Thanks for the info. What’s your take on Premise? Is their business just a hobby for their CEO, or do they really look for a monetary return?

“EXPELLED” cost just over $3MM to produce. More than that to market and distribute. For example, outside of digital media, a film print can cost upwards of $2,200. Multiply the print cost by 1,000 screens. This is the “print” portion of your P&A. Essentially, with Lauer’s help they used P&A financing to rent the screens. For every ticket purchased to date, they have spent close to double the P&A.

Typically, less than half of the box office flows back to the producer, which means for Premise to recoup their production, distribution and marketing costs, they need to do more than $12-15 MM of business. By the way, this does not account for overages, multiple release delays (more than 18 month late!), carrying costs of monies invested, etc.

Foreign will not bite (ID is an American “issue”). DVD rental/sell-through is not going to generate enough $$. So, at the end of the day, Walt and Logan will not be able to repay their investors

How do I know all this? I live on Bowen Island. I was solicited by Premise. I have seen the business plan. I know the producers. For reasons listed above (and for many, many other reasons) we “passed”.

Religion is silly, the movie was boring and chock full of half truths and inconsistencies. At least my imaginary friend has his own beer-bong, and knows to leave when I’m trying to study.

Yours just seems to hang around…and be all annoying. I win!

About 12 people in the theater at noon on Friday (actually a better turn out than I expected).

Lots of derisive snorts from the audience when an atheist or mainstream scientist would say something that’s only ironic from the creationist point of view.

In answer to one of my own questions, it was exhibited on film, which means a 1000-theater release was very expensive. Anyone ask Randy Olsen how much 1000 feature-length prints cost. WHOO. Wide release means Premise has some deep pockets, and isn’t super concerned with getting its investment back.

The film was well-shot, but a bit overly long and shoots itself in the foot with so many jokey uses of stock footage.

One thing that’s funny is that any atheists who are scientists, their atheism is front and center, Ben Stein makes SURE we know they’re atheists. But talk to Dembski, Steven Meyers, or any of the ID proponents, their religion isn’t mentioned. Except if they’re Jewish. Then, that’s on their sleeve. Some stab at making it look not specifically Christian I suppose.

One part that got me to laugh out loud was a low-rent South Park style animated piece about the odds against the first single-cell organism forming. They likened the odds against it as winning 500 jackpots on a slot machine or something… committing Hoyle’s Fallacy in the process. The animation had the narrator saying something like “How’s that going, Richard?” and the camera panned to a cartoon Richard Dawkins loosing at a slot machine and kicking it and cursing it. If only the rest of the film was at least as witty as that.

I think it says something interesting. I mean, here was a stupid cartoon, not 30 seconds in length, claiming to illustrate a fundamental problem with evolutionary biology. In order for this cartoon to actually disprove a scientific claim, the scientists in the world must be PHENOMENALLY stupid. I mean, really, if you could punch a fatal hole in evolutionary theory with a cartoon, and yet no actual scientist at Harvard or Yale or MIT, or Princeton or Oxford or Cambridge has figured it out… but OH YEAH, these bozos with their cheap cartoon figured it out.

I mean, god damn. The atheists in this film come off as sputtering, twitchy ego-centric nihilists, played against spooky music. They must be really stupid and evil to not only deny the proof that the slot-machine cartoon delivered with stunning simplicity, but also to (seemingly, based on the edits) proclaim their evil atheistic purposes so openly and unabashedly to the cameras.

If this is truely a conspiracy, it’s not a secret one, since these heavies gleefully explain on-camera how they plan to build a race of super-humans by wiping out religion, or making it a nice little hobby like knitting.

Perhaps the box office receipts would have been higher if atheists supported the film as cordially as Christians supported “I Sold My Soul On eBay.”

Ummmmm, which edition of “ISMSOeB” did you read? I don’t remember Hemant using clips of Nazi death camps whenever he referred to something he didn’t believe in, or misleading anyone he interviewed, or plagiarizing video representations of the inner life of a cell, or making false claims.

Thanks Keith.

I think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say, even though you have different beliefs than I do. What I’m saying is that skepticism has a value, I think just as you might say that faith has a value.

It is not me merely crossing my arms and saying “no no no” to all possibilities and the faithful swinging wide their arms and saying “yes yes yes” to every possible religion or belief out there.

I think we all use our skepticism and our faith in different ways and in different measures. I’m trying to lay out my thinking and my process by which I evaluate claims that people want me to join on with.

Well said. Couldn’t agree more.

I think you’re understanding what I’m trying to say, even though you have different beliefs than I do. What I’m saying is that skepticism has a value, I think just as you might say that faith has a value.

It is not me merely crossing my arms and saying “no no no” to all possibilities and the faithful swinging wide their arms and saying “yes yes yes” to every possible religion or belief out there.

I think we all use our skepticism and our faith in different ways and in different measures. I’m trying to lay out my thinking and my process by which I evaluate claims that people want me to join on with.