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The LDS-produced movie "Meet the Mormons" ranked in the top 10 at the weekend box office — or it didn't, depending on which statistics one reads.
The Hollywood Reporter, the industry trade paper, reported on its website Sunday that "Meet the Mormons" made an estimated $3 million over the weekend, taking 10th place. However, Box Office Mojo, a number-crunching site popular among Hollywood observers, estimated the documentary's weekend haul at $2.7 million, putting it in 11th place behind the Christian-themed thriller "Left Behind."
Publicists for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints touted the movie's success over the weekend. The church on Saturday claimed that in the movie's first 24 hours of release Friday, it was the No. 1 movie in more than 100 of the 317 theaters in which it was playing. The movie sold out screenings in New York, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Dallas, Phoenix and several California cities, a church spokesman said in a press release.
"Meet the Mormons" tells the stories of six ethnically diverse LDS Church members who talk about how their faith informs their daily lives. All proceeds from ticket sales are being donated to the American Red Cross, LDS Church officials have said.
Box-office estimates can vary from the actual numbers, which distributors usually tally on Mondays. Sunday estimates guess on how many tickets will be sold on Sunday, based on a certain percentage of the Friday and Saturday figures. Such a guess may be wildly inaccurate for "Meet the Mormons," a movie whose audience is largely made up of LDS Church members who, by doctrine, are discouraged from engaging in commerce on Sundays.
LDS Church leaders strongly encouraged members to attend "Meet the Mormons" this weekend. In a video played at church meetings in September, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles informed members that "as with any theatrical film, our success will depend on box-office performance during the opening weekend."
In the video, Holland encouraged members to purchase tickets, buy out whole theaters, request screenings in cities where the film was not already playing, and tout the movie on social media. Holland did stress that "going to see 'Meet the Mormons' is not a commandment or a requirement," and urged local leaders not to pressure "members whose personal circumstances may not afford a night out at the movies."
"Meet the Mormons" has not been a hit with critics. The movie-review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes scored the movie at zero percent, with eight negative reviews and no positive ones. The audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes was at 91 percent as of Sunday afternoon.
The LDS Church went with an outside distributor, Purdie Entertainment, which released last year's LDS missionary drama "The Saratov Approach." Interestingly, the church bypassed its own movie-distribution company, Excel Entertainment, a division of the church-owned Deseret Book.
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