Boxoffice - October 2016

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Kelsey Grammer as Republican President Andrew Boone in 2008's Swing Vote (Dennis Hopper played his Democratic challenger). Kevin Costner's Bud Johnson, an apolitical single father, has to cast the deciding ballot with New Mexico's five tiebreaking electoral votes on the line. Spolier alert: He casts the deciding vote, but the winner is never revealed. The film performed poorly at the box office, generating just $16 million domestically and almost nothing in international markets. BOX OFFICE AND THE BALLOT BOX DO ELECTION-THEMED FILMS PERFORM AT THE MULTIPLEX? MOVIEGOERS CAST THEIR VOTE. by Jesse Rifkin 36 BoxOffice ® OCTOBER 2016
A recent Gallup poll showed 75 percent of voters are paying “a lot” of attention to the Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton presidential election, an unprecedented level of public interest. Presidential debates consistently notch 50 million viewers or more, and the presidential debates in September and October were expected to break viewership records. Films about elections, whether based on real or fictional races, are a Hollywood staple and include such acclaimed pictures as All the President’s Men and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Yet films about political elections have rarely made much money at the box office in recent years. They have varied in genres from dramas to comedies to “dramadies” and have been released during various points in the year. Yet a Boxoffice analysis of such films made since the year 2000 finds that none has made more than $100 million. To be fair, many were produced on mid-range budgets, indicating that perhaps studios did not always expect them to earn buckets of cash. Still, there are mid-budget or even low-budget films that make more than $100 million every year—yet these didn’t. Why not? What could Hollywood do to better tap into the American public’s high level of interest in actual presidential elections? THREE ELECTION FILMS THAT EARNED BELOW $50 MILLION, ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION SWING VOTE Kevin Costner starred in the comedy about a New Mexico man who, thanks to a technical snafu at his polling place on Election Day, gets to break New Mexico’s popular-vote tie. He thus effectively gets to choose the next president, forcing the two candidates to make personal appeals to Bud Johnson instead of the entire country. Despite the clever premise, Costner was well past his prime by August 2008, and the film received very weak reviews, ultimately grossing a poor $16.2 million and opening in sixth place at the weekend box office. The timing, intended to coincide with the run-up to the 2008 election, may have actually inadvertently hurt the film, as Obama’s groundbreaking candidacy and John McCain’s VP choice, Sarah Palin, caused reality to surpass entertainment that year. Though the film’s plot was clearly meant to call to mind Florida’s razor-thin election margin in 2000, New Mexico—considered a swing state early in 2008 after having voted Republican in 2004 but Democratic in 2000—subsequently voted Democratic by double-digit margins in both 2008 and 2012 and is now considered reliably blue. WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT The February 2004 comedy starred Gene Hackman as a popular retiring two-term president who moves to a small town and decides to run for mayor against a lifelong resident and local hardware store owner played by Ray Romano. The premise was original and engaging: who should the town’s residents vote for, the greatly beloved former president or the man they’d grown up with and who knew their concerns firsthand? With horrible reviews, including an abysmal 13 percent from Rotten Tomatoes today, the film made only $14.4 million. Its offbeat title probably didn’t do it any favors either—offbeat movies can do well, but usually they have more runof-the-mill titles. Romano was one of the most popular television stars at the time with his hit show Everybody Loves Raymond, but his relatable personality wasn’t able to translate into movie stardom. (Although others such as Kevin James have made a similar jump.) THE IDES OF MARCH This drama directed by and starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling focused on a presidential front-runner and his young campaign staffer who discovers the candidate is having an affair. Despite receiving good reviews, the October 2011 film ended up with $40.9 million, a fair if middling total. It also opened in 2,199 theaters, low for a nationwide release, which hampered its box office potential—Clooney hadn’t had a wide release in so few theaters since Syriana back in 2005. Clooney and Gosling are two of this decade’s A-list actors who often choose projects with low revenue potential. Unlike the other films on this list, Ides was considered more of a prestige film and awards contender than box office dynamite, so its results weren’t necessarily seen as a disappointment. OCTOBER 2016 BoxOffice ® 37
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Boxoffice - October 2016

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