But it’s hard to imagine one since the advent of sound that rattled the foundations of Hollywood more than “Easy Rider.” There have been surprise hits since there have been movies. It ended up grossing the equivalent today of around $250 million in the U.S., behind only “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “Midnight Cowboy.” Not bad, but sensational compared to its initial budget (around $3 million at 2019 rates). Withholding it from general audiences added to interest at a time when moviegoers were aware that for some movies they either needed to travel some distance or wait. ![]() “Easy Rider” didn’t go into wider release in most places for nearly six months after its its initial New York premiere. A movie about motorcycles and hippies? Lower level exploitation fare. That was a sea change, and something impossible to imagine without the precedent of “Bonnie and Clyde” (originally slated as a drive-in release by Warner Bros.). The other two? “A Man for All Seasons” and “The Lion in Winter.”īack then theater placement was everything. Similarly at its September dates in Chicago the movie showed at the fashionable Esquire Theater, becoming one of only three films to play four months or longer in the previous five years. “Easy Rider” was an immediate success, and played for a then-record five months. They set the film with Cinema 5, then a savvy and trendy Manhattan exhibitor, at their upper east side Beekman Theater, known for playing foreign language films. When Columbia marketers were faced with a movie needing careful attention, they delivered. A handful of prestigious A movies for adults opened in top central city movie palaces or other large auditorium single-screen theaters on staggered dates, with higher ticket prices, and exclusive runs before slowly going wider in different stages to less centralized theaters. In the late 60s, the studios gave different kinds of movies different releases. Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda in “Easy Rider” Columbia/Kobal/Shutterstock Columbia’s marketing and release strategy Strong reviews out of Cannes gave the film some serious cred. The jury, presided over by Luchino Visconti as well as Hollywood mainstays Sam Spiegel and Stanley Donen, awarded “Easy Rider” the minor “best first film” prize. ![]() The film’s entourage walked up the red carpet not dressed to festival code, but they got in and grabbed major press. Then to the studio’s surprise, “Easy Rider” was selected for the Competition by the venerable Cannes Film Festival, which had shut down early in 1968 parallel to the French student and worker unrest, and was under siege as out of touch and closed to new ideas. Hopper, the one-time James Dean costar Hopper (“Rebel Without a Cause,” “Giant”), was struggling with rebellious bad guy supporting roles, including westerns like 1969’s “True Grit.” His most frequent work was guest spots on TV westerns.Ĭolumbia managed to edit the troubled movie into a presentable 94-minute feature. ![]() Columbia was already backing co-producer Bert Schneider, who had family ties with the studio, as well as a limited output deal for low-budget projects.Īfter Roger Corman’s “The Wild Angels” became a sleeper hit, grossing the equivalent of over $100 million on an under (adjusted) $2 million budget, Columbia reluctantly greenlit the “Easy Rider” script about hippie motorcyclists on a cross-country journey starring co-writer Peter Fonda, who before “Angels” was not a top draw, and rookie director Dennis Hopper, who also shared writing credit with novelist Terry Southern. “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls,” Peter Biskind’s excellent history of the transitional post-studio era Hollywood world, recounts the film’s full production history. ![]() That film was “Easy Rider.” “Easy Rider” Columbia Cannes Production takes an average of about eighteen months to adjust to changing tastes, and some early 1969 releases reflected the new spirit of the times, such as X-rated “Midnight Cowboy” which was still rooted enough in conventional drama to win the Best Picture Oscar. But these films were not outsider outlaws that challenged the status quo. In the mid 1960s, the studios were still relying on big-budget musicals (“The Sound of Music”), international spy thrillers (James Bond) and spectacles (“The Bible” and “Hawaii”).ġ968 was an outstanding year for studio output: “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Bullitt” and “Planet of the Apes” were among the year’s top grossers. ‘Fast X’ Opening Meets Box-Office Expectations, but at What Cost? Good timingīoth 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate” were cultural game changers that started to break down Hollywood’s working paradigms.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |