Johnny Depp is pretty sure Middle America’s stupid, but I don’t know of anyone in Middle America stupid enough to squander $45 million plus the cost of advertising to adapt an unpublished Hunter S. Thompson novel after “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (also a Thompson adaptation) failed to hit $11 million at the box office.
Via Fox Nation:
“The Rum Diary” is currently doing mediocre at the box office, but Depp says the money issue doesn’t matter to him.“No, God no, no,” the actor explains. “It’s always a crapshoot, and really if you have that in your head while you’re making a movie the process would become something very different. No, I couldn’t give a rat’s arse really, not really.”
Depp has a long-term view of the film, saying, “I believe that this film, regardless of what it makes in, you know, Wichita, Kan., this week — which is probably about $13 — it doesn’t make any difference. I believe that this film will have a shelf life. I think it will stick around and people will watch it and enjoy it.”
[…]
“It’s something that will be more appreciated over here, I think. Because it’s — well, I think it’s an intelligent film — and a lot of times, outside the big cities in the states, they don’t want that,” Depp said.
And with that statement, Johnny Depp proves himself to be an ignorant bigot so bitter towards Middle America he doesn’t even understand how the American box office works.
After three weeks in release, “Rum Diary” has only hit $12.4 million domestically, which means that it’s not just Kansas avoiding the film in droves; it’s also all those “intelligent” big city people.
The average price for a movie ticket in 2010 was $7.89 (and no doubt higher in the cities). The math is simple and makes clear that fewer than 2 million Americans have purchased “Rum Diary” tickets. In the City of New York alone there are 8 million people. Los Angeles County has nearly 10 million “intelligent” residents. What does that tell you?
Depp can trash Kansas (total population 2.9 million) all he wants, but it’s probably safe to say that when you add up the population of every big city in America, about 90% of those “intelligent” folks are not purchasing “Rum Diary” tickets.
Leftist Hollywood doesn’t need Middle America to create hits; they need not a single bitterly clinging Red Stater to cross the $100 million mark . 15 million people will bring your box office haul to $120 million, and if you can’t hit that in a country where over 62 million people voted for Barack Obama, the problem is in your own backyard.
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