Bella Flop

A few months back, a movie called Bella premiered at the #5 position and it was odd because no one in the movie business knew what the hell it was. It turned out to be one of those Christian movies that makes its money from church groups renting out entire theaters. Movies marketed to a Christian audience usually go straight to DVD due to the fact that they suck and when I say, "they suck," I'm paying them a huge compliment as there isn't a word in the English language to describe the pain caused by having to watch Kirk Cameron or Stephen Baldwin being warned by the Angel Gabriel that the armies of the Antichrist are about to march on Jerusalem and also that they should not have premarital sex. Bella, however, was apparently a huge cut above the rest (I haven't seen it but here is Roger Ebert's 3 star review) so it got a theatrical release. Its total box office take was around 8 and 1/2 million bucks, numbers similar to those of Expelled. This seems to show the limits of the church group audience although Bella will probably do much better than Expelled profit-wise since Bella didn't overestimate its appeal and blow a wad of cash on a huge ad budget. In fact, when combined with its DVD take, Bella will probably be quite profitable.

So why did I call this post Bella Flop? Well, first off it fits in with this site's tradition of using godawfully bad puns in its post titles. The second (and main) reason for the title an article that appeared on LifeSiteNews.com that struck me as amusing. I'm not talking about the claims that Bella's producers have confirmed that 13 women who saw the movie decided not to have abortions. (The plot is about a pregnant woman who decides not to have an abortion, hence the fact that it can fill theaters with church groups.) I googled several sites and message boards and they all had the same unproven assertions by the producers. They should really get some sort of backup to those claims. Otherwise I get to say I've confirmed that 26 women, as a result of seeing Bella, intentionally got pregnant just so they could all have abortions and no one can say I'm lying.

Also, I'm not talking about the Bella 10 movement that they're trying to start. Apparently, if you buy a copy of Bella, you become obligated to get 10 other people to buy copies and those people mus then find 10 people of their own until everyone on the planet owns a copy. I think you should be able to buy a DVD without becoming part of a pyramid scheme. Also, eventually you're going to get to the last 10 people on the planet and they'll have no one left. Those poor people will be shunned by all societies on the planet unless they can each convince 10 people to buy a second copy and then the whole damn thing starts all over again.

No, what amused me was that, for the second time in as many months, the makers of a Christian themed movie felt that they had to manipulate and conflate their box office in order to make their gross look like more of an achievement than it was. This is a common practice in the movie business but keep in mind that these are people who believe in a book that contains the phrase, "God damns all liars." Producer Leo Severino said that over the weekend Bella was the number 1 romantic DVD on Amazon.com bragging, "We beat Pride & Prejudice and Atonement." So, you managed to beat a movie that had been out for a few weeks (Atonement) and one that had been out for a few months (Pride and Prejudice). Hell, I could release Mike Clear Picks Lint Out Of His Navel and beat Pride and Prejudice. Severino then admitted that his movie will probably wind up around #29 on the overall list thus allowing him to go to Christian conferences and shout at the top of his lungs, "WE'RE 29, WE'RE 29!"

I do hope that Severino makes a nice chunk of cash off the sales of Bella DVDs. If that happens, we get the potential of seeing fun headlines like, "Producer of anti-abortion Christian film caught with high priced tranny hooker in his basement's sex dungeon." Those are always fun to read.