Postcards from the Funny Farm

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If Philip Pullman had any valid points to persuade our youth, he has some more marketing leg-work to do. This past weekend the $250 Million plus fantasy children’s film scraped only $27million. It was estimated to make $30-40m and many are saying in the blogosphere and on internet news sources that the president of New Line Cinema will be job hunting soon. While I saw it Saturday and liked it a lot, something in me is glad it did poorly. The books are decidedly anti God and I am sure the upcoming sequel “The Subtle Knife” will not be able to hold back on it’s climax scene where children kill Pullman’s senile and evil Christian God. I want artists to succeed when their art seeks to enhance humanity. There are messages in Pullman’s book that serve that end, but so much of it smacks of flailing out of bitterness against a church or church movement. Maybe the low numbers will cause the sequels to be the equivalent of: “More cool graphics, less anti God stuff.” I have hope this will be the case. Let’s see how far Pullman and the studio are willing to go to kill God. More importantly, I’m over it and getting excited about the new Narnia movie coming out this Summer!

Sources for the data in this post are below:

• Golden Compass disappoints at box office
• Golden Compass loses its way at the box office
• The Golden Compass Crashes and Burns — Is B...
• The Golden Compass: a wildly expensive flop
• 27m Opening Weekend Won’t Cut it for a seque...
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