Nah, first get Butch Hartman’s blessing, then whenever Ben is on camera, replace his image with this.
I think a good idea would be to add subtitles that demonstrate how the current argument being portrayed is incorrect. And hire Patton Oswalt to punch it up.
Not a bad idea - a sort of “Pop-up” version with subtitles pointing out all the lies and bullshit.
This would definitely be the documentary equivalent of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
I love that idea. Sampiro, I’ll chip in $10 to your effort to buy the movie for only the right to get to see the doctored version for free. I’m pre-buying my ticket, if you will.
And Patton Oswalt might do it for scale, or for a piece of the rights.
Penn Jillette or Richard Dawkins might do it for free. ![]()
Add a special Rifftrax version.
They’re not as funny.
Perhaps we can make the auction a game show? Win Ben Stein’s Film.
Meh. Patton Oswalt makes me want to stab him in the eye.
If I were Ben Stein, I would buy it, hide it, and hope people forget it ever got made.
In all likelihood it will end up on late night TV as filler between a Shamwow informercial and some exercise equipment infomercial.
I have to say that deciding between Expelled and a Shamwow infomercial would be a tough choice.
I see it being bought by the Crouches and playing continually between reairings of Davey & Goliath and Omega Code 3: Van Dien’s Broke Again.
I’m in for $100 - more if I can talk Mama Zappa into it. I’ll even pay for my copy of the Rifftrax/Pop-Up DVD version. I am not kidding. Go for it, Sampiro!
There’d need to be a formal business arrangement and I’d need to see some kind of formal plan as to what we would do with it.
The ideal would be to be able to make some money while educating people about what’s wrong with the kind of thinking this move exemplifies.
Maybe could call the resulting product “We Won Ben Stein’s Movie”.
Yeah, pencil me in for a $100 if you’re serious about bidding, Sampiro.
I’ll put in 200 bucks, if there’s going to be an actual bidding.
Could this be done legally? After all, Stein (or whoever) still retains the copyright to the film, and showing a substantially altered version could be considered plagiarism. I’m pretty sure you’d need permission from the copyright holder (whoever that is) to distribute, broadcast or display in a theater any such work, and I don’t think you’re likely to get it. Merely owning a copy of the film doesn’t give you the distribution or performance rights in either original or altered form.
A couple of examples:
Giorgio Moroder’s restoration and edit of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis has been out of circulation for years, primarily because the German film institute that did the last major restoration claims the copyright for the original film and does not want the Moroder version distributed or performed.
A local theater owner did an edit of Cameron’s Titanic, removing the spicier parts, got a very good response performing it for the local community, and Cameron shut him down as quickly as he could.
It would be an interesting project, but I don’t think it would get past the lawyers.