Political cartoon by Dr. Seuss
At the same time, the new Lorax is a monster success. It has stayed at #1 two weeks in a row
and has already pulled in $121 million in its first 10 days, whereas Oscar-winner Rango from last March (with more
imaginative character designs and a delightfully skewed sensibility) has made
$123 million domestic in total. This boffo box office matters because it implies that the public really does
care about the environment -- and it shows the studio executives that Samuel
Goldwyn was wrong, a message does not have to be sent by Western Union. Is
there an irony in celebrating the money made by a movie that's about the harm
caused by money-making myopia? Sure. But at the same time, it is just plain gratifying
to see right-wing pundits who attacked the movie eating the dust on this one. It's the revenge of the little orange man.
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POSTSCRIPT:
While progressives have complained that Universal has allowed many undeserving companies to greenwash their brands through a host of marketing tie-ins, the studio has also partnered with The Nature Conservancy in a tree-planting campaign for the Brazilian rainforest. Meanwhile Random House, which publishes the book, had already teamed with Conservation International and Dr. Seuss Enterprises to launch "The Lorax Project," an initiative with an interactive website for children and a site for teachers to foster the next generation of conservationists.
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