Idiocracy

Mike Judge spends the film’s whole argument in a narrated prologue: a five hundred year decline built out of who is having children. After that it stops arguing and becomes a joke machine, so if the opening fails, nothing later recovers it. It drew the charge of eugenics and class contempt, equating intelligence with income and making the trailer couple with rural accents the ones who multiply. Shooting took place in 2004 around Austin, the White House set built inside a closed airport. President Camacho was first written as an artificial intelligence running the country; Judge turned the part into a human modelled on pro wrestling for Terry Crews. Test screenings in 2005 were followed by reshoots over brand names. Fox opened the film on 1 September 2006 in only seven cities and 130 theatres. No trailer, no advertising, two stills to the press, and no critic screenings. The North American gross stopped at 444 thousand dollars, while DVD rentals brought in about 9 million, more than twenty times that, and the film’s reputation came from there. A good fit if you want real brands attacked by name and a joke rate that outruns the characters. Not for viewers who want in without accepting the breeding logic of the opening; reject that and the rest loses its footing.