Christians in Cinema

Is it a well-thought-out campaign or a runaway train?

As a follow-up to Part II, here’s proof that the folks at Premise Media and Motive Entertainment are excellent students of Public Relations. This quote from Christianity Today’s newsletter mentions the amazing amount of free publicity they have received due to the controversy surrounding Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

“After weeks of controversy—including booting one of its subjects out of a screening, and now a lawsuit from the producers claiming that opponents are trying to suppress their free speech—Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed arrives in about 1,000 U.S. theaters today. All the stories added up to a boatload of free publicity that the filmmakers never could have afforded. It’s likely showing at a theater near you, so you might want to get out and see what all the hubbub is about—and see if it lives up to all the fuss.”

I participated in a couple of the conference call interviews done to publicize the film (which included Ben Stein and the film’s producers), and while they did talk about the film itself, there was a lot of airtime given to the controversy. The second call I was in on PZ Myers (a Darwinian scientist and atheist who feels he was misrepresented in the film and is part of the counter-campaign) managed to break through into the conversation itself.

That was a somewhat restricted access call as you had to have an invitation, then go to a website and sign up to receive a password. Even at that, other callers who signed up could only listen, they couldn’t break into the conversation. So he’s either really clever technologically, or someone snuck him in, or who knows? I digress.

Can there be too much of a good thing? Free publicity, that is. Maybe.

The producers now find themselves embroiled in a lawsuit. They filed in a court in Texas responding to claims from representatives of XVIVO that the film contains copyright infringement, among other things.

In a statement, Executive Producer Walt Ruloff said,

“EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed opens in over 1,000 theaters nationwide this Friday, April 18th. It is interesting that these efforts are made less than ten days before the movie debuts and involve those who continually seek to thwart open debate. While bullying tactics may work against some individuals who are trying to explore the origins of life, it will not work against us. We certainly will not allow a small group of self-appointed gatekeepers to infringe our rights of free speech and our obligation to expose them for what they are – namely, intellectual thugs unwilling to accept any dissent from Darwinian orthodoxy.”

Is this a train running off the tracks, or the culmination of a really well-thought-out campaign? Perhaps time will tell. But, as noted by Christianity Today, they hit the jackpot in the publicity department.