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

[Kalo]

20 hours ago, Stutterng baumer Denbrough said:

 

Lol....Thin Red Line is pretty bad.

 

Huh, and what are your thoughts on The Tree of life? badlands and Days of Heaven?? 

[Webslinger]

I feel like almost all of 1998 was overshadowed by Titanic. Between the 13 weeks at #1, the 11 Oscars, the fact that it was still in the top ten for two-and-a-half months after Lost in Space knocked it off the top spot, and the massive hoopla that started all over again when it came to video in September, it utterly dominated all of moviedom in 1998.

[baumer]

Yes well you definitely got me there @Kalo  I am not a fan of Terrence Malik at all. But with a Thin Red Line I just thought it was such melodramatic bullshit. By the end of the movie when I found out that Jim caviezel's wife had cheated on him I was glad. His over-analysis his zen-like poetic Outlook of the war just made me sick and if I was his wife I probably would have cheated on him too. The movie was just Nails on a chalkboard for me. Sorry bud.

[baumer]

I will get to 1999 tonight.  

[narniadis]

I have been out of pocket for 2 weeks but finally caught up on this thread. Bravo as always Baumer! 

 

1998 is when I really start to remember films having an impact on me as a kid, my grandparents where in a horrible wreck that fall and we spent 8 weeks living at the hospital while my grandmother recovered and I watched a ton of tv (something I didn't have at home) and really saw ads and promotions for the first time. 

 

1997 of course with Titanic was also huge, you know something makes it big when your ministers rail against it from the pulpit week after week. 

 

You've got mail, is one of my favorite films of all time and one that I watch at least once a year around Valentine's and have ever since I first saw it over 15 years ago. 

[baumer]

Wow...sorry you went through that narniadis...but I guess you got one positive out of it.  

 

Thanks as always for commenting and reading.  

[John Marston]

Saving Private Ryan's box office is incredible for the type of movie it is

 

 

Tomato law would destroy Armageddon today. It got ripped apart

 

 

 

Godzilla performed below expectations but it is mistakenly referred to many times as a bomb, when it wasn't. 

 

 

 

another good 1998 performer was the X-Files movie which adjusts to $159,031,100. Which is very good for a film based on a TV series that was still running

Edited August 11, 2017 by John Marston

[filmlover]

19 minutes ago, John Marston said:

Godzilla performed below expectations but it is mistakenly referred to many times as a bomb, when it wasn't. 

To say it performed below expectations is understating it. You should've seen the crazy billboard campaign all over Miami for it back in the day. You would've thought that Titanic was expected to go down.

 

And of course the movie deserved it thanks to being a terrible piece of shit.

[SchumacherFTW]

Loving these write ups @Stutterng baumer Denbrough, you're making me reeeeally wanna watch Scream again! 

98 was a big year for me when it comes to movies, and specifically because of Godzilla. It's the first time I knowingly became aware of a movie because of advertising and hype. I had only been vaguely aware of Titanic earlier that year, but it wasn't something a 7 year old could watch here, so I wasn't fussed. But Godzilla was EVERYWHERE, and so much stuff was aimed at my 7 year old eyes. Even know, I now it's a terrible movie, but it still makes me remember the times when I first encountered all that stuff, so I can never truly hate it. 

[baumer]

I started 1999 and then I realized that it's going to take me a while to get through it.  1999 has some of my favourite films of all time.  TPM will have  good sized write up but then there's Matrix, SS, AB, TBP and maybe more.  So I'll finish it tomorrow.  I promise I will get to the year 2000, by Sunday night.  

 

Again, thanks to all of you who are reading this stuff.

[Maxmoser3]

1999 was stacked! It was about as the crazy as the Y2K scare! 

[Ms Lady Hawk]

1999 was incredible- SW, The Sixth Sense, Cruel Intentions, etc. Look forward to your write up.

[Maxmoser3]

1999 was also the year that somewhat saved Universal's ass. As The Mummy, Notting Hill, The Best Man, American Pie, Bowfinger, and somewhat The Bone Collector(it did fine) were all sucessful. But they had some big duds with Virus, EDTV, Life, Man On The Moon, For The Love Of The Game(weirdly enough directed by Sam Raimi), and End Of Days(yes I still like that movie).

 

And I was looking this up morning randomly but  Eyes Wide Shut's OW was one of the first few films that reading articles that an event had affected the film's debut which was the dissappearance of JFK jr. 

[baumer]

End of Days....lol... I will post my review of that later on in the thread. Why was there a cat in the fridge LOL

[BOOYAH SUCKAS]

54 minutes ago, Maxmoser3 said:

1999 was also the year that somewhat saved Universal's ass. As The Mummy, Notting Hill, The Best Man, American Pie, Bowfinger, and somewhat The Bone Collector(it did fine) were all sucessful. But they had some big duds with Virus, EDTV, Life, Man On The Moon, For The Love Of The Game(weirdly enough directed by Sam Raimi), and End Of Days(yes I still like that movie).

 

And I was looking this up morning randomly but  Eyes Wide Shut's OW was one of the first few films that reading articles that an event had affected the film's debut which was the dissappearance of JFK jr. 

How was end of days a Dud? It made twice its budget worldwide 

[Maxmoser3]

22 minutes ago, BOOYAH SUCKAS said:

How was end of days a Dud? It made twice its budget worldwide 

Worldwide helped out. But I thought I read that the film didn't as well as what Universal wanted to and it dissappointed on home video

[Chaz]

I walked out of End of Days. Blech.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Chaz

[baumer]

Why was there a cat in the fridge?

 

Original review from December 1999

 

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Warning: Does contain spoilers:I was so hyped when I saw the first trailer for this film last year. It was either late in 98 or early in 99 that the first trailer graced our screens for this flick. The producers obviously knew that with combination of Arnold and the Y2K and all the Armageddon stuff, the earleir they could get this out into the public awareness, the better off they would be. End Of Days looked fantastic and I could not wait to see it. But that is where my enthusiasm ends and all cynicism begins. End of Days is one movie that is so short of logic that after the first 20 minutes or so you are laughing and greatly anticipating the next idiotic plot piece to invade your intelligence. End of Days is pure idiocy and it is not even fun to mask the ineptitude of the script, straight up, this is a terrible movie.Now I am going to attempt to explain very briefly what this movie wants us to believe. It starts in 1979 where a priest in the Vatican looks outside and sees a comet racing over the moon. He goes to an old drawing and it too has the comet over the moon. " The Eye of God. " he says to himself and then rushes into a chamber where the Pope is sitting with his religious advisers presumably talking about what they are going to do on New Year's Eve, and tells him that the child will be born tonight.

 

The Pope tells him he must find the child and protect her. It seems that once every thousand years that a child will be born and that child will be the one that Satan has chosen to mate with so that he can come to Earth and wreak havoc and that will spell the End of Days ( get it? ) So now we cut to a dark hospital where a woman is giving birth and when the child is born, a nurse brings it down to the basement where some spooky looking people are waiting and one of them kills a rattle snake and puts the blood of the snake in the mouth of the child. This is obviously the chosen one and by putting snake blood in her mouth that must mean that she is now protected by Satan and she is now Damien from The Omen. So now we skip 20 years and we meet a buffed up Martin Riggs who is played by Arnold and he is going to kill himself because he obviously misses his wife and kid. Hockney from The Usual Suspects walks into the room and tells him that they have a long day ahead of them and so killing himself is not very prudent right now ( I think Fenster and MacManus and Verbal and Keaton were sick on this day so they didn't come and join Hockney on this one ). So we now know that a burned out Arnold is going to be called upon to save the girl. That's all you need to know because the rest is really just a bad Arnold movie with logic that is so stupid that it defies logic to understand how this script got made. Here are some questions that I have for the writers of the film, and if you have seen this, you'll know exactly what I mean, if you haven't, hopefully it will deter you from doing so.1) If that guy at the beginning wasn't looking out his window and he didn't see the Eye Of God, would no one else have notified the Pope about this miraculous sight? Was no one else aware of this Eye of God thing?2) If all of Satan's people knew that this girl was going to be born on this day, were there people all over the world in hospitals waiting for the girl to be born? And that has to be the case because no one knew exactly where the baby was going to be born, so if that is the case then that means that every city in every country in the WORLD, there would have to be one nurse and at least one snake killing guy that would have to be waiting in the basement of every hospital in the world waiting on the off chance that it was their hospital that little Christine would be born in.

 

That is a pretty big following, say at least, what, 5 million kids are born every day, so that means at least 10 million people in this cult that are very well funded and have a knack for catching snakes. And you know snakes would not be too happy to lose their lives that day. And what exactly does the blood do anyway? 3) If this day was so important and this child was so important, don't you think God himself would have taken a greater interest in trying to stop Lucifer from entering Earth therefore negating all that once was? Somehow I think that he would send something more trustworthy that a drunk ex-cop with large biceps. 4) I have a great many problems with Thomas Aquinas. First of all his name. No one ever mentions that his name is that of a great man from the past. If a guy named Albert Einstein showed up and was poking around doing things, I think someone may make a joke about it, or Sigmeund Freud, why not Thomas Aquinas. And next, if this guy was all that the Vatican had going for them , don't you think that he would be a little more funded than he was and that perhaps he would live in a little nicer place than some rat infested-run-down-basement apartment in New York? This guy was trying to save the world and he has no money? I don't buy it. And when Arnold and Lieutenant Wineberg find his place and they are searching for clues, how come there is a cat in the fridge that just happens to jump out at them? Why? I have seen horror movies before that throw cats into the frame just to scare us, but never have I seen a cat that jumps out of a fridge. Why would he be there? How did it get there? Are cats strong enough to open a fridge tp get in? Did Thomas put him there to scare Jerico? Would it not be dead if it was in the fridge? All very good questions with no real answers. 5) If your best friend was kind enough not to kill you and then you saw him set on fire, do you A) let him burn try to put him out C) at least shoot him so that he doesn't feel the pain of burning to death. I would say the answer to that is maybe B but more probably C since he is a raging inferno. 6) If a down and out ex-cop is offered all that God took away from him, why would he turn it down? Does he all of a sudden have faith now? Has God been good to him? Does Satan not tempt him to have a better life? Where is the side to him that wants to say no? I don't buy that either? I don't think Arnold's character would have said no to Satan. 7) How do you kill Satan? You can't. Not with what we have here. If he is impervious to pain and bullets and can walk through fire, then why is it that a whole bunch of bullets can stop him? 8) If Satan can invade people's bodies then why didn't he invade Arnolds way back at the beginning and find out where the girl is?9) He is Satan, why can't he find her whenever he wants to? 10) What exactly is it that Rod Steiger and all of his people were doing in the basement with all of their computers? Were they trying to track down where Satan was on the computer, or were they reading reviews on the IMDb or even checking their email. According to Steiger, "there are forces at work here that you can't possibly imagine." OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO scary stuff!!

 

I really could go on and on and on but I'll leave that to Celine Dion. Just suffice it to say that this is one film that has no logic to it and no matter if it is Arnold or not, it is a terrible film. I liked it when he was Dutch and the Terminator and Matrix and Harry Tasker and all those other cool characters that he played. But this Jericho is awful and End of Days is even worse. If you want to have some fun picking apart a film, go see this one. The ten issues that I touched on were just the tip of the iceberg, I'll bet that someone else could pick out ten other silly points to the movie that I didn't even mention, it is that stupid.End of Days stinks. There is no other way to say it.

 

And I am still really confused:  Why was there a cat in the fridge?

[narniadis]

Bravo sir! I have yet to see the film but the write up is the stuff of legends!

[baumer]

1999

 

And here we are.  The year Star Wars came out.  1999 saws the hotly anticipated release of the first of three new prequels in the Star Wars universe.  The first one, Star Wars The Phantom Menace, takes place 32 years before the events of A New Hope and we are introduced to some familiar characters and some new characters. The film was a massive success as it took in more than 900 million WW and ended up in second place behind Titanic both domestically and WW.   The Phantom Menace took in 431 million domestic and 924 million WW.

 

 

It also set a number of box office records.  Lucas was stubborn enough to not release it on a Friday or it surely would have set the opening weekend record.  Instead, he released it on a Wednesday in May and it set the opening day record of 28 million. It became the fastest film to gross $100 million, doing it in five days. It grossed $64.8 million in its opening weekend, the second-ever highest at the time. It also became the quickest film to reach the $200 million and $300 million marks, surpassing Independence Day (1996) and Titanic (1997) respectively.

 

For all the talk now of how much people dislike the prequels, the films, especially the first and third, did not reflect that.  Here are some truly phenomenal stats for the Phantom Menace.  It spent three weeks at number one, which isn't that big a deal, but it did it in the summer, where there are tent poles opening every weekend.  It had a multiplier of 6.75 and during its run, it wasn't until the 17th week that it dropped by more than 40%.  Every week before that, it would drop in the 20-30% range, sprinkled around some 35 and 18% drops.  Star Wars fever was alive and well.  As for the reception and how it was perceived, there were those who were disappointed with it, no doubt.  I personally felt there was too much CGI and some of the final battle didn't look or feel right.  But this is more to discuss the box office, not the legacy.  So looking at the numbers, it suggests that people, at the time, were happy with the film.  There were people who saw it and then walked right back out and paid for it a second time.  I was one of them.

 

The casting was a stroke of brilliance.  Liam Neeson was terrific and lent regal heir to the role of the avuncular master to Obi Wan, who was also well played by Ewan McGregor.  Natalie Portman was the young Padme and Samuel L. Jackson told Lucas that he wanted to be in the movie.  He didn't care who he played, just that he wanted in.  Lucas wrote Mace Windu just for him.  Jake Lloyd, imo, was fine as the young Anakin as well.  Ian McDiarmid, imho, was the best part of the cast and his turn in Revenge of the Sith was Oscar worthy.  But I'll get to that in a few years.  

 

 

I kind of feel bad for Jake Lloyd as he did not fair well after the film.  He retired from acting because of the trauma he experienced after playing Anakin Skywalker. According to Lloyd, other children constantly teased him about the role. For example they would make lightsaber sounds whenever he walked by. Lloyd also said that the situation was made worse because, in his opinion, the film did not meet the fans' expectations. Despite this, Lloyd has reprised the role of Anakin in several video games and has appeared at Star Wars conventions/events.   

 

Did you know that Sofia Coppola was in this film?  Neither did I.  But she considers Lucas to be an uncle as he and her father are pretty close.  As she prepared the script for her directorial debut on The Virgin Suicides, she heard that Lucas would make a new Star Wars film, and asked him if she could accompany him during filming. Lucas offered Coppola a role in the royal entourage, which she accepted because it "seemed like a good vantage point to watch without getting in the way".

 

The bottom line with TPM is that it was a massive success and whether people claim to now hate it or not, the film and the sequels have gone on to gross enormous amounts of money and done incredibly well on HV.  And directly or indirectly the love, the hate, the passion, the tears of joy or pain all contributed to The Force Awakens making a mess of the record books.  And for me personally, I love the prequels.  I'm a loonie through and through.  It's become en vogue to say you hate the prequels, but for me, I get them.  I don't mind Jake as Anakin, I loved the pod races, the duel of fate might be the best lightsabre battle in all of SW, Windu is a bad muthafucka, Obi Wan is terrific and the music and the script and everything else worked for me and it must have worked for many at the time.  924 million dollars in 1999 was absolutely gigantic.  

 

Coming in at number two for the year is perhaps the biggest surprise of the year in terms of box office.  The Sixth Sense finished second both domestically and WW.  

The Sixth Sense is a supernatural horror-thriller written and directed by then unknown M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist named Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) who tries to help him. The film established Shyamalan as a writer and director, and introduced the cinema public to his traits, most notably his affinity for surprise endings.

Released by Hollywood Pictures on August 6, 1999, the film was received well; critics highlighted the performances (especially by Osment, Collette and Willis), its atmosphere, and twist conclusion. The film grossed $293 million domestically and $672 million worldwide. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Shyamalan, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor for Osment, and Best Supporting Actress for Toni Collette.

 

 

 

Surprisingly the budget for this film was higher than I would have thought.  It was given 40 million to make the feature which included 3 million to buy the rights to the script, which was a huge sum.  David Vogel, then-president of production of The Walt Disney Studios, read Shyamalan's spec script and instantly loved it. Without obtaining corporate approval, Vogel bought the rights to the script, despite the high price of $3 million and the stipulation that Shyamalan could direct the film. Disney later dismissed Vogel from his position at the studio, with Vogel leaving the company shortly thereafter. Disney—apparently in a show of little confidence in the film—sold the production rights to Spyglass Entertainment, while retaining the distribution rights and 12.5% of the film's box office receipt.  Disney has more money than God, but this is one decision they would come to regret.  

 

Shyamalan crafted a script that moves along slowly but draws you in frame by frame.  We all know the twist now but when it first came out, the twist was something no one saw coming, even though there were plenty of hints along the way.  The "I see dead people" speech that young Cole speaks of to Malcolm, should have given it away to all of us, but we were so engrossed in the film at this point that it just went right over our heads.  Plus Shyamalan does a good job of making us think that Malcolm is still alive, especially the scene with him and his wife at dinner.  It looks like she is ticked with him and ignoring him because he is late.  But later we find out she is devastated because she is spending their anniversary alone because he is not longer with her.  

 

The Sixth Sense had a multiplier of 11 and in the first five weeks, it actually increased by 14% in it's fourth week and didn't drop more than 16%.  It was a true monster.  

 

By this time, Pixar was churning out hit after hit and 1999 saw what most consider is one of the greatest animated sequels of all time.  Toy Story 2 had a budget of 90 million and took in almost 500 million WW, with 246 of that coming domestically.  This came in at number three.

Toy Story 2 is a computer-animated comedy.  In the film, Woody is stolen by a toy collector, prompting Buzz Lightyear and his friends to vow to rescue him, but Woody is then tempted by the idea of immortality in a museum. Many of the original characters and voices from Toy Story return for this sequel, and several new characters—including Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack), Barbie (voiced by Jodi Benson), Stinky Pete (voiced by Kelsey Grammer) and Mrs. Potato Head (voiced by Estelle Harris)—are introduced.

 

 

Disney initially envisioned Toy Story 2 as a direct-to-video sequel. The film began production in a building separated from Pixar, on a small scale, as most of the main Pixar staff were busy working on A Bug's Life (1998). When story reels proved promising, Disney upgraded the film to theatrical release, but Pixar was unhappy with the film's quality. Lasseter and the story team redeveloped the entire plot in one weekend. Although most Pixar features take years to develop, the established release date could not be moved and the production schedule for Toy Story 2 was compressed into nine months.

 

Production of this film lead to a major disagreement between John Lasseter and Disney chairman Michael Eisner. At the time of production, Pixar Animation was in the midst of a five-picture deal with Disney. Pixar Animation had initially contracted with Disney to produce and distribute five computer animated films, three of which had already been released: Toy Story (1995), A Bug's Life (1998), and Monsters, Inc. (2001). Though this movie was produced while Pixar and Disney were operating under the same contract, it was counted as its own entity since the original agreement specified five original films, not sequels. Consequently, production on the final two movies of the initial deal, Finding Nemo (2003) and The Incredibles (2004) was delayed. When Disney, which owned all the characters, decided to move ahead with a low-budget direct-to-DVD sequel, Lasseter intervened, offering Pixar's services to produce the film. Lasseter assumed it would be counted as part of Pixar's five-picture contract, but Eisner refused, forcing a tense renegotiation between the two studios. It also led to Pixar's refusal to renew it's distribution contract with Disney, though Disney eventually bought Pixar Studios and integrated its creative staff into studio management. When producers saw the first results of the considerably lower-budget direct-to-DVD production they were dissatisfied and gave the project back to the makers of the original for a cinematic release.

 

Despite production struggles, Toy Story 2 opened on November 24, 1999 to wildly successful box office numbers and received universal acclaim from critics, with a rare 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Toy Story 2 has been considered by critics to be one of few sequel films to outshine the original, and it continues to be featured frequently on lists of the greatest animated films ever made. 

 

As with all Pixar films, the box office is just part of the story.  Merchandising is an even bigger equation.  Early drafts of the original Toy Story (1995) had a Barbie doll in the role that became Little Bo Peep, but Mattel refused to license the character to Disney. The huge popularity of the movie (and boost in sales for Mr. Potato Head and other featured toys) led them to agree to have Tour Guide Barbie included in this film. Naturally, Mattel released Tour Guide Barbie as an exclusive doll, as a tie-in with the film.  The sales, of course, were astronomical.  

 

"The story of Toy Story 2 is based a lot on my own experience. I'm a big toy collector and a lot of them are like antiques, or one-of-a-kind toys, or prototypes the toy makers have given me. Well, I have five sons, and when they were little and they loved to come to daddy's work, and come in into daddy's office and they just want to touch and play with everything. And I was sitting there saying 'Oh no, that's uh, you can't play with that one, oh no, play with this one, oh no....' and I found myself just sitting there looking at myself and laughing. Because toys are manufactured, put on this Earth, to be played with by a child. That is the core essence of Toy Story. And so I started wondering, what was it like from a toy's point of view to be collected?" John Lasseter.  

 

Coming in at number four for the year was the film that had perhaps the best trailer of the summer.  It went something like this:  "If you see only one film this summer, see Star Wars The Phantom Menace.  If you see two, see Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. "  I remember seeing this trailer and pretty much choking on my beverage.  It was creative and honest and it set the tone for the film.  

 

 

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is spy action comedy and the second instalment in the Austin Powers series. It is preceded by the original film, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and followed by Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002). The film was directed by Jay Roach, co-written by Mike Myers and screenwriter Michael McCullers,and once again stars Myers as the title character. Myers also plays Dr. Evil and Fat Bastard.

The film's title is a play on the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me and contains plot elements from The Pink Panther Strikes Again and the other James Bond films, Diamonds Are Forever (laser gun plot), You Only Live Twice (secret volcano base), Moonraker (outer space), The Man with the Golden Gun (Mini-Me based on character Nick Nack) and On Her Majesty's Secret Service (opening sequence in which it turns out that Vanessa Kensington was a fembot).

The film grossed around $312 million in worldwide ticket sales, taking more money during its opening weekend than the entire box office proceeds of its predecessor. 

 

This is one film that built its fan base on home video.  Home video was huge in the 90's and 2000's and the original had a solid but unspectacular debut at the theater and built its fanbase when a lot of them discovered it on VHS or DVD.  With the budget at only 33 million, it was very profitable for New Line.  

 

Heather Graham, who we all know and love from films like The Hangover, Swingers and Boogie Nights, was cast as Feliticty Shagwell and she said this movie saved her life and her career.  When she was asked to audition for the role, at Mike Myers request, she was saved from a porn career. Before she was called by her agent she was seriously considering accepting a major part in a softcore lesbian movie after not having any meaningful film roles in close to a year and a half. The first thing she did after getting paid for this movie was buy a copy of the porno she would have been in.

 

Coming in at number five is what I consider to be the most important movie of all time.  But beyond that it is one of the most entertaining and revolutionary.  It is the Citizen Kane of our time (not quality wise, it wipes the floor with Kane of course, but in terms of creating film technique.  Bullet time is old now but the Wachowski's invented it in this film).  

The Matrix is a science fiction action film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world."

 

 

 

The actors of the film were required to be able to understand and explain The Matrix. Simulacra and Simulation was required reading for most of the principal cast and crew. Reeves stated that the Wachowskis had him read Simulacra and Simulation, Out of Control, and Dylan Evans’s Introducing Evolutionary Psychology even before they opened up the script, and eventually he was able to explain all the philosophical nuances involved. Moss commented that she had difficulty with this process.

 

The directors had also been admirers of Hong Kong action cinema for a long time, so they decided to hire the Chinese martial arts choreographer and film director Yuen Woo-ping to work on fight scenes. To prepare for the wire fu, the actors had to train hard for several months. The Wachowskis first scheduled four months for training. Yuen was optimistic but then began to worry when he realized how unfit the actors were.  Woo-Ping Yuen initially refused to work on the film, and hoped that by asking for an exorbitant fee, it would turn off the Wachowskis. It didn't. He next formulated what he considered an impossible request. He said that he'd agree only if he had complete control of the fights, and that he trained the actors for four months before they shoot. The Wachowskis complied with his request.

 

Yuen let their body style develop and then worked with each actor's strength. He built on Reeves' diligence, Fishburne's resilience, Weaving's precision, and Moss's feminine grace. Yuen designed Moss' moves to suit her deftness and lightness. Prior to the pre-production, Reeves suffered a two-level fusion of his cervical spine which had begun to cause paralysis in his legs, requiring him to undergo neck surgery. He was still recovering by the time of pre-production, but he insisted on training, so Yuen let him practice punches and lighter moves. Reeves trained hard and even requested training on days off. However, the surgery still made him unable to kick for two out of four months of training. As a result, Reeves did not kick much in the film. Weaving had to undergo a hip surgery after he sustained an injury during the training process.

 

 

When the Wachowski's screenplay for Assassins (1995) was being made for Producer Joel Silver, The Wachowskis brought Silver the script to this film. He was bowled over by their screenplay, but not by The Wachowskis' insistence that they direct the film themselves. He told them to cut their teeth by directing something else instead, which is why they made Bound (1996). The success of that lesbian crime thriller proved to be the calling card that The Wachowskis needed to earn the trust from Warner Brothers to direct this movie themselves.

 

The Matrix was first released in the United States on March 31, 1999, and grossed over $460 million worldwide. It was well-received by critics and won four Academy Awards, as well as other accolades, including BAFTA Awards and Saturn Awards.

 

The film has since appeared in lists of the greatest science fiction films,and, in 2012, was added to the National Film Registry for preservation.

 

And for those of you who are curious why this is the most important film ever made, imo, well, here is my write up of it from my thread of the 25 most important films of all time.  :

 

Why it's important:  

The Wachowki's take their love of Hong Kong cinema, the work of Lewis Carroll and sci-fi to create the most influential action movie of their generation. Pioneering the "bullet time" effect, which is a shot that takes place in slow-motion whilst the camera moves at a normal speed. Action filmmaking in Hollywood changed as a result, with directors forced to match the level of sophistication on display in The Matrix' action scenes. There was an improved focus on wire work and Asian fight choreographers were now in demand after The Matrix mesmerised audiences. There was also a resurgence in popularity for Asian martial-arts flicks and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a huge critical and commercial success in America a year later, which probably would not have happened without the popularity of The Matrix.

Like another trilogy, Star Wars, The Matrix inadvertently changed cinema overnight and a thousand imitators were spawned. The two follow up movies were very poor in comparison to the groundbreaking original as they focus on pseudo-intelligent philosophical rabble that serves no purpose other than to prove the Wachowski's have read a bit of Plato. The Matrix is extraordinarily ambitious, its action being the benchmark for modern action movies. It catapulted Carrie-Anne Moss to stardom and the role of Neo perfectly fits Keanu Reaves' limited acting abilities. It's a significant, pioneering, ultra-cool modern masterpiece.

Why it's important to me:  The Matrix, like Instinct, Earthlings and JFK (and others that did not make this list) allowed me to open my mind.  This is not just a movie about computers ruling the world.  This is a movie about humanity being asleep.  We really are living in the Matrix.  We are distracted by everything else except what we should be paying attention to.  We make just enough money to stay alive but we live in a society that makes us work harder and longer than we ever have to try to live that dream.  We care more about who's fucking who in the world than we do about our corrupt governments.  We care more about William and Kate than we do about how Building 7 came down in 9/11.  We care more about taking that next vacation or buying that boat we always wanted and because we are so consumed by getting getting getting, that we don't have the energy to focus on the fact that we are nothing but a program run by the Matrix as the men behind the curtain make all the money and decide how to split up the pie.  The gap between the rich and the middle class is grown so there is now a massive Grand Canyon like gap between us.  When my ex-wife asked my once why I spent so much time on the computer going over my 1200th 9/11 conspiracy document.  I responded by asking her if she cared that her government was lying to her and if she really believed that the buildings came down the way they said they did.  Her response was that no she didn't believe the official version, "but what can I do?  I have bills to pay and kids to feed."  That in essence is the Matrix.  It's asking us to open our eyes, free out mind and take the world back from those who have stole it from us.  

 

The Matrix is not only one of the smartest and most brilliant films I've ever seen, it's not just revolutionary because of bullet time and it's choreography and fight sequences, it's important and iconic because The Wachowskis see what I see and they are mad as hell and don't want to take it anymore.  The Matrix is the most important movie ever made.

 

 

 

This is the first half.  I will try to get to the second half later tonight...but there is a lot to cover from 1999.  So this one might be one of the biggest write ups so far.  American Beauty is my number 4 film of all time and Blair Witch is one of my 15 favourite horror movies...so lots to get to still.

 

 

Number six was Disney's most expensive animated movie to date, Tarzan.  It is based on the story Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and is the first animated major motion picture version of the Tarzan story. Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima with a screenplay by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, and Noni White, Tarzan features the voices of Tony Goldwyn, Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, and Rosie O'Donnell with Brian Blessed, Lance Henriksen, Wayne Knight, and Nigel Hawthorne.

Pre-production of Tarzan began in 1995 with Kevin Lima selected as director, being later joined by animator Chris Buck the same year. Following a first draft by Tab Murphy, Bob Tzudiker, Noni White, and Dave Reynolds were brought in to re-construct the third act and add additional humor to the screenplay. English musician Phil Collins was recruited to compose and record songs which were integrated with a score by Mark Mancina. Meanwhile, the production team embarked on a research trip to Uganda and Kenya to study the gorillas. Animation for the film was done in California, Orlando, Florida, and Paris with Deep Canvas, the pioneering computer animation software system, predominantly used to create three-dimensional backgrounds.

Tarzan was released to a positive reaction from critics, who praised the film's animation and music. Against a production budget of $130 million the film grossed $448.2 million worldwide, becoming the fifth-highest film release in 1999, the second-highest animation release of 1999 behind Toy Story 2 (1999), and the first Disney animated feature to open at first place at the North American box office since Pocahontas (1995). 

 

 

By giving Tarzan the animated treatment, the producers surmised that they could truly bring Tarzan to life in ways never done before.  Animation would bring him closer to the animals than ever before.  Casting was important to the movie and ultimately it came down to Brendan Fraser and Ton Goldwynn.  Although Katzenberg liked Fraser, he felt that Goldwynn had a better connection with animals and this is what gave him the part.  Woody Allen was also in the running to play a neurotic elephant but Katzenberg wanted Wayne Knight so he offered Allen a distribution deal for his next four movies instead.  He also gave him a role in Antz.

 

The animators were split into two teams, one in Paris and one in Burbank. The 6000 mile distance and difference in time zones posed challenges for collaboration, especially for scenes with Tarzan and Jane. Glen Keane was the supervising animator for Tarzan at the Paris studio, while Ken Duncan was the supervising animator for Jane at the studio in Burbank. To make coordinating scenes with multiple characters easier, the animators used a system called a "scene machine" that could send rough drawings between the two animation studios. Meanwhile, following production on Mulan, two hundred animators at the Feature Animation Florida satellite studio provided character animation and special effects animation where the filmmakers had to discuss their work through daily video conferences among the three studios.

 

Tarzan proved to be a massive success both critically and box office wise.

 

Number seven was one of Adam Sandler's best films, according to many, Big Daddy.  It was also the last film he made for a studio before he opened his own production company, Happy Madison Productions.  Made for 34 million, it took in 164 million domestic and 234 WW.  Originally the film had a smaller budget but while making the movie, The Waterboy had done much bigger business than anyone thought it would.  Sony then informed the producers that they would kick in additional funds so that they could make the movie that much better.  This gave them extra breathing room to film a few more takes and give expanded roles to Rob Schneider and Steve Buscemi.  

 

 

Big Daddy is Sandler's highest grossing non-animated film, taking in 164 but he had a period of time where his films were remarkably successful in North America.  The Waterboy came out the year before making 161, The Longest Yard made 158 million in 2005 and then in 2010 Grown Ups took in 162 million.  All of these films had terrific legs as well.  Sandler's films might have been pariahs and pieces of excretement to critics but to paying customers, they (myself included, Grown Ups is one of my favourite comedies) enjoyed the humour, the sweet interactions, the camaraderie and the cast that usually filled the screen with familiar names and faces.  The people who ripped on Sandler's films (before they truly got horrible, starting with Jack and Jill) didn't realize the genius of the films is that they were simple comedies about real people that we could relate to.  Some of the characters were over the top slap stick caricatures but what I always took from many Sandler films is that it's the story about a seemingly normal guy put into fantastical situations.  Waterboy, Happy Gimore, Click, Big Daddy and Mr. Deeds were like that.  And then you had Grown Ups which appealed to adults and parents who could laugh at the humour but nod in agreement to some of the observations made about kids, family, jobs, life and friendship.  Sandler wrote and starred in films, like Big Daddy, that were a lot more relatable to the yeoman, that people thought.

 

 

Number eight was the Universal reimagining of the classic 1932 Boris Karloff film, The Mummy.  But this one took some time.  Producers James Jack and Sean Daniels (Jack Daniels....insert laugh track here) first brought the idea to Universal in 1992.  They felt like a new and fresh update of the film would be a box office bonanza.  Universal brass was interested but only if they kept the budget at under 10 million.  Jacks and Daniel recruited horror filmmaker/writer Clive Barker on board to direct. Barker's vision for the film was violent, with the story revolving around the head of a contemporary art museum who turns out to be a cultist trying to reanimate mummies. Jacks recalls that Barker's take was "dark, sexual and filled with mysticism", and that, "it would have been a great low-budget movie". After several meetings, Barker and Universal lost interest and parted company.  The next film maker in line was Joe Dante and he wanted to get Daniel Day Lewis to play a modern brooding kind of Mummy.  The studio was interested, but again would only do it with a low budget, this time 15 million.  So eventually Dante left the project as well.  Next George A. Romero was brought on and he wanted to do a Mummy zombie kind of tale.  The studio seemed interested in this as well but Romero was contracted to another studio at the time and they wouldn't allow him to do the film, so he left as well.  Wes Craven declined the job and then Mick Garris was involved before Stephen Sommers finally called the producers when he heard they were looking to re-establish the franchise and it was his idea to make the lead an Indiana Jones type swashbuckler.  This, as we all know is what finally made it to the big screen.  Universal signed off on a 80 million dollar budget and were rewarded with a huge take at the box office in the summer of 1999.

 

 

 

The Mummy opened to 43 million and took it 155 domestic and 415 WW.   It even held fairly well against The Phantom Menace, which was kind of a surprise.  The funny thing about The Mummy and Menace is that Lucas was involved with both in some way.  ILM did all the effects for the Mummy so Lucas was actually making money off a film competing against him.

 

Coming in at number 9 and number 16 were two Julia Robert's smash hits.  While Runaway Bride had the bigger budget and did better domestically, Noting Hill made more WW.  Julia Roberts was unstoppable and was arguably the biggest movie star in the world at this time.  Not only did she have two movies finish in the top 20 domestically, but they both made more than 300 million, both came out in the summer and were produced and distributed by different studios.  I'd have to do more research on this but I don't think this had really been done much before.  I know Stallone did it in 1985 when both Rocky and Rambo made 300 million and were done by different studios but one was a summer film and the other was a Christmas release.  You can take Channing Tatum's huge 2012 and use it as comparison but again, not one of his three monster hits cleared 300 WW and two came out in the spring, were different genres and different studios.  The amazing thing about Runaway Bride and Notting Hill is that they were both romantic comedies.  And yet in the summer of 1999, people all over the world could not get enough of her and they spent almost 700 million dollars on two romantic comedies.  

 

Runaway Bride reunited her with her Pretty Woman co-star, Richard Gere, and people loved that.  There was a romanticism that came with it.  There had always been rumours that Gere and Roberts hooked up while on set, although both of them deny it.  But putting the two of them back together was a stroke of genius as people were familiar with the two of them and wanted to see them together.  They even managed to hire the Pretty Woman director, Garry Marshall.  This was very effective in marketing as they were able to say from the director of Pretty Woman....and then Roberts and Gere's faces were splashed across the screen.  

 

 

The film was in development for over a decade. Actors attached at various times: Anjelica Huston, Mary Steenburgen, Lorraine Bracco, Geena Davis, Demi Moore, Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, Téa Leoni (for the role of Maggie); Christopher Walken, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Michael Douglas (for the role of Ike) and Ben Affleck.

 

Runaway Bride took in 152 million domestic and 309 million WW.  The budget was 70 million and Roberts reportedly commanded a 20 million dollar paycheck.

 

Notting Hill was one of my favourite films of 1999.  It helped because my fiance and eventual wife also liked the movie and we used to listen to the soundtrack while getting busy sometimes.....You Say it Best, When you Say Nothing at All was our favourite song....I like putting little things like this in the write ups because it's kind of like an Easter egg or a bonus to those who actually read the entire thing.   

 

Here are some interesting casting notes:

 

Julia Roberts was the "one and only" choice for the role of Anna Scott, although Roger Michell and Duncan Kenworthy did not expect her to accept. Her agent told her it was "the best romantic comedy she had ever read".  Roberts said that after reading the script she decided she was "going to have to do this".

The decision to cast Hugh Grant as William Thacker was unanimous, as he and Richard Curtis had a "writer/actor marriage made in heaven". Michell said that "Hugh does Richard better than anyone else, and Richard writes Hugh better than anyone else", and that Grant is "one of the only actors who can speak Richard's lines perfectly".

Mischa Barton appears as the child actor whom Will pretends to interview for Horse & Hound.

The casting of Bonneville, McInnerny, McKee, Chambers, and Ifans as Will's friends was "rather like assembling a family". Michell explained that "When you are casting a cabal of friends, you have to cast a balance of qualities, of types and of sensibilities. They were the jigsaw that had to be put together all in one go, and I think we've got a very good variety of people who can realistically still live in the same world."

Alec Baldwin makes an uncredited appearance as Anna's boyfriend, Jeff King....Roberts brash boyfriend.

 

 

Part of what made Notting Hill work, besides the fact that it was a terrific romance, was that it was fucking funny as hell.  A lot of the humour came from Rhyes Ifans, who plays Grant's roomie, named Spike.  He's a great friend, loyal as anything but also clueless about pretty much everything.  This allows him to have some of the funniest lines in the film.  In one scene he saunters into a room, looking like he just woke up, and remarks to William (Grant), "This yogurt tastes funny."  And William responds, "That's mayonnaise."  Not missing a beat, Spike replies, "Right."  And then he walks away, licking the spoon.  

 

And then there's one of the more iconic movie lines of perhaps all time, at least of the 90's.  When Anna Scott, highest paid actress in the world, owner of an Oscar, she has a publicist, a stylist, a personal chef, gazillions of dollars, she lives in Beverly Hills and everyone knows her name, "I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."  It summed up the film beautifully and if you enjoyed the film, and most people did, by this time, the kleenex was out.  

 

Notting Hill was the perfect romantic comedy, imo and it also gave us an every man to cheer for.  It captured the hearts and imagination of movie goers in different nations.

 

It took in 116 million domestic but 363 million WW.  

 

Coming in at number ten is perhaps one of the most influential films of all time, and no that is not hyperbole.  The Blair Witch Project came out in the summer of 1999 and here we are in 2017 and it just now FINALLY looks like the found footage film is dead and buried.  But before The Blair Witch Project, no one had even really heard of the found footage film.  There were isolated films of course.  In 1980 perhaps the second most famous found footage film was released.  Cannibal Holocaust is certainly the grand daddy of all the found footage films.  It was known mostly for it's real animal killings and famous court case where the director was arrested and had to prove that he didn't really kill his actors.  All of them showed up to court to prove they were still alive.  Ruggero Deodato was then cleared of all charges.  Cannibal Holocaust had a place in found footage history, but imo, for the wrong reasons. 

 

 

 

The other film that came before Blair Witch was the 1998 film, The Last Broadcast.  It bears some similarity to TBW as it is about people lost in the woods.  The Last Broadcast is presented as if it's a "documentary" about the murder of two hosts and a hired hand for a cable access show named Fact or Fiction. In the scenario, Fact or Fiction was in New Jersey's Pine Barrens to present a live show on the Jersey Devil. A second hired hand is convicted of the murders (this isn't a spoiler because it's stated at the beginning of the film). The film also makes an attempt to become more philosophical towards the end, and there is an unexpected twist.  So there is some similarity and the creators, Daniel Myrick and Ed Sanchez probably got some inspiration from this film.  

 

Myrick and Sánchez conceived the idea of a fictional legend of the Blair Witch in 1993. They developed a thirty-five page screenplay that left plenty of room for dialogue improvisation since it was an outline of the event. A casting call advertisement in Backstage magazine was put up by the directors and Donahue, Williams, and Leonard were cast. The film entered production in October 1997, with the principal photography taking place in Maryland for eight days. About twenty hours of footage was shot and was edited down to eighty-two minutes.

The Blair Witch Project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 1999, during which a promotional marketing campaign listed the actors as either "missing" or "deceased". Owing to its successful run at Sundance, Artisan Entertainment bought the distribution rights for $1.1 million, and had an American release on July 14, 1999 before expanding to a wider release starting on July 30. While critical reception was mostly positive, the audience reception was polarized. Nevertheless, the film was regarded to have popularized the found footage film technique, which was later employed by similarly successful films such as Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. It became a resounding box office success, grossing nearly $250 million worldwide on a modest budget of $60,000, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time.

 

 

Principal photography began on October 23, 1997. Most of the film was shot in Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery County, Maryland, although a few scenes were filmed in the real town of Burkittsville. Some of the townspeople interviewed in the film were not actors, and some were planted actors, unknown to the main cast. Donahue had never operated a camera before and spent two days in a "crash course". Donahue said she modeled her character after a director she had once worked with, citing the character's "self-assuredness" when everything went as planned, and confusion during crisis.

 

During filming, the actors were equipped with a CP-16 and Hi8 video cameras provided by cinematographer Neal Fredericks, and given clues as to their next location through messages hidden inside 35 mm film cans left in milk crates found with Global Positioning Satellite systems. They were given individual instructions that they would use to help improvise the action of the day. Teeth were obtained from a Maryland dentist for use as human remains in the film. Influenced by producer Gregg Hale's memories of his military training, in which "enemy soldiers" would hunt a trainee through wild terrain for three days, the directors moved the characters a long way during the day, harassing them by night and depriving them of food.

The final scenes were filmed at the historic Griggs House, a 200-year-old building located in the Patapsco Valley State Park near Granite, Maryland. In late November 1999, the house was reportedly being flocked by fans of the film and took chunks from it as souvenir, which caused the township to order it to be demolished the following month. Filming concluded on October 31, Halloween.

 

So why did the film work?  For me, it went to a primal place.  Here is my review from August of 1999.

 

The Blair Witch Project is the personification of fear. This is a film or rather an experience that knows what it is that scares the human soul. As one reviewer so perfectly stated, this film brings back what it is that scared us as kids. And what it is that scares us are things that are naturally frightful. When you are five or six years old we are not naturally afraid of men with masks that stalk babysitters or men with hockey masks that haunt horny campers. Those are things that are taught to us by the news or by watching enough scary movies. But what we are afraid of, even though we don't know why, is the dark, strange noises in the middle of the night and our own subconscious. We are afraid to go downstairs when the lights are off because we don't know what is waiting down there to get us.

 

 

And the reason we are scared of these things is simply that it makes us think of death or extreme pain. The Blair Witch Project preys on those fears. And as long as it takes to get into those primal fears, the setup is worth the payoff. What we witness is three people that could be budds that we went to school with. They are not caked with makeup and set in the perfect light to make them Jennifer Love Hewitt or Joshua Jackson. They are three people that are tired, unshaven, hungry, cold, deprived and scared out of their minds. They are a microcosm of every single one of us put in the same situation. I have never seen a film like this one before and only a handful of times have I felt close to what I did watching this film.

 

First there was Jaws, that made me afraid the water. Halloween made me afraid of the night and Nightmare On Elm Street made me afraid to go to sleep. There are a few others that made me feel similar to this, but no movie has ever made me feel exactly the way Blair Witch did. In here you feel like what is happening is real. 8mm cameras can do that. You are watching a home video and what you can't see scares the hell out of you. We hear what they hear, we feel what they feel and we are prone to curl up in a ball and wait for the inevitable. I have seen this movie twice now. The first time I saw it for myself, the second time I saw it to watch the reactions of the people in the audience. When the nights came and all the ruckus started, people ( audience ) curled up almost into fetal positions, they grabbed onto whatever arm was next to them and their breathing became a little heavier. Male or female it didn't matter. No matter if this film is fact or fiction, it attacks everything that makes us afraid and it exploits it like perhaps no other film has ever done or will ever do. 

 

Now I have read the comments that dismiss this film as fluff and how it is not really scary, and that may be true for some people, but for the majority of the people that have seen this, it hits us with such force that it does cause you to keep the lights on at night. This is genius film making and even though it is not exactly what people would consider on par with say Citizen Kane ( only on a technical level ) you will not find a film that manipulates our senses and our primarily our fear more than this one, and on that level, this is one of the best films ever made. I can't say enough about this film. It is a psychological trip through fear.

 

It makes us feel lost and it keeps us fearing that these people will never get out alive. And it is true what people say: the last shot of this film will scare you more than any shot in the history of film. That is high praise coming from me, I grew up on horror films. You can take a shot of Michael Myers rising methodically in the background in the first Halloween, the opening death of Chrissie Watkins in Jaws, the dinner table scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the shower scene from Psycho, the boiler room scene in Nightmare On Elm Street, the scene where Hicks discovers the aliens in the ceiling from Aliens or even any one of the rape scenes in Last House On The Left ( that is some pretty select company ) and still they will not surpass the raw emotion and primal fear that you will feel in the last five minutes of this film. Blair Witch is pure fear. It should be seen by everyone at least once. If I could meet any of the five major players in this film ( the three "actors" and the two writer/directors ), I would thank them for showing me that someone hasn't forgotten how to make a scary film. This is what fear should be.

 

End of review

 

Now some of that might sound like hyperbole in 2017 and maybe it is.  But I stand by all of it.  That last shot terrified me.  When Heather sees Mike standing in the corner, I got chills.  When she falls and the camera just fades to black, I felt empty and confused. And as I said in the review, there are few films that have managed to do that and that is what makes it one of the most effective horror films of all time, imo.  It also helped that I grew up on camping and I'll tell you that when I went camping alone in June of this year, when I went to bed at night and I heard the wild life rustling in the forest behind me, I was praying that I was not going to hear a baby crying.  That's the power of this movie.  I'm 45 years old and it has stayed with me for 17 years.  

 

To create the fear that was needed from the three actors, Myrick and Sanchez told them all (before the filming commenced) that their lives or safety would never be in jeopardy but they would definitely suffer from cold, damp, hunger and fear.  Lots of fear.  In one of the more terrifying scenes, where the main actors are sleeping in a tent at night, the tent suddenly shakes violently and they all get scared. This was unscripted and the director shook the tent; the actors actually were terrified. 

 

To maintain the film's fear factor, the three main actors agreed to stay in character for the entire eight days of filming. Periodically, if an actor had to break from character, then the remaining two actors also had to break from character, but only after collectively reciting their safety word, taco.

 

The three leads believed the Blair Witch was a real legend during filming, though, of course, they knew the film was going to be fake. Only after the film's release did they discover that the entire mythology was made up by the film's creators.

The reactions from Heather, Mike and Josh, when they discover they have walked south all day and ended up in the same spot, are real; they were genuinely upset that they had walked all day for nothing.

Heather Donahue also told Fangoria Magazine that the final scene was so terrifying for her, she kept hyperventilating and crying long after the shoot was over.  

 

 

And then there was the viral marketing, which was basically invented by Myrick and Sanchez.  One of the first theatrical features to make use of a large-scale viral marketing, which claimed that the three main characters had really gone on a trip to shoot a documentary and were never found again, save for their video camera and the footage they shot. A website was posted on the Internet one year prior to the release to set up the premise of the documentary, complete with detailed reports of the search, the recovery of the trio's footage within an old cabin, reactions from their families, and expert opinions. The three actors were instructed to refrain from making public appearances. The myth wasn't debunked until after the movie's premiere, but positive word of mouth had already popularized the movie to the extent that its success completely overshadowed that of the almost simultaneously released big-budget horror movie The Haunting.

 

The actors were paid next to nothing for the film but two years later, true to their word, Myrick and Sanchez cut a check to each of them for 3 million dollars.  

 

The Blair Witch Project was one of the films that made 1999 known as the year that changed movies.

 

And finally coming in at number 13 domestically but number 9 WW is the best picture winner and one of my top 5 movies of all time.  American Beauty took in 130 million domestic and 356 million WW on a tiny budget of 15 million.  

 

American Beauty is directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a 42-year-old advertising executive who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela (Mena Suvari). Annette Bening co-stars as Lester's materialistic wife, Carolyn, and Thora Birch plays their insecure daughter, Jane. Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, and Allison Janney also feature. The film is described by academics as a satire of American middle-class notions of beauty and personal satisfaction; analysis has focused on the film's explorations of romantic, and paternal love, sexuality, beauty, materialism, self-liberation, and redemption.

 

Ball began writing American Beauty as a play in the early 1990s, partly inspired by the media circus around the Amy Fisher trial in 1992. He shelved the play after realizing the story would not work on stage. After several years as a television screenwriter, Ball revived the idea in 1997 when attempting to break into the film industry. The modified script had a cynical outlook that was influenced by Ball's frustrating tenures writing for several sitcoms. Producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen took American Beauty to DreamWorks; the then-fledgling film studio bought Ball's script for $250,000, outbidding several other production bodies. DreamWorks financed the $15 million production and served as its North American distributor. American Beauty marked acclaimed theater director Mendes' film debut; courted after his successful productions of the musicals Oliver! and Cabaret, Mendes was, nevertheless, only given the job after 20 others were considered and several "A-list" directors turned down the opportunity.

 

 

Spacey was Mendes' first choice for the role of Lester, though DreamWorks had urged the director to consider better-known actors; similarly, the studio suggested several actors for the role of Carolyn until Mendes offered the part to Bening without DreamWorks' knowledge. Principal photography took place between December 1998 and February 1999 on soundstages at the Warner Bros. backlot in Burbank, California, and on location in Los Angeles. Mendes' dominant style was deliberate and composed; he made extensive use of static shots and slow pans and zooms to generate tension. Cinematographer Conrad Hall complemented Mendes' style with peaceful shot compositions to contrast with the turbulent on-screen events. During editing, Mendes made several changes that gave the film a less cynical tone than the script.

 

One of the themes in the film is materialism of course, but it's also about keeping up appearances.  Carolyn wants everything to look perfect so that people can admire her stuff.  The tag line for this film could be "Too many people spend money they don't have to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't even like."  That is Carolyn down to the bone.  She wants the American dream so badly and she actually does have a good life, materialistically.  But her marriage is about to blow up, her daughter basically hates her and her clients don't really seem to like her all that much.  There's a great line that always makes me laugh because it's a microcosm of society today and of Carrolyn's character.  She yells at her daughter, "You ungrateful little brat!  When I was your age, I had to live in a duplex!"  I don't need to spell it out for you but living in a duplex isn't exactly a bad thing.  

 

When Lester masturbates in bed beside Carolyn, Sam Mendes asked Kevin Spacey to improvise several euphemisms for the act in each take. Mendes said, "I wanted that not just because it was funny but because I didn't want it to seem rehearsed. I wanted it to seem like he was blurting it out of his mouth without thinking. [Spacey] is so in control-I wanted him to break through." Spacey obliged, eventually coming up with 35 phrases, but Annette Bening could not always keep a straight face, which meant the scene had to be shot ten times.  This is another scene that cracks me up.

 

 

American Beauty is a satirical and angry look at middle class America and it spoke to me very loudly and very clearly.  Here is my original review from September of 1999...this was about 30 minutes after I got home from the theater.

 

I guess I am like many of the viewers in here when I say that I am having trouble putting into words how I feel about this film, because to be quite honest, no amount of praise can really help anyone understand what this movie will do to you. You can read all the glowing reviews and believe all the hype about this small, wonderfully moving movie that is making people fall in love with film all over again, but there is truly nothing that you can say or hear that will justify what this movie is all about. I really believe that this is one film that has more to say than almost any film that I can think of and it has more to give than than I thought a film could.  

 

 When I walked out of the theater I was smiling for hours and when I went to work I told all of my cronies that this is a film that will change your life. Not only is this the best film of the year, but this could really be the best movie ever made. And to consider a film to be on that level is tough for me because I believe the two best films ever made are ( in order ) Jaws and JFK. But I will seriously have to reconsider that order now that I have seen American Beauty. And now here lies the problem, how do I put into words the feelings that I feel after seeing this film? 

 

Look closer..... those are interesting words. To be quite honest I'm not sure exactly what they mean here, but I have my own theories. If you think about life and the people that are in yours and the situations that you are in every day, and if you had to look a little closer at those, then you may realize that nothing is as it seems. And perhaps that is one of the central issues here. Are the strong and confident really as robust as they appear? Are the successful and popular really as happy as they look? Is anyone really as they seem, not just in this movie but in real life. I think Kevin Spacey's portrayal of Lester Burnham is really what life should be all about. I think that of everyone in the film, he goes on the greatest journey into self awareness. He is the one that not only does the most growing but also loses and gains the most by the end of the film. But the one thing that he is at the end, is undeniably happy, there is no taking that away from him.

 

What made him wake up and learn to be happy? Perhaps for many people the answer will vary, but to me, I think he let go. That's all. He let go of all the crap that everyone worries about. And he let go because he realized how futile it is to worry. Think about it, if you worry about losing your job or if your spouse is cheating on you, does it help? Does it do any good for you? No, of course not. The situation will play itself out no matter how much you worry. So why do it? Spacey learns how to relax and not sweat the little things. He goes a little too far with it and ultimately it costs him, but along the way he learned how to live. He learns that life is a gift and one that should be taken advantage of while you're here. 

 

Perhaps this review sounds like mumbo-jumbo to those that haven't seen the film, but I can guarantee that the people that have seen this know exactly what I'm getting at. American Beauty has to be seen to be appreciated.As little faith as I have in the academy when it comes to Oscar time, you can't ignore this film. I am going to have to concur with an earlier reviewer that said that this should be nominated for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Best Script, Editing and Cinematography. This film is so rich with amazing performances and it is not just from Spacey. But it has to be said here and now; if Kevin Spacey does not win Best Actor this year then the academy is on a bad acid trip. Spacey's interpretation of Lester Burnham is so astute, so captivating, so humorous and so hauntingly real that no matter what age, sex or colour you are, you will see a bit of him in you. Lester Burnham is a microcosm of what we feel and eventually want to be. 

 

American Beauty is the best film to come out this year and without a doubt in the top ten films for all time. See this film, please see it. No matter what you read about this film, nothing can ruin it for you because there is so much in the film that someone could not tell you enough. It is a rare film that will get inside you and not leave for quite some time. It has been three days since I've seen this film and it still makes me smile. There is nothing more I can say about this movie except, go see it, you'll be glad you did. 10/10

 

My thoughts and praise has not waivered.  American Beauty is the real deal.

 

 

This is 1999