Boxoffice - October 2016

ELECTION-THEMED MOVIES
HEAD OF STATE
The comedy directed by and starring Chris Rock (left) at the peak of his popularity wasn’t considered a great
movie then, but it holds up especially poorly now given the premise. The movie was about an African American
man who runs for and wins the presidency despite punctuating his campaign speeches with vernacular like “That
ain’t right” and dancing to rap music at state dinners. Debuting the year before the rise of Barack Obama and
five years prior to his ascension to the presidency, the film’s primary source of humor relied on the presumed
long shot that a largely white country would unite behind a black presidential nominee, especially one familiar
with street slang or rap—yet that’s precisely what happened shortly thereafter. But without the foreknowledge
of Obama, the film still made $38.1 million after its March 2003 release. At the time, before this decade’s surge
of March blockbusters like The Hunger Games, Alice in Wonderland, and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice,
March was often considered a dumping ground for bad movies. In addition, the film arguably wasn’t as “political”
as most other films on this list, instead relying more on race and sex jokes—often a winning formula for
Hollywood comedies, but perhaps not for a political movie.
POLITICAL DOCUMENTARIES
What about political documentaries? Political documentaries, considering their low budgets, can make a
profit even with a middling gross. The high mark in the genre was Fahrenheit 9/11 (left) back in 2004, when
it earned an astonishing $166.2 million. The most successful political documentaries in the mid-2000s were
left-leaning in nature, such as Al Gore’s climate-crisis warning An Inconvenient Truth.
Since then, the ideological tide has turned. The most financially successful political documentaries in the
past few years have either been conservative—such as Dinesh D’Souza’s 2016: Obama’s America and Hillary’s
America—or at least not left-leaning, such as Citizenfour about Edward Snowden, which was critical of the mass
surveillance undertaken and supported by both major parties. In other words, the best way to make money as
a political documentary is apparently to be the party that doesn’t currently occupy the White House. If Trump
wins, perhaps we can expect a resurgence of successful and politically progressive documentaries once again.
WHICH FILMS ABOUT POLITICS DO BEST AT THE BOX OFFICE?
THE ONES NOT ABOUT ELECTIONS.
Interestingly, the highest-grossing films since 2000 that were primarily about politics were those about a
president in office rather than one campaigning for the position. This seems to contradict the oft-repeated truism
that Americans usually pay more attention to the “horse race” of political campaigns than to politicians’ actions
once actually in office. But films such as The Butler (left) and Lincoln both made more than $100 million while
focusing on real Oval Office drama, whether during the Cold War and civil rights eras for the former or the Civil
War for the latter.
That being said, both of those films received rave reviews from critics and audiences alike. Other films about
presidents in office, whether real or fictional, haven’t always fared as well, such as W. about the George W. Bush
administration. Even recent action films—traditionally the highest-grossing genre—about fictional presidents
in office haven’t always done that well relative to pre-release expectations from box office analysts, such as White
House Down and Vantage Point, which were considered fine but not great by audiences.
So what’s the takeaway? The biggest correlation to success for political films does not appear to be release date
or genre or star power but perceived quality. The political movies that earned the most were the ones actually
considered to be excellent films by critics and audiences, like Lincoln (left), The Butler, and Fahrenheit 9/11.
Moreover, those films actually dealt intelligently with politics and governance versus the horse race of the campaign.
And they were about real issues faced by the president—not merely comedies, thrillers, or action movies
about a president or candidate.
Let this provide a glimmer of hope to those who worry that Hollywood no longer produces enough material
of quality or that audiences won’t flock to anything too intellectual or substantive. Far from being death blows to
a film’s box office chances, those traits may indeed be a political film’s best hope for box office success. n
ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE
100
75
50
25
0
$50 $100 $150 $200
MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
Election- and politicalthemed
films: Better
audience reviews on
RottenTomatoes.com
correlates with higher box
office (inflation-adjusted)
RottenTomatoes.com is a website that allows
any user to rate a film from 0 to 100 percent,
allowing for an aggregate number reflective
of public opinion. A Boxoffice Pro analysis
finds that for the election- or politicalthemed
films mentioned in this article,
there was a strong correlation between
the average Rotten Tomatoes score and
inflation-adjusted box office.
40 BoxOffice ® OCTOBER 2016