There’s no business like show business, like no business I know

The opening when your heart beats like a drum        

The closing when the customers don’t come

It was one of the most anticipated movies of the year–for angry right-wing moviegoers.  But “2016: Obama’s America,” which I recently reviewed here, has flopped badly at the box office.

This film was based on a book called “The Roots of Obama’s Rage,” and was produced by a Montana resident, Gerald Molen, who once had a strong career in Hollywood including involvement in the movie Schindler’s List.   But Molen now makes right-wing propaganda films.  The apparent premise of this new film, if one views the trailer for it, is that America is about to fall to the masses of people of color, because Obama harbors a secret desire to avenge the transgressions visited upon his ancestral homeland of Kenya by white colonialists.  The trailer for the film features mobs of dark-skinned people in poor countries, rioting, marching, protesting, appearing to overrun civilized society.

Fine cinema no doubt, which is why I am shocked that this film–which cost an estimated $4 million to produce and market–had grossed only $89,000 at the box office.   Also, it has played so far in only four Texas movie theaters.

This is a major disappointment for Molen.  Molen, sitting in his house in Kalispell and reading the wonderful coverage of his movie in such important newspapers as The Daily Inter Lake and Whitefish Pilot (both run by birthers), was probably growing a wild fantasy in his head that this racist film could create some buzz, and that he, in turn, would become part of the election narrative, his movie debated and discussed on cable news shows and the like.

But that’s doubtful now the the movie has bombed.  And none of this is really a surprise.  For Molen, perhaps unwittingly, has become a Montana GOP operative. Statistically, therefore, his scheme had a high likelihood of failure.