Popcorn Policy

Brett VRP

Popcorn Policy

It’s hard to quantify the real impact of a film. But here are small changes wrought by five recent movies
Super Size Me 2004Morgan Spurlock eats only McDonald’s for 30 days, gets tummy ache, earns $11.5 mil

OUTCOME: McDonald’s changes menu, adding salads and ending supersizing, but says that was planned before the film premiered

Blood Diamond 2006

Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou and a diamonds-and-war story make $57 mil

OUTCOME: The diamond industry launches a p.r. blitz to educate consumers about conflict-free diamonds; stone sales are unaffected

An Inconvenient Truth 2006

Al Gore’s global-warming slide show hits theaters, snags $24 mil, Nobel and Oscar

OUTCOME: Schools show the film, emissions rules tighten in California, but the U.S. remains a Kyoto treaty holdout

Sicko 2007

Michael Moore’s exposé on the U.S. health-care crisis makes $24.5 mil

OUTCOME: An HMO changes its hospital-discharge rules, and universal health care is a key issue in the Democratic primaries

The Kite Runner 2007

The story of childhood friends in Kabul tries to put human face on Afghanistan; earns $15 mil

OUTCOME: Not seen by many, but 70 rural libraries are built and 500 laptops distributed with money raised from audiences

~~~~~~~~By Rebecca Winters Keegan

With Reporting by Lina Lofaro and Amy Lennard Goehner

Time 3/17/2008, Vol. 171 Issue 11, p60-61. 2p. 5 Color Photographs.