I couldn't resist writing on this topic.  Religulous just finished its 3rd week of release and is now officially the #1 documentary of 2008 in terms of box office revenues (and currently the #9 documentary of all time with a good chance of going even higher).

This is all quite amusing since the 2008 film many Freethinkers can not help comparing it to - "Expelled" - hurried out a release on October 17th proclaiming it the "#1 documentary of 2008" right when it was obvious that this claim only had a few hours of life left in it.

The lifetime box office domestic receipts for Expelled were around $7.7M. After just 3 weeks (in 1/3 the time and with half the number of theaters showing it) Religulous is already at $9.1M in domestic box office receipts.

Given an average ticket price in 2008 of around $7 this means that around 1.3M people have gone to see Religulous. I don't think it is much of a stretch to imagine the vast majority of those are Freethinkers. Remember that the creators of Expelled launched a campaign to 'get out the church viewers' and was even giving free tickets to go see the show. You might also remember Ben Stein's adverts on national TV during the last week before the movie opened. None of that investment seemed to have paid off much.

Of course, it would be nice to think this all says something about the growing Freethinker movement (which it may well do) but it might also say something about the actual relative merits of the two movies themselves. Expelled gained a panning from critics for the entertainment value (not) of the movie while Religulous, even though panned by some predictable sources, was at least entertaining and a fun night out.

Wondering where to go see it in the Springs? This link will take you to the only theater in town showing it!