The Principle

Release

The film was released on October 24, 2014 when screened at the Marcus Addison Cinema in Addison, Illinois, according to the distributor Rocky Mountain Pictures. Box office receipts were $86,172.

Criticism and controversy

The film was criticized by the physicists who were misled into appearing in the film for being a dishonest presentation of its material and purpose while the scientific consensus is that observations have confirmed the Copernican principle.

Following the release of the film's trailer, narrator Kate Mulgrew said that she was misinformed about the purpose of the documentary. Max Tegmark explained that DeLano "cleverly tricked a whole bunch of us scientists into thinking that they were independent filmmakers doing an ordinary cosmology documentary, without mentioning anything about their hidden agenda." George Ellis corroborated. "I was interviewed for it but they did not disclose this agenda, which of course is nonsense. I don't think it's worth responding to -- it just gives them publicity. To ignore is the best policy. But for the record, I totally disavow that silly agenda."

Michio Kaku said that the film was probably using "clever editing" of his statements and bordered on "intellectual dishonesty" and Lawrence Krauss said he had no recollection of being interviewed for the film and would have refused to be in it if he had known more about it. British physicist Julian Barbour said that he never gave permission to be in the film.