Catholic boycott stops Golden Compass movie success!

[SenorSalsa]

i never saw it, mostly becuase i never had a group who wanted to. I was neither for or against it.

however, my brother saw it, and he said the movie was worth it just to see the giant polar bears fight.

as one Sister at our Church says, fantasy is just that, and as long as you keep that in mind, it cant cause harm(said in answer to Harry Potter, but it fits for Golden Compass too). As for the author’s comments, he can believe what he wants, and i can believe what i want.

 

[Philothea53]

i never saw it, mostly becuase i never had a group who wanted to. I was neither for or against it.

however, my brother saw it, and he said the movie was worth it just to see the giant polar bears fight.

as one Sister at our Church says, fantasy is just that, and as long as you keep that in mind, it cant cause harm(said in answer to Harry Potter, but it fits for Golden Compass too). As for the author’s comments, he can believe what he wants, and i can believe what i want.

No, don’t believe for a second it can’t cause harm. One Sister at your Church is not enough to teach you the way you should go. The evil one is very crafty and he just has to get you when your guard is down. It is vitally important that we listen to our teachers and leaders. We can’t do it on our own! The evil one and his minions disguise it and dress it up and have amazing cinematography and giant polar bears and tell us it isn’t what we in our hearts know it is and we start to give them the benefit of the doubt and they got us! Be careful. Be very careful.

 

[Digitonomy]

I didn’t go see it…No one in my family saw it.

Thus, the Catholic Boycott had **a direct effect **on the total film’s revenue received…

There’s no doubt about that.

While I would agree with the claim by yourself and others that the boycott hurt box office sales in this case, I don’t think we can say there is no doubt, or that based on the facts you presented it automatically follows that the movie was negatively affected. If there were enough notoriety as a result of a boycott, this can draw viewers that would not otherwise have seen the movie - sometimes this can have a net effect opposite what the boycotters intended. I would argue this happened with the Passion of the Christ, and to a lesser extent the DaVinci Code.

 

[Dwyer]

While I would agree with the claim by yourself and others that the boycott hurt box office sales in this case, I don’t think we can say there is no doubt, or that based on the facts you presented it automatically follows that the movie was negatively affected. If there were enough notoriety as a result of a boycott, this can draw viewers that would not otherwise have seen the movie - sometimes this can have a net effect opposite what the boycotters intended. I would argue this happened with the Passion of the Christ, and to a lesser extent the DaVinci Code.

This is a pure myth of our capitalist society.

In the social science of economics, there are a finite number of people chasing a finite number of products at a given time and a finite number of dollars that exist.

If I choose not to pay $10.00 for a product, that company will never get my $10.00. Never ever.

Even if they sell $400,000,000 in sales, they will never realize that $10.00 no matter what they do.

They can jump up and down, stand on their heads, but they’'ll never get that particular $10.00. My $10.00.

You see, industries in our economy, like the movie industry, does not want you to believe or know that your choice does have an effect.

They want you to feel helpless, and that nothing you do has any effect on them. They want you to think that your boycotts are worthless activities

So my choice from an economic reality and in reality has an effect on their bottom line, even if they gross $400,000,000.

In economics, its called a lost economic opportunity cost.

Another famous economist once put it: “there is no such thing as a free lunch.”

 

[Digitonomy]

This is a pure myth of our capitalist society.

In the social science of economics, there are a finite number of people chasing a finite number of products at a given time and a finite number of dollars that exist.

Yes, but unless the company were getting every one of those dollars to begin with, the proper way to look at the issue is the net effect of an action, not the response of a single customer.

Dwyer:

If I choose not to pay $10.00 for a product, that company will never get my $10.00. Never ever.

But if from the publicity of your one-person boycott, the company is able to get $20 from two customers who would not otherwise have bought the product, in the end it’s up $10. As I said, I think this happened with the Passion of the Christ. Early attacks and boycott talks, mostly from Jewish groups, gave the film an unprecedented amount of free publicity, which wasn’t really in the budget for the small studio.

 

[ElizabethAnne]

as one Sister at our Church says, fantasy is just that, and as long as you keep that in mind, it cant cause harm(said in answer to Harry Potter, but it fits for Golden Compass too). As for the author’s comments, he can believe what he wants, and i can believe what i want.

There is a huge difference between Harry Potter and the Golden Compass, so I would say, no the answer does not fit both. Harry Potter does not directly attack God, organized religion and the Catholic Church in particular; the Golden Compass does. In fact, the books especially are meant to be a tool to spread atheism. The author is not even hiding that!

 

[Steeltemplar]

i never saw it, mostly becuase i never had a group who wanted to. I was neither for or against it.

however, my brother saw it, and he said the movie was worth it just to see the giant polar bears fight.

as one Sister at our Church says, fantasy is just that, and as long as you keep that in mind, it cant cause harm(said in answer to Harry Potter, but it fits for Golden Compass too). As for the author’s comments, he can believe what he wants, and i can believe what i want.

If someone made a movie which slandered someone dearly beloved to you, would you go see it? It’s “fantasy”, right? But it is also a hateful attack against someone you love very dearly.

I love the Church and God. I would not see this movie precisely because I love them. I cannot find entertainment in the vile slander of those that I love.

 

[OriginalJS]

did you read the article? it states clearly that they admit that christian reactions and protests halted the success.

That’s just an excuse. The movie was poorly done. The reviews from the first were bad, bad, bad. Young people who had read the series told me the movie was poor.

 

[Dwyer]

Originally Posted by Dwyer View Post
This is a pure myth of our capitalist society.QUOTE]In the social science of economics, there are a finite number of people chasing a finite number of products at a given time and a finite number of dollars that exist.

Yes, but unless the company were getting every one of those dollars to begin with, the proper way to look at the issue is the net effect of an action, not the response of a single customer.

Originally Posted by Dwyer
If I choose not to pay $10.00 for a product, that company will never get my $10.00. Never ever.

But if from the publicity of your one-person boycott, the company is able to get $20 from two customers who would not otherwise have bought the product, in the end it’s up $10. As I said, I think this happened with the Passion of the Christ. Early attacks and boycott talks, mostly from Jewish groups, gave the film an unprecedented amount of free publicity, which wasn’t really in the budget for the small studio.

If you really read, analyzed, and thought about what I am saying, then you would understand the economic truth of what I wrote.

Again, Movie Studio never receives my $10.00. Never.

Even if someone buys 20 tickets, they never receive my particular $10.00.

Here’s a hypothetical example:

Suppose you live on the island of Rikki Tikki.

You own a hammer store.

Rikki Tikiki only has a population of 12. 10 people are consumers, you own a hammer store, and your neighbor Gus owns a hammer store.

But all 10 consumers buy at your store, because Gus’s service is slow.

You sell 7 hammers at $10.00 each to seven consumers; but then you’re rude to the last three and they refuse to buy at your store, and go to Gus’s across the street, even if Gus takes longer.

Your Total sales: $70.00, Pretty good, huh???

But if you hadn’t been rude to the last 3, you would have had:

Total Sales: $100.00; That’s $30.00 better.

Now, say 3 Tourists from the mainland enter your shop and each buy a hammer. That’s another $30.00 in the till, so you have a total of $100.00.

But the fact remains that because you were rude, you still would have had $130.00 if you had been polite.

No matter, if you sing, dance, stand on your head, you’re never going to get that same $30.00; not in a million years.

$30.00 represents the opportunity cost, or earnings forgone because the owner decided to act rude.

See, Economists insists on going behind the dollar transactions to measure the true resource costs of an activity.

Business Accounts generally exclude non-monetary transactions, such as the costs of boycotts to their businesses.

What I have given is an example of an opportunity cost, the difference between money transactions and true economic costs.

The opportunity cost denotes the opportunities forgone, or the costs incurred, by taking that action rather than the best alternative decision.

Now, this Movie Theater could have made a similar and equally entertaining movie that could have grossed, say, $700,000,000.

But because the film offended Christians specifically and other religions in general , those consumers boycotted it and that cost them money, say $200,000,0000 in box office sales.

And the bad movie reviews cost them another $150,000,000.

That brings them down to $350,000,000.

But the Movie Studio could have made $700,000,000.

So the opportunity cost for making an offensive movie was $350,000,000.

I realize this is a hypothetical analysis, but my point is that you cannot say Boycotts have no effect or absolutely no effect on businesses providing goods and services.

That is what the media and businesses want you to think and believe in our society and tell you to think that and repeat it over and over, ** but it is absolutely not true**.

 

[Digitonomy]

Again, Movie Studio never receives my $10.00. Never.

Here’s a hypothetical example:

Suppose you live on the island of Rikki Tikki.
You own a hammer store.
Rikki Tikiki only has a population of 12. 10 people are consumers, you own a hammer store, and your neighbor Gus owns a hammer store.
But all 10 consumers buy at your store, because Gus’s service is slow.

You sell 7 hammers at $10.00 each to seven consumers; but then you’re rude to the last three and they refuse to buy at your store, and go to Gus’s across the street, even if Gus takes longer.
Your Total sales: $70.00, Pretty good, huh???

But if you hadn’t been rude to the last 3, you would have had:
Total Sales: $100.00; That’s $30.00 better.

Now, say 3 Tourists from the mainland enter your shop and each buy a hammer. That’s another $30.00 in the till, so you have a total of $100.00.

But the fact remains that because you were rude, you still would have had $130.00 if you had been polite.

No matter, if you sing, dance, stand on your head, you’re never going to get that same $30.00; not in a million years.
$30.00 represents the opportunity cost, or earnings forgone because the owner decided to act rude.

The fallacy of this scenario is what I suggested above - it assumes that all the consumers are my customers. A more plausible scenario on Rikki Tikki Island is that 6 consumers shop at my store, 6 at Gus’s store (a couple shop at both from time to time). I announce that henceforth I won’t sell to Muslims. My two Muslim customers start going to Gus’s, and a non-Muslim customer follows their boycott on general principle. So my opportunity cost is 3 customers. But, a Hindu that patronized Gus’s store is impressed with my stand and starts buying from me, so I’m back up to 4 customers. Tourists have always wandered through periodically looking for tools to vandalize their cruise ships, so we can always count on them for one sale - now I’m up to 5 out of a normal 7 (6+1 tourist). And a Hindu nationalist Member of Parliament, smelling a photo op, brings a few TV cameras to document his visit to my store to buy a hammer. So I’m at 6 due to the boycott, rather than the 7 that I might expect. You’re right that I’m never going to get the sales from those 3 customers who are boycotting. Nor am I going to get sales from numerous others who give lip service to a boycott, but never would have shopped here anyway. But because of the media attention caused by the boycott, I’m only down one net customer, rather than the two Muslims I would have been down had no one else heard of it, or the three customers had only the neighbors heard of it. In other situations, the boycott might drive me out of business, or I might have a net gain from the boycott.

Dwyer:

I realize this is a hypothetical analysis, but my point is that you cannot say Boycotts have no effect or absolutely no effect on businesses providing goods and services.

I have neither claimed that boycotts have no effect, nor that they have absolutely no effect. In fact I agreed that there was probably a negative effect on this particular movie. I merely said that a boycott will not automatically have a net negative effect on sales - it may be negative, it may be negligible or indeterminate (pretty darn close to no effect), or it may be positive.

 

[latin_rite]

did you read the article? it states clearly that they admit that christian reactions and protests halted the success.

I suppose they would look for any excuse as to why their movie failed. It didn’t fail because of the catholic boycott. how many films have been turned into “smash hits” because of Church boycotts? No this movie failed on two fronts. one it was bad and two the whole genre was over done.

 

[Scottgun]

I’m not sure what the overall point is. Is it that if something anti-Catholic is a smash hit, it was because of protests, but if it was a flop, it was anything but the protests?

The problem I find with the don’t-protest-it will-give-it-publicity argument aside from the unhealthy interest in PR, is that it is essentially a consequentialist argument, of which there is already too much of that kind of thinking in the world including among Catholics.

 

[latin_rite]

I’m not sure what the overall point is. Is it that if something anti-Catholic is a smash hit, it was because of protests, but if it was a flop, it was anything but the protests?

The problem I find with the don’t-protest-it will-give-it-publicity argument aside from the unhealthy interest in PR, is that it is essentially a consequentialist argument, of which there is already too much of that kind of thinking in the world including among Catholics.

I’m not saying that if something is anti-catholic it will be a smash hit. I’m saying that the extra attention to some movies make people want to go to see what all the ruckus is a about.
One case . at a Sydney film ferstival a few years back, there was one film showing ( i can’t remember name or what excatly it was about) I think it had some sort of violent explicit sexual attack on a woman. And the goverment wanted to place either a ban or a tougher rating on it. Now the week Preceding the goverment’s and some womens groups out cry,. The movie was averaging around a half dozen or so viewers. After how ever it was playing to packed house’s. Same as that so called art work with the crucifix ina jar of urine. before the outcry it was relitivity unknown. afterwards though it was one of the most visited "pieces in the exhibition. Not saying everyone liked it or wanted to see it for any kind of art reason. Just boycotts and outcries seem to awaken a certain level of curiosity in people. Andf i agree people should protest if something offends them. But protesting will bring publicity and “put bums on seats” therefore putting more money in tthe “artist’s” bank. Which in the case of many of these so called artist is what they care about more than anything.