Freeman, currently co-starring in ‘Dolphin Tale,’ made that accusation last month in the run up to his film’s release. And while the movie is performing well at the box office, it’s clear it could be doing even better, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The entertainment outlet just posted the results of a new study tracking how actors’ political comments affect the public’s willingness to buy their products.

In a far-ranging poll Penn Schoen Berland conducted for The Hollywood Reporter of 1,000 registered voters to gauge movie-going tendencies of Democrats vs. Republicans, it’s clear political allegiances have shifted entertainment viewing habits. Jon Penn, the firm’s president of media and entertainment research, says that before Freeman’s words, interest in ‘Dolphin Tale’ was considerably higher among conservatives and religious moviegoers than among liberals. After the remarks, 34 percent of the conservatives who were aware of them, and 37 percent of Tea Partiers, said they were less likely to see the film — but 42 percent of liberals said they were more likely. (Five days after Freeman’s remarks, 24 percent of all moviegoers were aware of them.) In fact, overall, 35 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of Tea Partiers consider a celebrity’s political position before paying to see their films, compared with 20 percent of Democrats.

This won’t come as news to Big Hollywood readers. But the study might open up some eyes in Hollywood – and even in the trailers where actors are currently prepping their new lines

Among the poll’s findings:

• Republicans are more likely to wait for home video Democrats are likelier to see movies on opening weekend, while GOP members prefer waiting it out. Republicans assume their values will be assaulted onscreen — so why pay the big bucks?

• Republicans prefer family films; Democrats like edge From hundreds of Oscar winners and classics, Republicans were far more likely to name as favorites ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’; Democrats favored ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs.’ Among recent films, Republicans were likelier to choose ‘Soul Surfer’ and ‘Secretariat.’ Democrats? ‘The Social Network,’ ‘Bad Teacher’ and ‘Easy A.’

Of course, there’s an easy answer to the problem of actors getting too political in interviews. They can either avoid controversial topics in toto, or treat those who hold different views with respect, not contempt. Here’s betting conservative movie goers won’t sweat it if Freeman pulls the lever for President Obama in 2012. But if the actor unfairly calls them a racist for not doing the same it will stick in their collective craw for some time.

OK, that’s like saving Julian Assange has trouble keeping secrets.

“Battle” is dopey to the core, with giggle-inducing dialogue, shaky cams gone wild and a host of other structural issues. But perusing a few of the critical responses to “Battle” yields something else “wrong” with the film. It doesn’t march lockstep with some critics’ ideological fault lines.

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The movie brands U.S. Marines as heroes, showing how noble and brave they are in the face of an alien onslaught. It’s not the typical theme you see in movies today, especially ones with a military component.

Consider this review in The Washington Post:

Did somebody mention Iraq? “Battle’s” depiction of block-by-block urban combat against an implacable, enigmatic foe evokes Baghdad at its bloodiest. But director Jonathan Liebesman (whose background is in horror flicks) isn’t interested in allegory, nuance or social comment. He just wants to line up platinum-plated space-squids to be blown away.

And Roger Ebert, an avowed liberal, hated the film so much he called anyone who disagreed with him an “idiot.”

Left of center Movieline seemed aghast that the film shows the Marines in a glowing light:

Christopher Bertolini’s script is notable for its recruitment pamphlet-level of dedication to the glory of the U.S. Marines. As if the way superhero handsome [Aaron ]Eckhart fills out a helmet and chinstrap doesn’t say it all, Bertolini has him huffing on about showing the enemy how Marines fight, reminding his colleagues that Marines don’t quit, and giving glittery-eyed speeches about how even when Marines make the wrong decision at least they have the courage to make a decision. (Note to George W.: I think I just found your new favorite movie.) … Shadowy Vietnam allusions crop up here and there — particularly a last, frantic airlift out of L.A. — but on the whole “Battle: Los Angeles” is the emptiest form of sci-fi action: Just one bloody (or alien gooey) thing after another.

Slant Magazine sees the film as propaganda, plain and simple.

The film is plainly cut from the mold of old-school military propaganda films and rejected “Call of Duty” missions, mixing righteously ideological statements about faith and honor with emotionally manipulative dialogue sequences, all in the attempt to maximize its potential for cinematic offspring … All anybody can do, characters and cinema patrons alike, is survive the madness long enough to see the light. For Nantz [Eckhart] and his crew, that equates to a rejuvenation of national pride and purpose.

Salon.com sees the film as an example of “imperial decline.”

First of all, it’s like the movie is trying to make Americans feel better about the fact that our ultra-high-tech military has been stalemated by a bunch of 15th-century tribalist wackos with 30-year-old Kalashnikovs on the other side of the world … I realized that the movie’s real reversal is psychological, in that it depicts this band of gung-ho, multicultural United States Marines as resistance fighters, striking at the underbelly of an occupying army. Allah-u-akbar! That’s right; if there’s any tenuous parallel to contemporary affairs at work here, it casts the Americans as the guerrilla insurgents. We never learn a damn thing about the alien invaders in “Battle: Los Angeles” — beyond the evident fact that they want our planet without us on it — which is why you can call it a war movie or a disaster movie, but it isn’t really science fiction. They’re a fantasy enemy vomited up from the collective id and scrubbed clean of all racial, political or religious considerations, against whom we can look like noble underdogs. Or they’re just the underpowered villains of an unintentionally funny action movie starring Aaron Eckhart’s chin. Either way, we’re talking serious symptoms of imperial decline.

Kudos to The New York Times’ A.O. Scott for addressing the movie, and its flaws, head on:

No interesting political implications to chew over, as in “District 9,” and no truly breathtaking special effects. Just some slimy creatures with heavy firepower laying waste to the smog-bound skyline and a hearty band of Marines (with a handful of civilians and a tough-as-nails Air Force sergeant thrown in for diversity) fighting a running street battle.

Anyone who has formally studied film certainly knows Robin Wood, who was a pioneer of the academic study of film as we know it.  One of his most famous essays, “Ideology, Genre, Auteur,” is one of the most important and influential essays in modern film theory.  In it, Wood provides a bridge between auteur theory (director is author of film and drives its content) and genre theory (genre characteristics drive film’s content) in a way that doesn’t try to disprove the other (which many theorists tried to do).  Wood lays out a good approach to both theories:

“One of the greatest obstacles to any fruitful genre is to treat the genres as discrete. An ideological approach might suggest why they can’t be, however hard they may appear to try: at best, they represent different strategies for dealing with the same ideological tensions.”

He provided a deep understanding for each school of thought and put them together in a way that continues to help students of the discipline over thirty years later. A good overview of his life and work can be read in this recent New York Times post.

Wood’s views over the years have varied, but those who have read his work know that even if we disagree with him we dare not ignore him.  Wood has a sort of realism about himself, and his views.  As he aged, he came out as a homosexual and his politics turned sharply to the radical left.  However, he remained realistic in acknowledging that any kind of socialist world revolution was out of the question even though his colleagues refused to see it that way.  Even if we disagree with his politics, we can respect that he admitted his complete shift in his life’s focus to be “single-mindedly concerned with sexual politics.”  On some levels, he allowed his early work on film to be appreciated as it is.

Not much is taken away from his earlier work, even if he recanted some if it, we cannot ignore it.  He wrote important books about Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman and Alfred Hitchcock.  While he eventually became sympathetic to their cause, Wood remained strong against feminist criticisms of Hitchcock.  Feminist critics tried to lump him in with the stereotypical oppressive male category, even though he was part of a minority group himself.  Wood comments on Hitchcock:

“I think what’s been crucial to any work on Hitchcock has been the work of radical feminists in the late in his films, and then to amend that…although women are constantly tormented, terrorized and murdered in his films, the women emerge as the most sympathetic characters and the ones with whom Hitchcock seems to most deeply identify. The whole thing is turned on its head, and the films become about male oppression, rather than about the terrorization of women. I think the best of Hitchcock films continue to fascinate me because he’s obviously right inside them, he understands so well the male drive to dominate, harass, control and at the same time he identifies strongly with the woman’s position. The struggle against that, his films are a kind of battleground between these two positions.”

Wood put together a great defense of Hitchcock that was troublesome for feminist critics like Laura Mulvey, whose “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” essay sought to destroy Hitchcock (and film in general).  Wood never dove into such nihilistic views of film; his criticism was always constructive instead of destructive like many who shared his convictions.  Even if we disagree with his worldview, Wood’s work is helpful in not only understanding film but also in understanding the political left.

Wood set the foundations for the academic study of film, which came to be during a time of fascination and obsession with psychoanalytic and Marxist perspectives (although he did not jump on that bandwagon immediately).  Like any useful thinker, he played with ideas and theories for a long time before personally adopting them.  His books and essays are still important and useful and can be applied to a study of today’s filmmakers.  Personal politics set aside, anyone who studies or writes about film would be drastically undermining themselves to overlook the work of Robin Wood (1931-2009).

In Jerry Maguire, the key conflict was Jerry’s realization that he was putting a pretty facade on the moral deterioration within his profession, and was in fact complicit in it. It took an injured hockey player’s young son telling him to fuck off and a bad dream for Maguire to realize the true ugliness of who and what he had become, especially when measured against the high standards of his idol and mentor, agent Dicky Fox. Those troubling events created in Maguire a perfect storm of revulsion, introspection and a commitment to reaffirm the basic principles of his profession, which he laid out in his memo “The Things We Think and Do Not Say.” In truth, he had me at hello. Tom’s a hottie!

Like Jerry Maguire, I too started out in my chosen profession with the highest of ideals, which were sparked by a boundless love of the great stories, writers and filmmakers that inspired me. Like the best of them, I am totally dedicated to the pure craft of storytelling in film. It is all about The Story, which is bigger than all of us. That treasured craft has been handed down to us throughout human history, from Homer to Shakespeare to General Lew Wallace, Jules Verne and L. Frank Baum.

It is no surprise that epic stories like Wallace’s Ben Hur and Baum’s Wizard of Oz were made into films, or that so many of us treasure those movies like they were our own. Over time the greatest film stories become a part of us, interwoven into the very fabric of our culture and society, even our very personalities. Today in Hollywood that pure craft, though thriving on many fronts, is in deep trouble on many others. Like Jerry Maguire, I am witnessing the progressive corruption of the highest ideal of what my profession should be all about: the pure craft of storytelling in commercial film and TV.

More and more that pure craft is being poisoned by ideology, propaganda and malicious intent to insult or denigrate audience members whom certain creative film artists vehemently dislike. Tells, ideological plot points that are dead giveaways as to exactly where the story is going, ruin the viewing experience by instantly killing all tension and suspension of disbelief. How about taking viewers and audiences where they’ve never been before? It’s called high concept. Look into it.

Be it left or right, politics is artistic and box office poison. The low ratings and receipts bear me out. Bathrooms and kitchens are separate for a reason. It’s not very smart to shit where you eat. In the long and glorious history of storytelling on film in Hollywood, these developments are both modern anomalies and creative pestilences which offend me to my very core as a pure apolitical storyteller dedicated heart and soul to my craft. Who would dare tell Picasso he has to put Green in Guernica?

And the only health care I want to see pushed on film is Nurse Ratched, Dr. Giggles and Batman giving Dr. Crane a dose of his own medicine! Writers are artists, too. So, as a screenwriter, I’ve drafted my own memo. I may not always succeed, but I will do my damndest to uphold the oaths I now put forward to the American people, my fellow creative film artists, and to film fanatics everywhere on 3 Rock. Consider this my Jerry Maguire Mission Statement for Hollywood:

1. I promise to adhere to the finest principles of pure storytelling which have riveted men, women and children around campfires since the dawn of time. Those principles have endured across the years, decades, centuries and millennia for very good reasons. They will endure long after we and Hollywood as we know it are gone. That is our great responsibility to our past, present and future.

2. I promise to proffer the greatest respect to my audiences and fellow film artists regardless of ethnicity, religion, creed, gender, sexuality or belief system. We all want the same thing: great film.

3. I promise to respect the intelligence, dignity and sensibilities of my audiences and fellow creative film artists in my work, regardless of how stupid, misguided or insensitive they may be in real life.

4. I promise to bring the best of my talents and abilities to bear in telling the greatest and most compelling four-quadrant stories with the widest possible appeal for all. Box office tells the tale.

5. I promise I will not write any script or work on any project with the intent to advance any race, creed, religion, ethnicity, belief system or non-violent ideology over any others. Basic moral themes and conflicts are universal. We are all ultimately human on the most basic and visceral of levels.

6. I promise I will not allow my personal ideological or political beliefs to infect my work. The story is bigger than I am. Where the story leads I must follow, irrespective of all other personal political or ideological considerations. It should always be about telling the best possible stories on film.

7. I will not allow others to infect my work or corrupt my pure storytelling with politics, ideology or propaganda, or to maliciously target for insult or denigration certain segments of my audiences.

8. I promise that I will do my utmost to work in harmony with those creative film artists who may not share my most righteous and ultimately correct core personal, political or ideological beliefs, but share in the dream of creating great stories for the screen. The story is bigger than all of us.

9. I will never blackball, or attempt to have blackballed, a fellow creative film artist based on his or her own personal beliefs. Film artists’ creative talents and merits, not their belief systems, should determine their place in film and TV. This is America. Besides, didn’t we go through all this already?

10. I promise I will never blame any audiences if a story I write is produced and bombs at the box office. We creative film artists alone are responsible for our celluloid failures. I will take full personal responsibility and blame only the writers, actors, directors, producers or studios that screwed it up.

These guidelines are not the be-all end-all, but I do believe they are a good start. There are, of course, notable exceptions to some of these rules in the arena of  satirical and political comedy, nonfiction and documentaries. I’m talking straight-up creative TV and feature film production here.

To be clear, I am not trying to impose restrictions here. Just the opposite. I am trying to unbridle creativity to whole new levels. Ideology is a straitjacket which suffocates artistic creativity. It’s killing the craft of storytelling and turning off a whole lot of audiences needlessly. Worst of all, it’s costing millions of viewers and truckloads of money. How self-destructive can you be?

Whether this mission statement is taken to heart in Tinseltown in the spirit in which I have presented it is not up to me. I can only take the Hollywood horses to water. I can’t make ‘em drink it. But sometimes you just gotta hang your balls out there, because doing nothing is not an option. Just as it wasn’t for Jerry Maguire. Many thanks to Cameron, Tom, Renee and Cuba for showing the way. Hell of a story, Jerry Maguire. Made a ton of dough too! And no politics. Get the Big Picture now?

And who knows? If studios and creative film artists remove politics from the celluloid equation, renew emphasis on the pure craft of compelling human storytelling, and open the doors to all with the brains and talent to be there, it may just spur a new Golden Age of Hollywood. Can’t be bad. Hope Springs Eternal on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I love Hollywood! Show me the money! End memo. Oh, and please don’t politicize SpongeBob and ruin it for me. I’d have to shoot you.

And you’d have been much, much smarter to invest in Kirk Cameron’s small, independent, Christian film Fireproof: it cost a half-million dollars to make and brought in $33.1 million, a return of more than sixty times its budget.

That’s the conclusion of an interesting article on E! Online about movie returns on investment. Of course, it’s not possible to predict precisely what films will have greatest audience appeal before they’re even made, but a few things are clear and have remained true for years: