Box(ing) Office

Michael Medved, conservative film critic, has been known to pay fast and loose with numbers. One of his big claims--that Hollywood lost most of its audience in the 60s when it stopped making audience-friendly films--is simply wrong.

So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised by a brazenly incorrrect claim he made today. He was discussing the puzzling failure of his favorite film this year, Cinderella Man. (Here's what I have to say about it.) He suggested it was because a previous boxing film, Million Dollar Baby, flopped, and people were tired of such movies.

Medved didn't just hate Million Dollar Baby, he led a virtual crusade against it. Here are the facts:

Cinderella Man. Budget -- $88 million. Domestic gross -- $34.8 million (and running out of steam).

Million Dollar Baby. Budget -- $30 million. Domestic gross -- $100 million (and another $107 million internationally).