Fake Museum Increases Attendance at Real Museum

Despite mostly negative reviews "Night at the Museum" has been boffo at the box office, raking in over $160 million since its release. The movie's popularity has spilled over to the American Museum of Natural History. In the first ten days after the movie's opening the museum reported a twenty percent jump in attendance over the same period last year.

The movie, which takes place at the fictional Museum of Natural History, drew its inspiration from the AMNH, but only filmed a couple of exterior shots here. The interior scenes were all filmed in Vancouver. While some of the museum's collection, such as the Peking Man skull and the giant sequoia cross-section, can be seen in the movie, most of the dioramas and sculptures that come alive are not in the museum.

To respond to the increased attendance and frequent movie-related questions of museum visitors, the AMNH "scoured the movie" (pity the poor intern with that duty!) so they could "tell visitors what was here and what wasn't" according to AMNH director of visitor services Brad Harris.

There is some concern that young visitors might be disappointed when they don't find miniature animated cowboys at the museum. But, as six year-old Austin Metzger said "I've been here lots of times, and I didn't think those things are here." Gothamist hasn't seen the movie but we fondly remember being awed by the museum as a little kid. Come to think of it, we're still a little bit awed by the museum today.

Walrus at the American Museum of Natural History by Tien Mao on Flickr

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Joe Schumacher in Arts and Events on January 14, 2007 1:12 PM

Comments [rss]

Elderta

I did a Watson Scavenger Hunt at the the Museum of Natural History once. It was great fun, even if my team only came in second.

Dave H.

Yes Noah B., I was being totally ironic for exactly the reasons you stated. And that sad attempt at humor apparently failed miserably.

Noah B.

You're joking, right Dave? The Squid and the Whale did $7M in box office for it's entire run and was rated R, and mostly appealed to a narrow audience of urbanites. On a per week basis Night, a kids movie with broad appeal, has done 150 times the business as Squid.

Put another way, if Squid were drawing people to the museum at the same rate as Night the museum would have seen less than a dozen extra visitors per day.

bklynd

The whole idea of using the movie as museum-visit tie-in is pretty much written right into the script - the final twist is that due to all the supernatural shenanigans museum attendance (which is portrayed as woefully low) shoots up.

For a kids movie I thought it was reasonably appealing.

Dave H.

I can't believe the museum didn't see a similar jump in visitors following the release of Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale.

Joe

Ack! Thanks for reminding me.

Atomische

You forgot to mention the museum's new program, "A Night At The Museum" sleepovers! Sounds like fun to me, but I'm probably too old to participate.

AMNH Sleepovers

In any case looks like they all sold out already.