The Failure of "Expelled"

It looks as if the movie "Expelled" has been a complete failure. Rather than the $15 million that the producers were hoping to acquire on opening week, the movie made less than $3 million. I do not know what the expenses were for this movie, but I think that there is a good chance that it will have been a net loss for those involved. In the mean time, the Truth Tickets counter campaign must have been a net benefit for the National Center for Science Education, since the donations came with no expense on their part.

In addition, the movie provided me with a benefit that I certainly value. Spending 8 months as a first-page hit for those doing Google and Yahoo internet searches for the movie meant a lot of visitors to my blog that I would have otherwise had. Some of them became regular subscribers. The movie brought me - and continues to bring me - a level of exposure greater than the combined value of all of my other work.

And I would like to think that this first-page hit for the past 8 months, immediately available for those looking for information on the movie - is at least partially responsible for the movie's failure. If this is true, then I would conclude that I had made an important contribution to making the world a better place than it would have otherwise been.

Even though my efforts here are negative efforts - an effort that does not actually count as 'promoting good', but as 'avoiding harm'.

I would like readers to reflect for a moment, that a significant portion of the failure of Ben Stein's movie can be traced to getting Christians to reject Stein's message. A lot of Christians rejected a group of their own. If they had not done so, then this piece of hate-mongering propaganda would have been a success.

Just a thought.