"Won't Back Down" Fails To Step Up at the Box Office

Teachers unions win this round

If ticket sales were standardized test scores, the movie "Won't Back Down" would qualify for a "parent trigger" takeover. Depending on which report you read, the film—about a fictitious takeover of a low-performing school under a school reform model that doesn't exist—either had the worst opening weekend in 30 years for a major release, or the second worst in history, or the worst ever. In any case, with about $2.6 million in sales, it flopped out of the gate.

Maybe this serves as evidence that movie audiences still heed professional film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, fewer than 1 in 5 of the designated top critics praised the film starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis. It could be that as a movie topic, anti-union school reform measures lack sex appeal, even when dressed up in a wildly oversimplified plot and a romance that involves line dancing. Lack of marketing has been mentioned as an issue.