Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Idiocracy Conspiracy Theories



I don't know which, if any, of the following statements are true, but they've all come up - with varying frequency - in discussion of Idicocracy's slim release. You tell me what you believe.

1. Fox have "dumped" Idiocracy into only 130 screens across the US as a deliberate attempt to kill the film.

2. Fox considered that every cent spent on promoting the film would be a cent wasted as no audience could possibly want to see this film, marketing onslaught or not.

3. The film was "dumped" as an act of personal retribution against Mike Judge for "things" he did and said (mysterious, eh?) to the Fox bigwigs.

4. Fox "dumped" the film to appease their many marketing partners - many of whom are featured in product placement throughout the film in the least flattering of fashions.

5. Luke Wilson was considered to be box office poison and he's going to have to carry the can for this one.

6. Fox saw a huge DVD market that could be better served by engineering this deliberately as a cult film. By bypassing theatrical revenue and tricking folks into rallying around the film, they expect to sell numerous different DVD versions to the "cult" as the years go by.

7. Idiocracy isn't so hot, and Fox genuinely feared embarrassment from putting their weight behind it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's the story of idiocracy ?

Wiley said...

One rumored possibility was that the premise of a future society where dysgenic breeding has created a nation of dumbasses was too dangerous an idea for them to court, i.e. it brought up the spectre of eugenics.