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re: Is Shawshank Redemption the best box office bomb of all time?
Posted on 7/28/20 at 6:56 pm to Dizz
Posted on 7/28/20 at 6:56 pm to Dizz
quote:
It was the perfect run time to show on TNT TBS etc. to fill in primetime viewing before either network got original shows.
Even before that, though, I remember Shawshank was featured on Pay Per View for an extremely long run.
I don’t remember exactly when PPV movies on the Tocom box took off, but I remember that preview for Shawshank playing on The Prevue Channel for what seemed like a year...”I order you to serve two life sentences back to back”.
I know PPV movies and Prevue Channel were around earlier in the 90s because I remember a few other previews from earlier movies, notably Highlander II The Quickening in 91 because I watched that many times , and Jacob’s Ladder (another Robbins flick) in 90 because it always creeped me out something fierce, but I think that mid 90s to early 2000s run before TiVo and DVR came around was probably peak influence for ordering new releases on cable instead of going to Blockbuster and Shawshank was right at the front of that era.
For you youngsters that don’t remember the Prevue Channel, you could spend hours watching that scroll looking for a specific channel, then look away for a few seconds and miss it and have to wait for another round You’d usually just end up ordering a movie after an hour or so of that, and Shawshank was always a go to in 1995.
I think that’s where it really became the hit that it was, and that’s why TNT paid to basically play it on a loop for a decade or so.
All about The Prevue Channel
This post was edited on 7/28/20 at 7:25 pm
Posted on 7/28/20 at 8:18 pm to jlovel7
I honestly thought it was a made for TV movie through TNT for the longest time...seemed like it aired exclusively on TNT for years
Posted on 7/28/20 at 9:17 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:
this slot should go to the original
This post was edited on 7/28/20 at 9:19 pm
Posted on 7/28/20 at 9:39 pm to jlovel7
My vote would go to John Carpenter s The Thing.... it bombed too but unlike Shawshank the critics werent too fond of it at the time either. Now its regarded as one of the best Sci Fi movies ever made.
Posted on 7/28/20 at 9:43 pm to OMLandshark
Think i've heard before that 1947's 'It's a Wonderful Life' was not that big a deal when it was in the theaters & quite a few yrs afterwards wasn't shown much. Of course we all know that 73 yrs later it's shown in prime time around Christmas every yr.
Posted on 7/28/20 at 9:51 pm to Magnum73
quote:
Think i've heard before that 1947's 'It's a Wonderful Life' was not that big a deal when it was in the theaters & quite a few yrs afterwards wasn't shown much.
I think it became public domain so was shown non-stop around Christmas and then became popular.
Same with Shawshank, TNT got the rights and showed it every Saturday for years and then it became popular.
Posted on 7/28/20 at 10:59 pm to RollTide1987
Oh wow - I haven’t seen that one - I’ll put it on my list
Posted on 7/28/20 at 11:43 pm to mizzoubuckeyeiowa
It’s not public domain, but NBC (Universal) started showing it a lot to where it ensured its legacy. I turn it onto NBC every Christmas Eve for that.
Posted on 7/28/20 at 11:46 pm to jlovel7
When John Carter came out it bombed pretty hard, but from I can tell it’s a pretty enjoyable movie that most people who watched it enjoyed.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 2:38 am to jlovel7
My godfather has a theory that it flopped at the box office because of its title.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 7:48 am to lsu1919
94, 96, 98
Too many good movies in thosw years
Too many good movies in thosw years
Posted on 7/29/20 at 8:27 am to LuckyTiger
quote:
My godfather has a theory that it flopped at the box office because of its title.
I think the film bombed due to the lack of women. It was a movie set in a prison. There were 54 credited actors in The Shawshank Redemption and only four of them were women, all of whom had very brief bit parts. It was a big sausage fest. Also, the two primary actors in the film really doesn't have leading man looks. So women wouldn't be interested in watching the film because there's no female characters or attractive leading men and younger males wouldn't be interested because there's no women to oogle over. Plus the film was rated R so it wasn't a film that people could take their entire family to watch. There was a very limited targeted audience for the film.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 8:43 am to LuckyTiger
quote:
My godfather has a theory that it flopped at the box office because of its title.
Honestly, that was part of it for me. You have to put yourself into the mind of someone who knew nothing about the source material, not even who wrote it. Combine that with a trailer like this:
Shawshank trailer
I had the impression that it was about some religious experience or similar. And at the time that was a huge turnoff.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 9:02 am to RollTide1987
quote:
That's because William Randolph Hearst
He's the reason Weed is illegal
Posted on 7/29/20 at 9:11 am to jlovel7
It didn't transfer well to a trailer.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 10:29 am to lsu1919
quote:
I would also add that in 94 you had Travolta and Bruce Willis staring in Pulp Fiction, against basically Tim Robbins. M
Travolta’s career was on life support when pulp fiction came out. Pulp fiction revived it.
He wasn’t a box office draw.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 1:23 pm to OMLandshark
Definitely agree with Blade Runner 2049 and Scott Pilgrim.
Annihilation was meh in my opinion.
Annihilation was meh in my opinion.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 5:34 pm to Bench McElroy
Wasn’t Tim Robbins like the fifth choice or something for the role of Andy Dufresne?
Robbins was outstanding in the role but a lack of star power, leading man may have also contributed.
Robbins was outstanding in the role but a lack of star power, leading man may have also contributed.
Posted on 7/29/20 at 5:35 pm to LuckyTiger
quote:
My godfather has a theory that it flopped at the box office because of its title.
This is exactly the reason Morgan Freeman gave. He said word of mouth is the most important thing. People couldn’t remember what it was called after they saw it to tell people. Source: Graham Norton show.
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