The market for films addressing Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential candidacy and his term to date in the Oval Office has proven volatile at best: Hagiographies like the all-access, Edward Norton-produced By the People co-exist alongside a cottage industry of microbudget anti-Obama slam pieces like Hype , The Obama Deception and this past weekend’s 2016: Obama’s America . And thanks in part to election-year grassroots mania (and an interview with the president’s Kenyan half-brother), the latter film may yet prove to be the most lucrative of the Obama subgenre to date. But this weekend’s other release, The Obama Effect ? Not so much. Released on one screen in Houston by Rocky Mountain Pictures (the scrappy purveyor of such right-leaning fare as Atlas Shrugged and the sleeper hits End of the Spear and Expelled: No Intelligence Required ), 2016 pulled in a handsome $31,750 over three days. The showing followed a free word-of-mouth screening last Thursday which featured author/interviewer Dinesh D’Souza (on whose book the film is based) and Oscar-winning co-producer Gerald Molen in attendance; “some moviegoers sat in the aisles Thursday and waited as much as 90 minutes to meet,” according to a THR dispatch . An expanded release is foreseen, perhaps comprising 400 screens total in the lead-up to next month’s Republican National Convention. Meanwhile, down the box-office line (like, way down the box-office line) you’ll find The Obama Effect . Written and directed by and starring Charles S. Dutton, the film focuses on a man circa 2008 who overlooks mounting health and family issues in his fervor to campaign on Obama’s behalf. In a radio interview last week , Dutton described the film as a satirical look at a man who loses perspective on his life (and the political animals who come to surround him), but a glimpse at the trailer and other limited background on the film don’t really combine for much of a message or even much of a story. Which (along with a lack of D’Souza-esque, Obama-thwacking source material) helps explain why the film, released by Arc Entertainment, stumbled this weekend to a meager $73,000 on 25 screens — a per-theater average of $2,920. Lessons? Many remain to be determined, especially as campaign season chugs ahead, though producers and agents alike may immediately be advised that apparently the president’s half-brother George can open a movie better than Andrew Garfield, at least per screen . And think what he could have done with Battleship ! Ahem. Just throwing it out there. [ THR , Box Office Mojo ]
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Obama Movies Yield Boom, Bust Over Opening Weekends
