Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed unfortunately didn’t completely flop over the weekend, as the documentary earned $1.2 million on Friday for an estimated weekend box office gross of $3.7 million (according to Box Office Prophets).

Why did I want Expelled to flop? The Ben Stein documentary is apparently about allowing the teaching of intelligent design (i.e. creationism) into schools. I haven’t seen the movie, so I hate that I’m jumping to conclusions the way that religious groups jump on films they think they might find distasteful, but so goes it. If the movie is about free speech and whether creationism should be allowed in public schools on those grounds is one thing, the marketing seems to be catering to the religious group, which makes me think otherwise.

I’m sorry, but evolution is only a theory because it hasn’t been completely proven – it is not a theory because there are glaring holes in it. I’ve had discussions with otherwise intelligent people who claim that evolution isn’t real, but it is the most common sense, obvious thing when you think about it. If I had kids, there would be no way I would allow my children to learn that it’s a possibility that we just popped into existence one day in our current form. It’s just prepostrous.

At the same time, I would encourage them to have an intelligent debate about one versus the other, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about teaching creationism in schools. The only reason creationism has been renamed “intelligent design” is to make it sound like it is halfway intelligent.

In other Friday box office news, Forbidden Kingdom will steal the weekend with an estimated $20 million, the best ever opening for Jet Li and the best non-Rush Hour opening for Jackie Chan. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which I saw last night, will make approximately $16 million. 88 Minutes died on arrival, and will earn about $6 million.