspiracy in one of their articles by making fun of people like me that can see what EW is up to. It gets worse for EW. I counted through all of my past EW magazines since the “Brokeback” official release date, and in each WEEKLY issue they mention Brokeback Mountain more then forty times. They keep publishing these glowing articles about how great the movie is and how much success Brokeback is having in middle America, and how it looks like middle America isn’t as “homophobic” as once thought. For the record, In the latest EW website Top Ten Movies of the weekend, They have listed Brokeback Mountain as being in the number four position. In the “earnings per screen average” they have put TBA, or “To be Anounced.” I have never seen them do this before. A math lesson may be in order.

Well lets just go ahead and break down the numbers on Brokeback Mountain. According to EW, the movie has made 59.6 million dollars. The national average for movie prices is $9.50. Matinee is $7.50. So for the sake of argument we will split the difference and call it $8.50 per ticket. This would err in favor of Brokeback Mountain. if we multiply $8.50 into sixty million dollars we get 705823.5 people have paid $8.50 to see this “BLOCKBUSTER” movie. SEVEN MILLION PEOPLE in a country of three hundred million people!!! This means that about 2.1% of America has ran screaming to see Brokeback Mountain. This is consistant with the national average of gay people in America. What a coincidence!

Now for the last word on this Hollywood conspiracy. With all the hype coming from the media, especially Entertainment Weekly and Veriety, with the big build up to Oscar and knowing that the last week of January 2006 it was announced that Brokeback Mountain was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain made a paltry 5.6 million dollars in 2,089 theaters. This is further evidence that this movie has run its course and is being left to wither on the vine by “straight America.” If we do the math, we will see that the movie made about $2,680.00 per screen this past weekend. That would mean that less then 78 people saw the picture per screen per showing on average across America.

I took the liberty of calling a local theater located in Covina, California. This theater has 30 screens. Covina is a suburb located about 25 miles east of Los Angeles. I talked to the manager who asked that I not use his name. He said that the movie theater screening Brokeback is largely empty during the matinee’s and the only people that are in there during the day are “theater jumpers.” At night he said that there were maybe thirty tickets sold for each show. It is showing four times daily. He also added that when a movie is only showing four times a day it usually indicates that it is “on its way out of the theater.” When I asked why, he told me that the object of the theater owner is to “put rear ends in seats.” He said that Brokeback is playing four times a day on one screen, but that in between Brokeback other movies play to help fill that same theater. Interesting stuff I have learned here. So when a movie tanks, they only play it in limited release and fill seats with bigger movies. Here ends the Brokeback Mountain conspiracy. May the movie die a quick death.

JD