A reader wrote to say that he went to see “that movie,” and there were only eight other people in the theater.
The Hollywood media says that his family’s experience was not unusual.
Despite a huge publicity campaign involving promotion by NBC’s Education Nation and full-page ads in major newspapers, the film opened to weak sales at the box office.
Here is another report:
Hotel Transylvania’ Tops Box Office on Friday
After a month of consistently awful box office, audiences came back to the movies on Friday for Hotel Transylvania and Looper. Pitch Perfect also did great business in limited release, though not everything was sunshine and rainbows: Won’t Back Down performed terribly, and is on track for one of the worst openings of the year. Hotel Transylvania debuted to an estimated $11 million yesterday, which tops Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ($8.1 million) for best opening day ever for a fully-animated Sony Pictures Animation movie (though it does lag a bit behind The Smurfs’ $13.3 million). Using Cloudy as a comparison (since it opened around the same time), Hotel Transylvania could be in line for over $40 million this weekend; Sony is being a bit more modest with a $38 million projection. Regardless, the movie is well-positioned to top Sweet Home Alabama’s $35.6 million to claim a new record for a September opening weekend.In second place, See more »
– Ray Subers
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Maybe even Lifetime won’t want to air this dud. Poor Viola..from the Help to this..Oy!
They can always count on Fox.
Diane
My husband and I went to see “Looper” on Saturday night. I couldn’t resist peeking into the theatre showing the film that must not be named! I counted 8 people. The worker at the Box Office said it was the worst opening of a movie she had ever seen. Ain’t karma a b***H!
If the screen writers could combine Looper and WBD, then Maggie G.’s character would have a chance to travel in time and reverse the damage done when she is dissatisfied with the result of pulling the trigger.
LOL Alan!
Although I am not displeased to see WBD flop, is this simply because it is a lousy movie, or is it due to general apathy/ignorance about what is going on with public education? I worry sometimes that not many people are paying attention – even among teachers (who are in comfortable districts).
I agree with both of your reasons, but I will add one more. Teachers are consumers, too. We decide how we want to spend our hard
earned money and we don’t want to waste it on propaganda. We also have families, friends, and parents who support us. We talk to each other and we are not stupid. Our message spreads and the deformers may be able to control the media reports and the overall message, but they cannot control our choices.
Sequel: Can’t Fool Us
Diane
My mom is very active in her AARP group. She has managed to convert at least 60 elderly men and women to take another look at what is going on in education. People I speak with who9 are NOT in education are disgusted and saddened by what is going on with public education and how teachers are being treated. Not one person I know, and that is many, disagreed with the CTU strike and this is across varius political cultural and economic lines. I agree with both reasons as well, but I’d like to think maybe, just maybe, our message is getting through.
It was very valuable that parents and teachers told the public about who was funding this filmm and why.
The reviewers heard us.
Diane
Yes, I agree with you. Teachers are the usual consumers of films and books about education. When we decide not to read the book (e.g. The Bee Eater) or see the film (Won’t Back Down) it usually flops.
Good.
That book should have been named: The liar, the mouth taper and the narcissistic fraud.
‘Doing a happy dance!
Hee, hee, hee!
Hi Diane,
I wrote this in response to recent articles in the Philadelphia Daily News. Hope you can share it with your readers.
Lisa Haver
Backing Down from Don’t Back Down
Maggie Gyllenhall , star of “Won’t Back Down”, is shocked, shocked that anyone could think she is anti-union or anti-teacher. Her family’s politics (“to the left of Trotsky”) make that impossible. “There is no world in which I would ever, EVER make an anti-union movie”, she told the Philadelphia Daily News’s Howard Gensler in a September 28 interview. She then goes on to point to teachers unions as the problem with education in this country. She doesn’t mention poverty or underfunding of schools or over-testing: “But clearly—and I don’t know anyone who would disagree—there are huge problems with the teachers unions”. Oh.
The movie portrays the teachers union as the one impediment against educating the children attending an inner-city school. See, the union forbids them from working after school hours. (And this movie says it is “inspired by actual events”.) So she and one right-thinking teacher invoke the “Parent Trigger” law, rising up and taking over the school before delivering it to a charter school—one which is not burdened by rules about wages or working conditions. The movie ends before we find out whether the school hires that teacher or discards her with the rest of them, as charters usually do.
Just one day before, Mr. Gensler wrote about his interview with the movie’s director, Daniel Barnz, who also expressed outrage that anyone could come to the conclusion, after viewing the film, that he could be anti-union or anti-teacher. He ran through a litany of relatives of were or are teachers. He explains that “…what the whole movie is about is how we can come together to make things better for kids”. Just what the kids need: someone else saying they’re for the children. Mr. Barnz didn’t say it was a non-profit undertaking, so the movie must also be about making money for its investors.
“Won’t Back Down”, described by Stephen Rae in the Philadelphia Inquirer as “Norma Rae for the Paul Ryan set”, has been a vehicle for corporate-driven education reform since its inception. It is a production of Walden Media, whose owner, Philip Anschutz, provides funding for the Koch Brothers’ right-wing group Americans for Prosperity . Screenings for the film have been accompanied by panel discussions organized by and including former D C School Chancellor Michelle Rhee, whose conservative Students First organization has advocating for the Parent Trigger legislation the movie attempts to dramatize. In addition, it is being distributed by 20th Century Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose number-two man is Joel Klein, former chancellor or NYC schools, whose reform program was a template for corporate education reform.
Did Mr. Barnz not know who was producing and distributing his film? (Maybe cash payments were delivered to the set in unmarked satchels.) The purpose of this film has always been to create a dramatic premise in which to advocate passing Parent Triggr legislation in as many states as possible. This legislation does not allow parents creative control over schools, as the movie suggests, just the right to deliver them to for-profits.
And Ms. Gyllenhall? One assumes she read the script before agreeing to take the role. She didn’t realize her character—a (white) mother leading an uprising against the teachers’ union in an inner city school—might be construed as anti-union? Ms. Gyllenhall has a reputation as a smart actor who takes great care in choosing roles in movies with intelligent and off-beat themes. Is this movie an exception or should we just accept her protestations that the viewers and critics have got it all wrong?
Lisa Haver is a retired teacher and education activist in Philadelphia. Visit her website Schools101.org
So pleased to see that there seemed to be no rush to get a ticket to “Won’t Back Down”.