The anti-Barack Obama documentary 2016: Obama’s America built on its prior success to shock the Hollywood establishment and crack the weekend’s ten highest-grossing films. As the Hollywood Reporter notes,
Galvanizing conservatives, Dinesh D’Souza and John Sullivan’s documentary 2016: Obama's America grossed a stellar $6.3 million as it expanded nationwide over the weekend, beating a trio of new films.
The anti-Barack Obama film, opening last month in only a few theaters, boasts a domestic cume of $9.2 million, the top gross of the year for a documentary (excluding nature films). Bully was the previous crownholder with $3.5 million. …
Obama's America—promoted heavily on talk radio and distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures—timed its nationwide expansion to the Republican National Convention, which gets underway this week in Tampa, Fla. The convention was supposed to get underway Monday, but tropical storm Isaac is complicated plans.
The documentary tied Premium Rush and beat out Hit and Run and The Apparition, three Hollywood offerings with larger promotional budgets, bigger production costs, and popular stars. It also had the highest per-screen average of any film in the top 15.
It is unclear if Hollywood will follow up on this surprise success by churning out dozens of copycat conservative documentaries.