Jump to content

baumer

A Look at The Biggest Box Office Stories from 1972-present (THABOS: The History of Amazing Box Office Stories) | IT'S FINALLY COMPLETE!!!!!!!

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Tele Came Back said:

 

:lol: True enough, I guess. But Peckinpah had a serious substance abuse problem and it ended up costing him his career (and his life, actually). Even in his early days, he would go on heavy drinking binges, and occasionally drug binges, but he was still able to hold himself together. But even after he directed THE WILD BUNCH -- a movie that should've made him an A-lister with his choice of studio projects -- he couldn't really get those jobs because he had a reputation as a guy who picked fights with execs and was unreliable. 

 

CONVOY was at the tail end of his career and he was so troubled at that point that the studio brought in his friend James Coburn to direct "second unit" (actually, just to direct), while Peckinpah was in his trailer most of the time. It was a big hit but got savaged by critics and so it hurt Peckinpah's credibility with them. He lived only a few more years and died in 1984 (he was only 59).

 

And yes, I had to look up some of these details on Wikipedia. :P 

 

See, you should do a director piece to follow up my box office piece.  It would be interesting to get some inside info on names that we know but don't really know about.  For example, I just looked up some stuff about JAWS 2.  I had no idea that Scheider and director Swzarc hated each other so much.  It really hurt the production of the film and Scheider and Swzarc got into a fish fight in a meeting with Dave Brown and Verna Fields.....they had to break it up.  It's shocking that JAWS 2 came out as well as it did.

 

The Rock and Diesel got nothing on them. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites



For superman 1 huge budget, didn't  planned to do both superman movie at the same time thought ?

 

 

Principal photography began on March 28, 1977 at Pinewood Studios for Krypton scenes, budgeted as the most expensive film ever made at that point. Since Superman was being shot simultaneously with Superman II, filming lasted 19 months, until October 1978.

 

Is that high cost in part because two movie was shot (even thought it didn't work correctly to have both really completed)  ?

 

Maybe today 300 million before marketing would be rare, but 10 year's ago that was Spider-man 3 or a big X-men, and 107 million less than Pirate 4. Arguably it would be much more than 300 before marketing if it would be an amount no one was spending in the 2010's on a movie, 300m would be extremely cheap for avengers 3 part 1.

Edited by Barnack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/18/2017 at 7:16 PM, baumer said:

By now, everyone knows Star Wars was released in 1977.  There's probably nothing I can write here that most don't already know, but FWIW, here's my tribute to Star Wars.

 

Perhaps no film, in the long history of Hollywood, did more to change movies than George Lucas' Star Wars did.  Lucas originally wanted to buy the rights to Flash Gordon.  Director Francis Ford Coppola, who accompanied Lucas in buying the Flash Gordon rights, recounted in 1999, "[George] was very depressed because he had just come back and they wouldn't sell him Flash Gordon. And he says, 'Well, I'll just invent my own.''  Lucas spent the next 5 years writing Star Wars.  It went through 5 drafts before finally settling on the script that we know now.  Luke Skywalker was originally called Luke Starkiller.  There were many other changes as well.  United Artists passed on it and so did Disney and Universal.  But Lucas had a friend in Alan Ladd Jr. from 20th Century Fox.  He loved Lucas' American Graffiti and although he didn't understand all of the script (in fact he flat out didn't get the lingo or the technical jargon) he believed in Lucas and eventually he helped secure a budget of 8 million.  During filming, the budget kept increasing and Lucas was inventing special effects as he was going along.  His nascent company ILM were working on special effects even in post production as they raced to get the film finished on time.  The final budget for the film ended up being just under 11 million and 20th Century Fox wanted to shut down production because they felt the film was an albatross and it was going to tank.  The only person who stood in the way of this happening was Ladd, who fought for Lucas every step of the way.

 

In February 1977, Lucas screened an early cut of the film for Fox executives, several director friends, along with Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin of Marvel Comics who were preparing a Star Wars comic book. The cut had a different crawl from the finished version and used David Prowse's voice for Darth Vader. It also lacked most special effects; hand-drawn arrows took the place of blaster beams, and when the Millennium Falcon fought TIE fighters, the film cut to footage of World War II dogfights. The reactions of the directors present, such as Brian De Palma, John Milius, and Steven Spielberg, disappointed Lucas. Spielberg, who claimed to have been the only person in the audience to have enjoyed the film, believed that the lack of enthusiasm was due to the absence of finished special effects. Lucas later said that the group was honest and seemed bemused by the film. In contrast, Ladd and the other studio executives loved the film; Gareth Wigan told Lucas: "This is the greatest film I've ever seen" and cried during the screening. Lucas found the experience shocking and rewarding, having never gained any approval from studio executives before.

 

Here is a part of Star Wars history that @Tele Came Back taught me about.....read on for the Sorcerer debacle.  

 

Star Wars debuted on Wednesday, May 25, 1977, in 32 theatres.  Now keep in mind, there was no internet, no Mojo and no instant tracking.  George Lucas was so unsure about the success of Star Wars, that upon visiting Steven Spielberg on the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, he bet that Close Encounters would be a bigger hit than Star Wars.  Spielberg disagreed and they bet profit points of 2.5%.  Today, Spielberg still makes 2.5% of the profits from Star Wars.  I personally don't know how that would work now that Disney owns Star Wars but I would imagine Spielberg still gets his royalties.   Perhaps someone here can correct me if I'm wrong.  

 

Lucas decided he would be in Hawaii with his wife when Star Wars came out.  He was watching the evening news when Walter Cronkite discussed the gigantic lines for Star Wars.  This is when Lucas realized he just became a very wealthy man.  But before all of this happened, back to 20th CF.  They too were unsure of the films success.  They were promoting The Other Side of Midnight as their big summer film and they had Star Wars as their secondary film for theater owners to play.  

 

Star Wars blew up instantly and it quickly set box office records and made household names of the cast.  Harrison Ford even had his shirt ripped off when buying an album at a record store.

 

 

The film was a huge success for 20th Century Fox, and was credited for reinvigorating the company. Within three weeks of the film's release, the studio's stock price had doubled to a record high. Prior to 1977, 20th Century Fox's greatest annual profits were $37 million, while in 1977, the company broke that record by posting a profit of $79 million. Although the film's cultural neutrality helped it to gain international success, Ladd became anxious during the premiere in Japan. After the screening, the audience was silent, leading him to fear that the film would be unsuccessful. Ladd was later told by his local contacts that, in Japan, silence was the greatest honor to a film, and the subsequent strong box office returns confirmed its popularity.

 

This is for Tele.

 

After two weeks William Friedkin's Sorcerer replaced Star Wars at Mann's Chinese Theatre because of contractual obligations.  When Star Wars made an unprecedented second opening at Mann's Chinese Theatre on August 3, 1977, after Sorcerer failed, thousands of people attended a ceremony in which C-3PO, R2-D2 and Darth Vader placed their footprints in the theater's forecourt.  At that time Star Wars was playing in 1,096 theaters in the United States.  Approximately 60 theaters played the film continuously for over a year.

 

Star Wars has a legacy like no other film in the history of cinema.  It's not just the box office, it's what Star Wars represents and how studios scrambled to get their own version of Star Wars out.  It's how ILM became a big boy....it's how Lucas brokered a deal for himself and the merchandising rights.  

 

Film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his book The Great Movies, "Like The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane, Star Wars was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after." It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures. The film was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon. Finally, along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it shifted the film industry's focus away from personal filmmaking of the 1970s and towards fast-paced, big-budget blockbusters for younger audiences.

 

Filmmakers who have said to have been influenced by Star Wars include James Cameron, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Dean Devlin, Gareth Edwards, Roland Emmerich, John LasseterDavid Fincher, Peter Jackson, Joss Whedon, Christopher NolanRidley Scott, John Singleton, Michael Bay and Kevin Smith.  Scott, Cameron, and Jackson were influenced by Lucas's concept of the "used future" (where vehicles and culture are obviously dated) and extended the concept for their films, such as Scott's science fiction films Alien and Blade Runner, Cameron's acclaimed sequel Aliens and his earlier breakthrough film The Terminator. Jackson used the concept for his production of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to add a sense of realism. Christopher Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making the 2010 blockbuster film, Inception.

 

Star Wars was released 40 years ago next month.  It's legacy is cemented and its influence immeasurable.  Rogue One, a prequel to the original film, just made a billion dollars at the box office and now with Disney at the helm, SW seems to be in good hands with great film makers at the helm.  We are now into the 9th film about to come out and the appetite for Star Wars is just as great now as it was in 1977, 1980 and 1983.  Other films had usurped it in terms of box office and on a world wide gross, two James Cameron films are ahead of The Force Awakens, but beyond the box office Star Wars has left us something indelible, something you can't count using dollars.  It's given generation after generation something to see together, something to talk about and something to love together.  JAWS is still my favourite film of all time, but  Star Wars and all of its sequels are very close behind.  It's also a film that shows and proves that if you have an imagination, if you believe and if you never give up (like Stallone and Rocky), good things can happen.  George Lucas gave us something that will live on forever.  Star Wars is a legacy that will live on long after I'm gone from this Earth.    

 

Wow, I think this may have been the greatest box office write up I've ever read, doesn't hurt that Star Wars is my favorite film of all time though.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites



On 4/18/2017 at 5:24 PM, baumer said:

Barbara Streisand's A Star is Born came in at number three with 80 million and the Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman political thriller All the President's Men came in at number four with 70 million.

 

Best picture winner Network, which was released one week after Rocky, took in 23 million or the equivalent of about 95 million in today's dollars.  

A Star is Born's gross is really extraordinary. It adjusts to $324 million. Elvis was originally interested in the role of John Howard, but Tom Parker pulled him from consideration after Streisand wouldn't give up top billing on the project. Imagine that story with Elvis in the role of a former superstar who has fallen on hard times. (This was also the third iteration of the A Star is Born series, with the fourth version releasing next year. Lady Gaga will play the Esther role (now named Ally) popularized by Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland and Streisand.)

 

Network...what a masterpiece. Even more relevant in 2017 than in 1976. Very, very, very few films in history have that sort of impact.

Edited by Chaz
  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites





1978 was a huge year for the box office.  

 

While there were only three films to break 100 million, there were seven to eclipse 75 million.  The top film of the year was an unlikely one and to this day it is still one of the top grossing musicals of all time, that being Grease.  Coincidentally both Grease and Jaws 2 were released on the same weekend (June 16th).  Grease is a classic story about tough boy meets sweet and innocent girl.  They fall in love.  But at the end of the summer, she is supposed to return to Australia.  However, they both end up at the same high school together and because Danny, as played by John Travolta, is an alpha male and part of a gang, he has to put on some sort of macho front to his friends.  Sandy, as played by Olivia Newton John, us crushed.  The rest of the movie is about the two of them finding a way to make the relationship work, breaking down walls and barriers and like The Breakfast Club, is about social paradigms and the social cliques and groups that put pressure on their group of friends.  This is all done as a musical and the soundtrack to Grease finished the year as the number two soundtrack behind Travolta's smash hit of the year before, Saturday Night Fever.  

 

Grease was originally released to North American theaters on June 16, 1978 and was an immediate box office success. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $8,941,717 in 862 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking at No. 2 (behind Jaws 2). Grease has grossed $188,755,690 domestically and $206,200,000 internationally, totaling $394,955,690 worldwide. Globally, it was the highest-grossing musical ever, eclipsing the 13-year-old record held by The Sound of Music, but has since been overtaken by Les Misérables, Mamma Mia! and the 2017 release of Beauty and the Beast. Grease is now the third highest-grossing musical.

 

Finishing at number two with 134 million domestically and 300 WW was the massively budgeted Superman.  This 55 million dollar film (about the same cost as Titanic, if you adjust it for inflation) was also a smash hit and it captured comic book loonies and regular movie goers imagination.  The most interesting thing about Superman, imo, is that this shoot, along with many others in the 70's would make the problems and reshoots that our members are so eager and apt to discuss as a reason the film is in trouble in some or many ways, look like a walk in the park on a sunny April afternoon.  The 70's were notorious for producers fucking over their cast and crew.  Superman (and JAWS 2, which will be discussed soon) was a volcano waiting to erupt.  Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon) was hired to direct not only the first Superman but the sequel as well.  They were filming them back to back, kind of like Lord of the Rings.  Producer Ilya Salkind bought the rights for Superman in 1973.  And he turned out to be a thief and a liar in many instances.  Donner later said that at the end of the shoot, if he had been in the same room as Salkind, he would have killed him.  Salkind brought in another director, Mark Lester, just in case Donner would not finish directing all of Superman II.  Donner had finished 75% of the film before they stopped filming the sequel to just concentrate on the first film.  To say the production reached a boiling point is putting it mildly.  

 

Marlon Brando was cast as Jor-el and he asked for and received 3.75 million plus 11.75% of the films gross.  He made a total of almost 20 million for the film.  He also refused to learn his lines, so they had cue cards for him and he proved to be a difficult prick on the shoot, just like he would be on Apocalypse Now.  It's no wonder that after his unprofessional and downright diva like behaviour on both Superman and Apocalypse Now, that he did one more film called the Formula and then wasn't seen or heard from again for almost a decade.  The guy was just one big twat to work with.

 

The bottom line is Superman, although saddled with an incredibly difficult and acrimonious shoot, still went on to make 100's of millions of dollars and in the process made WB a very happy studio, and they are still reaping the rewards of this today.

 

The third film to make it past 100 million was National Lampoon's Animal House.  Produced for 2.5 million, it went on to gross 120 million and eventually more than 140 with the rerelease.  Perhaps the key to the success of Animal House was the casting of John Belushi.  Chevy Chase, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd were all approached to do the film and none of them accepted the offer.  Only Belushi agreed to it.  He was only paid $35,000 to do the film and it wasn't until it became a smash that he got his financial windfall.  It's been said that if Belushi's career and life hadn't of ended so tragically at the age of 33, he might have gone on to have a monster career.  

 

Donald Sutherland, Kevin Bacon (in his first role) and a pre-Indiana Jones Karen Allen all had significant roles. 

 

I don't have the figures available but it is said that Animal House was a monster hit on VHS and this solidified it as one of the most profitable films of the 70's.  

 

There's also some iconic scenes and lines of dialogue that originated from Animal House.  The Dean of the college, who hates the fraternity (and rightfully so) puts them on Double Secret Probation.  No one knows what this means but it's pretty funny.  You will occassionally see me use this line on the forums and it ofc  course gets a like from some of the older posters like @Tele Came Back, who gets the reference.  Most others have no idea what it means....watch Animal House, and it will all make sense.  And of course you have the famous scene where Bluto states his, "Over?  Did you say over?  Nothing is over until we decide it is.  Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

 

Animal House is a classic in every sense of the word.

 

Other interesting stories of the top ten are JAWS 2 finishing 7th with 77.7 million, which seems like an obvious massive drop off, but then you factor in that it grossed 187.8 million WW on a budget of 20 million, plus it became a huge hit on HV, the film was still incredibly profitable for Universal.  

 

Best picture winner, The Deer Hunter took in 49 million and then finishing at number 10 is my favourite (all out) horror movie of all time.

 

Halloween was made on a budget of $300,000 and took in 70 million WW.  It is considered to be one of the most profitable independent horror films of all time.  In fact, until the found footage craze hit theaters a little more than 20 years later, Halloween was the most profitable independent horror film of all time.  

 

There are a litany of interesting and intriguing things about Halloween, but the most interesting one imo is that it's a widely influential film within the horror genre; it was largely responsible for the popularization of slasher films in the 1980s. Halloween popularized many tropes that have become completely synonymous with the slasher genre. Halloween helped to popularize the final girl trope, the killing off of characters who are substance abusers or sexually promiscuous, and the use of a theme song for the killer. Carpenter also shot many scenes from the perspective of the killer in order to build tension. These elements have become so established that many historians argue that Halloween is responsible for the new wave of horror that emerged during the 1980s.  Due to its popularity, Halloween became a blueprint for success that many other horror films, such as Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, would follow, and that others like Scream would satire.

 

The major themes present in Halloween would also become common in the slasher films it inspired. Film scholar Pat Gill notes that in Halloween, there is a theme of absentee parents but films such as A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th feature the parents becoming directly responsible for the creation of the killer.

 

There are slasher films that predated Halloween, such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Black Christmas which contained prominent elements of the slasher genre; both involving a group of teenagers being murdered by a stranger as well having the final girl trope. Halloween, however, is seen by historians as being responsible for the new wave of horror films because it not only used these tropes but also pioneered many others.

 

Halloween is sheer terror and it was rewarded by being the tenth highest grossing film of 1978.  

 

 

  • Like 13
Link to comment
Share on other sites





Grease is still the best selling soundtrack of all time in the U.S. 

 

Fun fact: it has not been certified by the RIAA since 1984. The label that initially released the album went bust in the 80s and any record of its sales were lost. Nobody knows exactly how many copies it has sold, but it far exceeds the 8x Platinum status that it was given in 1984. With the 1998 re-release of the film, the soundtrack sold an additional four million copies just in that year. 

 

All we we know about its sales is that it was certified 8x Platinum in 1984 and has sold nearly 7 million copies since Soundscan began tracking sales in 1991. That leaves six years worth of sales that are completely unknown.

Edited by Chaz
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Chaz said:

Grease is still the best selling soundtrack of all time in the U.S. 

 

Fun fact: it has not been certified by the RIAA since 1984. The label that initially released the album went bust in the 80s and any record of its sales were lost. Nobody knows exactly how many copies it has sold, but it far exceeds the 8x Platinum status that it was given in 1984. With the 1998 re-release of the film, the soundtrack sold an additional four million copies just in that year. 

 

All we we know about its sales is that it was certified 8x Platinum in 1984 and has sold nearly 7 million copies since Soundscan began tracking sales in 1991. That leaves six years worth of sales that are completely unknown.

 

Well, I have no idea if you are right or not, but according to this website, Grease is number 7 and The Bodyguard is number 1.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-best-selling-movie-soundtracks-all-time-2016-9/#1-the-bodyguard--whitney-houston-15

Link to comment
Share on other sites



42 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

Well, I have no idea if you are right or not, but according to this website, Grease is number 7 and The Bodyguard is number 1.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/15-best-selling-movie-soundtracks-all-time-2016-9/#1-the-bodyguard--whitney-houston-15

This is based on the RIAA certifications. Grease has not been certified since 1984, and it has more than doubled its sales since then. 

 

Take the 8x Platinum from 1984 and add the 7 million from its Soundscan sales since 1991 - you get 15 million. That's not including all of its sales from 1984-1990. It's the best-selling soundtrack of all time, and we don't even know how much it's actually sold. Crazy.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites



1979

 

After the four year boom of 1975-1978, 1979 came back down to Earth.  1979 only had one 100 million dollar grossing film and that went on to win best picture.  Kramer vs Kramer is another example of a film that just would not get made today.  It tells the story of a divorced mother and father fighting over custody of their young son.  It was a very talky film, very dramatic and would probably be considered mind numbingly slow to the youth of today.  

 

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep both picked up Oscars for their roles.  Hoffman for best actor, Streep for best supporting actress.  The film reflected a cultural shift which occurred during the 1970s, when ideas about motherhood and fatherhood were changing. The film was widely praised for the way in which it gave equal weight and importance to both Joanna and Ted's points of view.

 

Coming in at number two is one of my all time favourite horror movies, The Amityville Horror.  It was made on a budget of 4.5 million and grossed 86.4 million dollars.  This was based on a book pf the same name and it was apparently based on a true story.  The Amityville story did happen, it's the events that the Lutz's described that have left many in disbelief.  The Conjuring sequel actually covered the Amityville case very briefly.  It's not surprising that the film was dragged through the mud by critics, who have never been able to understand the nuances of horror.  IMO, Amityville is one of the most unsettling and scary horror films ever made.   The Amityville franchise originally spawned two sequels that went theatrical and a remake in 2005.  There is another planned release this year.  No one knows if it will come out.

 

Rocky II came in third with 85 million.  It grossed 200 million WW on an estimated budget of 10 million.  Sylvester Stallone took over directing duties as John G. Avildsen was busy on pre-production of Saturday night fever.  The entire cast of the first returned for the sequel and it was met with generally positive reviews.  It was considered a step down from the original but still looked upon favorably.  This film helped solidify Stallone as a bona fide star even though Paradise Alley was a dud.  

 

Apocalypse Now came in at number 4 with 83 million.  The film is a masterpiece of modern cinema and is considered by most to be the best war film ever made.  You can count yours truly in that camp as well.  This film is famous for the behind the scenes problems.  It stars Marlon Brando (who is now synonymous with being an asshole to work with), Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen and a young Larry Fishburne (before he changed his name to Laurence).  

 These problems included Brando arriving on the set overweight and completely unprepared, expensive sets being destroyed by severe weather, and its lead actor (Sheen) having a breakdown, and suffering a near-fatal heart attack, while on location. Problems continued after production as the release was postponed several times while Coppola edited thousands of feet of film.

Apocalypse Now was released to universal acclaim. It was honored with the Palme d'Or at Cannes, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama. It is considered to be one of the greatest films ever made. The film was ranked No. 14 in the British Film Institute's Sight and Sound greatest films poll in 2012.  In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

 

George Lucas even helped Coppola get the film finished by lending him money from the profits of Star Wars.  Coppola invested $30 million of his own money into the project to get the budget to the amount required to execute his vision. That total included the valuations of his house and his winery, which he signed over to Chase Bank as collateral on the amount. The interest rate for the amount began at seven percent, but when production ended it was up to 29 percent. If the movie tanked, Coppola faced financial ruin, which understandably made the filming process  incredibly stressful. Coppola suffered an epileptic seizure while shooting, had a nervous breakdown, and allegedly threatened to commit suicide at least three times.

 

Star Trek the Motion Picture came in at 5 with 82 million.  Not only was this a massive success but it began a 5 decade run of motion pictures and successful TV programs.  Released in North America on December 7, 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom faulted the film for its lack of action and over-reliance on special effects. The final production cost ballooned to approximately $46 million. The film earned $139 million worldwide, falling short of studio expectations but enough for Paramount to propose a cheaper sequel.  The budget was huge for 1979 and although the film did well, it didn't quite do what Paramount had hoped.  They still went on to make a plethora of sequels.  Star Trek has one of the most loyal fan bases in film history.

 

Coming in at number 6 is perhaps the (arguably) most influential sci-fi movie of all time.  ALIEN was directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O'Bannon.  The budget was around 10 million and it went on to gross 200 million world wide.  Alien is famous for the chest bursting scene.  This scene, when viewed 40 years later, after it has been imitated, duplicated and repeated more times that you can count, might seem rather pedestrian.  But in 1979, it shocked the hell out of audiences all across the world.  

 

Ridley Scott's story behind getting the directing gig reminds me a little bit of how aggressively Robert Downey Jr made a play for Iron Man.  From Wikipedia:

 

O'Bannon had originally assumed that he would direct Alien, but 20th Century Fox instead asked Walter Hill to direct. Hill declined due to other film commitments as well as not being comfortable with the level of visual effects that would be required. Peter Yates, Jack Clayton, and Robert Aldrich were considered for the task, but O'Bannon, Shusett, and the Brandywine team felt that these directors would not take the film seriously and would instead treat it as a B monster movie.  Giler, Hill, and Carroll had been impressed by Ridley Scott's debut feature film The Duellists (1977) and made an offer to him to direct Alien, which Scott quickly accepted.  Scott created detailed storyboards for the film in London, which impressed 20th Century Fox enough to double the film's budget from $4.2 million to $8.4 million. His storyboards included designs for the spaceship and space suits, drawing influences from films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. However, he was keen on emphasizing horror in Alien rather than fantasy, describing the film as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction".

 

This was one film that was fast tracked due to the success of Star Wars.  20th Century Fox had the script on the desk for several years before they decided to do it, and that was because of the monster gross of Sta Wars.  Alien is one of the watershed moments in film history.  It's one of the most intense, terrifying, white knuckle experiences one could have.  It had elements of Jaws, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween.  It's considered the best of the genre.  

 

Another Bond film comes in at number 9 and a Muppet film comes in at number 10.

 

This concludes the dissection of the years 1972-1979.  I have just a few more things to cover from the 70's and then it's on to the decade of Deloreans, bullwhips, Spielberg and the color purple.

  • Like 10
Link to comment
Share on other sites







There are two films from the 70's that don't show up on the charts of the highest grossing films of their respective years.  Those two films are The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Deep Throat.  These two films made much more than what was reported but those figures never became official because both films had mob ties and they basically laundered the money.  No one knows exactly how much each film made but here is an incredibly truncated account of how it all went down for both films.

 

Deep Throat came out in 1972 and it was a mainstream pornographic film.  Louis Paraino, who's father was a made member of the Columbian crime family, put up the $50,000 for the film.  Linda Lovelace, the star of the film, was paid $1,250 to do the film.  She later sued for profits but received nothing because no one could ever prove how much the film really made.  Some have said that it made as much as 600 million, and that would be next to impossible as it would mean 120 million people saw it in the 70's.  The FBI estimates it at around 100 million.  So the true number is probably somewhere in between.  Regardless of what the number is, it would definitely be one of the highest grossing films of the 70's.  

 

The 1974 film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre suffered a similar fate.  This is from Wikipedia:

 

The production exceeded its original $60,000 budget during editing. Sources differ on the film's final cost, offering figures between $93,000 and $300,000.  A film production group, Pie in the Sky, provided $23,532 in exchange for 19 percent of Vortex. This left Henkel, Hooper and the rest of the cast and crew with a 40.5 percent stake. Warren Skaaren, then head of the Texas Film Commission, helped secure the distribution deal with Bryanston Pictures. David Foster, producer of the 1982 horror film The Thing, arranged for a private screening for some of Bryanston Pictures' West Coast executives, and received 1.5 percent of Vortex's profits and a deferred fee of $500.[

On August 28, 1974, Louis Peraino of Bryanston agreed to distribute the film worldwide, from which Bozman and Skaaren would receive $225,000 and 35 percent of the profits. Years later Bozman stated, "We made a deal with the devil, [sigh], and I guess that, in a way, we got what we deserved." They signed the contract with Bryanston and after the investors recouped their money (with interest)—and after Skaaren, the lawyers, and the accountants were paid—only $8,100 was left to be divided among the 20 cast and crew members. Eventually the producers sued Bryanston for failing to pay them their full percentage of the box office profits. A court judgment instructed Bryanston to pay the filmmakers $500,000, but by then the company had declared bankruptcy. In 1983 New Line Cinema acquired the distribution rights from Bryanston and gave the producers a larger share of the profits.

 

From a non box office point of view, The TCM is one of if not the most influential horror movie of all time.  It was banned in numerous countries and when director Tobe Hooper spoke with different film boards and asked them what he could do to get the film unbanned, the reply was that there wasn't excessive gore, there was very little blood and even the violence was relatively tame in comparisson to some other video nasties like Craven's Last House on the Left.  The reason TCM was banned was because the entire film was unsettling.  The tone, the atmosphere, the direction, the set design and the score, all of it just left you terrified and exhausted.  There was nothing they could do to change that.  TCM is an exercise in chilling your bones and testing your nerves.  It's also one of my top three horror films.

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites



Top 10 grossing films of the 1970's (domestic only)

 

1) Star Wars (1977):  307.2 million

2) Jaws (1975) 260 million

3) The Exorcist:  (1973) 193 million

4) Grease:  (1978) 160 million

5) The Sting (1973) 160 million

6) Animal House (1978) 140 million

7) The Godfather (1972) 134.8 million

8) Superman (1978) 134.2 million

9) Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 128.3 million

10) Smokey and the Bandit (1977) 126.7 million

***I didn't list The Rocky Horror Picture Show as the amount it has made is from multiple releases over 40 years.

  • Like 14
Link to comment
Share on other sites





Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Guidelines. Feel free to read our Privacy Policy as well.