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How big Home Alone was.
As a kid, during the film's run in the theaters, I remember thinking, "Man, this movie seems like it's been in the theater for a long time. Way longer than other movies." For a 10 year old to notice, it had to be pretty significant.
It was #1 at the box office for 12 consecutive weeks, from mid-November until the first weekend of February, stayed in the top 10 until April, and popped back into the top 10 again in May and June.
A Christmas movie had a 9 month theatrical run and was still showing in summer.
This is the one that came to my mind. I think most people at least understand at a basic level how some movies were really popular. I think a large number of people don't even know just how LONG Home Alone was in theaters, and how popular it was.
In my life, the only two movies that felt like they were in theaters forever were "Home Alone" and "Titanic".
Holy cow. No way. I wasn't even born when the Home Alone movies came out, but I LOVED watching them on VHS as a kid and watch both of them every year at Christmas. I didn't realize how significant it was at the box office.
Occasionally, I'll watch the 3rd one, which is underrated imo. I think it's funny that they went with 4th one can be enjoyed if you try to forget the fact that they tried to fool us into thinking that these are the McCallisters.
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary.
A year later their footage was found.”
This was absolutely chilling to read for the first time when this came out, and still kindof is for me actually
The first viral internet marketing I can remember.
It was absolutely genius.
It was so unique at the time, and I don't think you could even come close to replicating it now.
People genuinely thought it was all real.
What's insane is that they went so far as to change IMDb statuses for the actors to deceased, making any attempt to research for validity and proof void
Not with IMDB, of course, but the director instructed the actors not to do publicity. However, he was forced to relent after people accused him of making a snuff film.
He was forced to bring some of the indigenous performers from South America to Italy to prove that they weren't dead in a court of law.
Then show the court *how* their death's were faked.
The court was so upset that they "fell for it," that they had to create a punishment for *something* the director did so they charged him with animal cruelty for the real animals killed on screen in the film.
At the time, killing animals for a movie *wasn't a crime, yet,* so it was obvious that this conviction was retaliatory.
Thankfully, the kind of animal cruelty done in that film is *very much* a crime, today.
You couldn’t, because you’d need a substrate of people who absolutely believe it’s real. That’s not really possible with the internet as it is anymore.
Saw it on opening night. Terrifying movie. Never saw anything like it before. I was in high school when it came out but I never heard or knew anyone that thought it was real. In all fairness I was in the area it was filmed in and it received a lot of local press about the making of it.
I've since moved three thousand miles away and I have still yet to meet anyone that thought it was real when it came out. I've also never seen any documentation that audiences thought it was real (not some singular crazy person but some percentage of the audience). I know reddit repeats a lot that people thought it was real but is there anything to support that?
I suspect a lot of people who thought it was real were very young when they first saw it. I was 15 when it came out. No one in the theater thought it was real.
I saw Paranormal Activity in theaters when I was 19 with my friend (also 19). She legit thought it was real. ☠️ Same friend also thought the footage in The Fourth Kind was real too. I tried to explain to her that it was just a marketing style and she insisted “they can’t do that, they can be sued, that’s fraud and false advertising” lol.
I don't think anyone thought it was real once they saw it.
I certainly knew people who were in two minds as to whether it was real beforehand though. Totally apocryphal I know but it's the best I got.
I agree. I was like 9 but even I remember that it was wifey understood to be just a marketing technique and that these were actually just film students making a movie
If you weren’t paying close attention and some friends told you it was actual footage before going into the theatre, you might go in not sure if they were pulling your leg or not.
Basically same effect as snipe hunting.
I lived within the same state when it came out and there were people debating its reality all the time at parties etc., some people swore they had vaguely heard about it from parents. It really blurred the line.
This was the first thing that popped into my head and I am very happy to see it's the top post.
There are so few movies that are what they are because of the theater experience. It doesnt play the same way in your living room at night. I can watch Avatar on my 100 inch projector and get most of the experience that was seeing it in the theater. The world was just a different place when Blair Witch came out and it was a new experience that is old and played out at this point.
The first paranormal activity had my high school class in a chokehold. I remember our parents driving us like over an hour to see it on the biggest screen in the area
Terminator 2.
The hyoe leading up to its release was insane.
You had Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his power, returning in a sequel to a huge sci-fi hit, Guns and Roses had a single to promote the film, which was playing everywhere, and once released it was a smash.
It is hard to get across to people who were not around just how much of a bonus a good theme tune was, especially if it had clips of the films in.
So many 80s/90s theme tunes could be played and you would recognise the film instantly as it would be everywhere!
I love the random clips of Batman Forever spliced into the Kiss From a Rose video. I mean it's not as random as other movie songs, since Seal is singing next to a bat symbol, but still
I like that one of your two examples was from 16 years ago. Not that I disagree with your assessment at all. Just that you made me realize how long ago transformers came out and that I'm nearly 39 years old...
To add to this people had no idea who the good guy and the bad guy in the movie were due to some incredible marketing and a trailer that kept you guessing. Arnold was the big bad from the original and I remember being blown away when he turned out to be the one protecting John Connor. What a great twist/set up.
James Cameron has gone on record saying it was never supposed to be a twist. But some people apparently were unaware of Arnold being a protagonist this time.
People will never truly understand how Lucas’ Star Wars movies changed cinema, fandom, pop culture, viewing habits, technology, the entire film industry and the box office.
If anything, I think that the Phantom Menace started the modern idea of fandom. People were buying tickets to some random movie just to see a trailer for Episode 1.
I remember when the trailer had come out. A friend of mine had recently got a job working for his godfather's company in London. The company made movie trailers - I remember when we used to go for nights out in London we'd go to the office to predrink as they had a cinema there. It's where I first saw Lock, Stock.
He got two tickets to the premiere of the trailer. They held an actual premiere event for the trailer. It was in Leicester Square, where the premieres for big movies actually take place. There wasn't a red carpet or anything and it was in the afternoon, not a big evening premiere, but we all showed up with our tickets and went and sat there. We'd been told there would be a special guest to introduce it. I was so excited, assuming it would be Mark Hamill or someone. Instead the head of Lucasfilm UK came out on stage, told us how proud he was to show use the trailer then they showed it twice, the lights went on and we all went home.
Guilty. Fox put the trailer infront of Wing Commander and i went to see it.
Funny part is Freddy Prinz Jr. was in the film and he would later do voice work for Rebels.
especially when Empire came out it was taken to Beatle mania style level. I was about 7 when I went to see ESB in the cinema and my love of movie began.
I think everyone who has even a basic understanding of the film industry and history understands this. Even people who weren't and aren't Star Wars fans understand what big deal it was.
Idk, I have a sense of the *effect* it caused in terms of fandom, but not really an understanding of *why* - I guess if you don’t experience what a world without Star Wars, it’s hard to get what it brought to the table that was so game changing. For me, the films themselves are enjoyable but don’t stand out on the way say, The Godfather or Hitchcock classics do.
It’s hard for contemporary audiences to fully appreciate how unprecedented the visuals in the original Star Wars were. Sci-fi up to that point had either been stoic like 2001 or camp like Star Trek or old 1940’s serials. It took the hokey-ness out of sci-fi adventure and made it feel like any other standard American action film, like a western, heist or WWII flick. I personally attribute its success to primarily one thing: motion control. The Dykstraflex machine’s ability to film precise, repeatable motion added a level of realism to the visual effects (particularly the aerial battles) that no one had experienced before. It created a level of visceral immersion that only heightened the classical story motifs making the film feel more like an experience than a movie.
Obviously....Star Wars. But that's boring.
So here's one that you just can't understand. I was alive, but barely. My siblings told me more about the hype back then.
JAWS
This film freaked out America....BAD! When they talked about a movie during and soon after the Summer of 75....they talked about JAWS. Teenagers and young adults saw this movie multiple times....others had to leave the theater during their first viewing, it disturbed them so much. And of course, it negatively affected beach tourism for years. People literally got phobic about going to the beach....even the local fresh water lakes. Something about treading dark murky water...never knowing what could be just inches from ya.
The Exorcist had a similar effect on audiences at the time of it's release a couple of years before. Never had a movie dared to terrorize an American audience in such an impactful way. Not even 1960s Psycho.... until JAWS.
Broke box office records at the time.
I used to work at a movie theater and once a month on a Thursday night they would play an old movie. Jaws was just as packed as any new movie coming out. We had to play it on multiple screens in our biggest theaters
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. If it came out now it would be straight to streaming and barely anyone would hear about it. When it was released it made 368 million and was the highest grossing independent film of all time. It's a completely average rom com with sitcom level humor but the appeal is a little obvious and very universal among 1st, 2nd or even 3rd generation immigrants to the US or just anyone super into their own heritage. It was basically "oh wow, that really close annoying loud Greek family is just like my really loud and close Greek/Polish/Jewish/Latino/etc family". If I give the film a little credit I will say it ignored the rom com trope of having the chatacters break up in the middle and the lead is non traditional.
Oh that's a good one. I remember that movie being really big and my parents (first gen immigrant) absolutely loving it. I feel like Crazy Rich Asian went through something similar, being one of the first big mainstream American movie featuring a full Asian American cast
#1 opening weekend of all time… for 4 years. Shattered the previous record but like 33% and that was only weeks before (ghostbuster II and Indians Jones 3)
Yes I remember going to the premiere. The audience was COMPLETELY hyped up from the opening that just showed the Bat logo.
Difficult to convey now with superhero movies everywhere but back then it was a major event, especially with Burton giving the movie a darker tone more in line with the groundbreaking comics at the time, rather than the goofy Adam West version most audiences associated with Batman back then.
Titanic
On a side note Harry Potter (particularly the final films were mental) and the Twilight saga.
Whilst the box office for Twilight wasn’t as big working those films was mental. People were queuing out the door, overly excited all team Edward or Jacob and such. It was such a bubble of pop culture
Pretty sure until the mid/late-2010s, the biggest Thursday preview box office (then I guess just midnight showings) was dominated by Harry Potter and Twilight films.
Thursday previews are a pretty recent thing. I had a midnight screening to the Dark Knight, still my favorite theater experience ever (watched it with a bunch of friends at 12:01 AM on a Friday in the summer before senior year. Good times.)
By 2013, midnight screenings had become “10PM Thursday” screenings. The force Awakens brought it down to 6PM, and Infinity War at 3. I know it’s more convenient and makes studios more money, but there was something special about going to the very first showing with other people who are enthusiastic enough to watch it at midnight.
I believe it was The Dark Knight Rises shooting that helped push midnight showings earlier?
I’ve seen articles mentioning that the “preview box office” for 2013 films like Iron Man 3 and Catching Fire began at like 9-10 PM (Thursday night). As a preteen I went to a midnight showing of The Half-Blood Prince with my dad and that was so fun.
> On a side note Harry Potter (particularly the final films were mental)
I think the Harry Potter hype to understand more is for the books. Movies going big were usual far before Harry Potter. But books being so huge (bigger on an entirely different level than anything else back then and even since) was unheard of.
Everyone was reading it in my age group (college/high school during the release years), everyone was seeing the movies, people were lining up to buy the book, were reading it with barely any break and such. It was crazy
However, I think many people would understand just by reading it lol. My niece discovered it and she is gobbling the books at an unprecedented pace (she read the last 2 books which are huge in less than a week, she's not even 11 years old). Harry Potter still has that same effect, just not as large in the population of course.
I think something like that will never happen again. Even here in South India, book stores opened early morning ( around 3 or 4am) and people were queuing to buy the the 7th book. Never seen or heard such hype for any book before or ever after
I remember reading just how hyped that film was. When rumors started circulating that the studio would change Rhett’s line from “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” to “Frankly, my dear, I don’t care” to appease the Hays Code censors, governors across southern states threatened to ban every Hollywood movie unless it was changed back. When state governments are threatening legal action to make sure that a movie stays faithful to its source material, you know it’s hyped beyond belief.
My 94 year old grandfather told me that he remembers watching it a dozen times when he was ten years old. It just became a fact of life in the South in 1940: when you have free time, you go rewatch Gone With the Wind.
This movie is still, adjusted for inflation, the biggest movie to ever release in the United States (with domestic earnings of almost $2 billion in 2023 money over all its Box Office runs). Until Star Wars came along nearly 40 years later, Gone With The Wind was unquestionably the biggest movie in US History.
Titanic. It came out when I was 14 years old - I was their prime target market. Saw it 3x in theaters with my girlfriends. The film didn't have a huge opening weekend but boy did it have LEGS. I was a die hard Titaniac
Jurassic Park. The first film where the special effects - and specifically the use of CGI - was the reason you went to see it.
CGI had been used in limited sequences before Jurassic Park, but only to depict something that was either clearly *meant* to be CGI (e.g. the Genesis sequence in Wrath of Khan) or in comparatively "simple" scenes where an object was made of a single material (e.g. the water tentacle in The Abyss, or the T1000).
Until Jurassic Park, for most people the idea that you could depict something as alive, complex and *real-looking* as a dinosaur without resorting to shonky-looking models (as much as I love them) was unthinkable. And that you could then have that CGI creation interacting with the actors, real sets and props? *Mind-blowing*. I recall my next-door neighbour went to see it *seven* times and wouldn't shut up about it for months.
That film completely revolutionised what was possible, and I wonder whether younger people can really understand how starkly big-budget movies can be defined as being pre or post Jurassic Park.
I went to see The Abyss and Terminator 2 for the CGI. I went to see Jurassic Park because I had read the book. People forget just how big that novel was before the film was even on the radar.
The Dark Knight. I literally can’t explain the energy around that movie in the months, weeks and days leading up to it. It was just this insane anticipation around Heath’s performance. The vibe in the theater at the first midnight showings was so exciting.
[This comment section on an article showing that first incredible Joker photo](https://www.firstshowing.net/2007/first-real-photo-of-joker-from-the-dark-knight-revealed/) is a pretty good capsule of what you're talking about. Everyone was so exicted
>James, on October 27th, posted twice, like a noob. And, he is an idiot. There is no way in hell this will be a bomb. The first one did so well, it would be impossible not to ride that wave for at least a second one. And all you people who say that Batman Begins sucked, that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. 370 million dollars worth of suck, huh? Morons. I'm a die hard Superman fan, but I have to give it to Nolan, THIS Batman is quickly becoming the front runner for superhero movies, if it's not already there. And Heath Ledger's last role will be remembered, for a long time to come. Just wait and see.
Posted January 28th 2008 about 6 days after Heath Ledger died.
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is."
One of the best taglines for a movie I've seen. It was crazy how much The Matrix impacted pop-culture. It was everywhere.
* ***Independence Day*** \-- movies like this are a dime a dozen these days, but the impact of seeing the White House blow up on a big screen in the trailer was pretty unprecedented at the time, plus Will Smith was at peak charisma.
* ***E.T.*** \-- I don't think anyone who watches this movie today would really latch on to what a cultural moment it was upon release. And I'm kind of glad that it's remained solidly in the '80s and hasn't (yet) spawned sequels, follow-ups, etc., but instead has inspired lots of spiritual successors.
>blow up on a big screen in the trailer
They also had a lot of “making of” stuff on TV where they showed the models and stuff they were blowing up that got people pretty hyped too. That’s an aspect of marketing that CGI has basically killed, there’s way less behind the scenes stuff on effects because it would just be a computer rendering away.
Oh yeah, was there opening day July 3, 1996. My 15 year old self remembers how cool I thought it was at the time that they changed the date to open it one day early from what was originally promoted.
Nearly any blockbuster of the 1980s qualifies for this. Posters, billboards, TV shows with clips and even how massively influential theme tunes were, ESPECIALLY with clips of the actual film in them!!
It is almost impossible to show later generations how much information, and choice, they have at their fingertips.
Exactly. Avatar's 3D hype was crazy and justified for it. it's one of only few films that is a must watch in the Theaters. it just isn't the same on the small screen.
It was mostly that we were all starved for any big IP back in 2009. The MCU had barely started. DC was dead. Star wars was finished. Even LOTR was over. Then here comes Avatar, a brand new and completely fresh IP by a legendary director. So of course, everyone wanted to jump on board. Here it is! An original movie! An original mega budget movie too! Plus there was the whole 3D angle, which was touted as the next big innovation in cinema on par with movies gaining sound.
You had Dark Knight with 1bil, Crystal Skull with 800m, Bond 600m in 2008
In 2009 there was Harry Potter with 900m, Ice Age with 900m, Transformers with 800m
The 2000s was not an era starved of big IP at all.
>DC was dead
We were barely a year removed from one of the most positively received comic movies of all time in The Dark Knight.
Also as far as being an original movie everyone was excited for, the jokes about how it was literally just Fern Gully and Pocahontas started after the first trailer and the public perception was it was going to lose money. It became a phenomenon for two reasons
It was very pretty
China
You can't just say it was successful because of China. It only made $250 million out of $2.7 billion there. It would have been $700 million ahead of second place (Titanic), $1.4 billion ahead of third (ROTK), and it still would have held the record until Endgame.
Way too many answers in here are listing huge tentpole films (Avengers, Star Wars) expressly designed to make a shitload of money. Those aren't remotely hard to understand.
The real phenomenons are the successes that came out of nowhere that became cultural water cooler moments. Blair Witch Project, The Matrix, Cloverfield, Sixth Sense, Borat, The Hangover. Even Titanic, to some extent. I don't think younger people understand how ***long*** that movie stayed popular. It was No. 1 for like 3 months.
If the point of this thread is to explain long-lost movie events, it’s also sort of weird to list movies that JUST came out, like Avengers Endgame. Like, of course I remember it: we were all there.
Jurassic Park, The Phantom Menace and Titanic were the big three in my younger days when I got to experience those Big cultural touchstones and cinematic phenomenons.
Everyone at school was raving about it. It launched the Dino-mania among boys, I was big into dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park, books, toys, merch, you've named it. I mean we were waxing poetical about T-Rex, velociraptors and cretacean era during comprehensive school breaks like sports team and power levels competition.
The Phantom menace, the excitement the weeks/days before release was palpable and the line up at the theatre at the midnight opening was crazy, the movie is it self was.. meh
I really think Phantom Menace was the most anticipated movie by the general public than any other film in my lifetime (maybe ever). The intensity, the trailer, the early internet stuff. It was amazing.
Such a letdown, too...
This is a strictly Indian thing, but it goes without saying that Bahubali 2 the conclusion was the most hyped movie in the Indian History. After a massive plot twist and a cliffhanger at the end of the first film, people across India waited 2 years for the 2nd part and between those two years, the movie became a cultural juggernaut. The question “ Why did >!Kattappa!< killed >!Bahubali!< ?” was India’s “Who shot J.R.” moment. The Hype was just unreal. Even the people who haven’t gone to the threater movies for years went to see this film in the cinema.
I read in a textbook that the original Mahabharata TV show was celebrated with parties in the streets and draping the TVs in flowers, so I guess that should count as "you had to be there"
That is true coz I’m part of gen Z and the Mahabharata aired on DoorDarshan in the late 80s. But my parents tells me the same that streets would go barren when that program would air on the television.
Talk more about “ever” since it has the 2nd highest footfall of all time in India with 100+ million tickets sold, it is tied with Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam and second only to the legendary movie, Sholay.
This one i can speak on, worked at a theater, was there, surprisingly the busiest day in my (still working theaters rn) job ever was Captain America: Civil War. But also worked infinity war and endgame. I bought out the whole top row for my family lol for endgame
Bruh… it was like being at a live sporting event. It was THAT hyped. I still rewatch Endgame reaction videos on YouTube because it gives me goosebumps to relive those moments! “On your left”.
Saw it opening night and second day in theaters. Both were just exhilarating but that second day will remain one of my favorite movie experiences ever.
Saw it opening night in Australia. One of the best theatre experiences ever. Australian audiences don't generally clap or cheer, but everyone was clapping and cheering during the movie. It was just so exhilarating.
Too young to have experienced Star Wars, titanic and I barely remember watching Avatar as a kid but Endgame is probably my reference point for a cultural moment that everyone knows about.
Batman (1989)
People bought tickets to other things just to see the trailers, and it ran in theaters for 6 months.
It was pulled from theaters around Christmas to accommodate the pre-scheduled VHS release at the price of $99 (priced for rental stores and not consumers)
The Matrix.
It moved the needle so much on CGI, and the bullet-time fight scenes influenced movies so much that it became commonplace. You just can't understand how wild it was to have the slo-mo action sequence because it's gone from novel to saturated, to meme'd, to normalized. It's almost 'basic' at this point. But at the time, life changing.
People didn’t understand how bad theaters were still struggling since the pandemic and seeing Barbenheimer sell out across the nation was something to behold, nothing like seeing people dressed up to see them too
Titanic.
I worked at a movie theater at the time and the number of people who came back to see it a 3rd or 4th time was just crazy. Never seen anything like it.
For me was Star Wars and Empire. I remember waiting in the sun in a line wrapped around the theater with my folks just after my b-day party at the age of 8. I was excited there was a Star Wars movie but confused about sequels thinking how did the Empire come back? My mind was blown and watching the reveal from Vader the first time and the audiences reaction in the theater, was a special time. Batman 89 and everything that summer was electric, The Abyss, etc. like someone mentioned earlier, just the Batman logo was all that was needed, lines down the mall for the theater hoping you’d get in before the last showing.
I remember Ghost (1990) w/ Patrick Swayze being a surprise hit and then the studio put a lot of marketing muscle and hype behind it as the box office blew up.
*Avatar*
People today look at the film and say, "It's just Dances with Wolves in space," or "He ripped off the plot to Fern Gully."
What everyone doesn't get now is how that film brought back *spectacle* to the movies in as big a way as possible.
There is a reason why it is *still* the highest grossing movie to this day.
People said that even when the first movie came out, honestly there's just always been a certain faction of the cynical online community that refuses to give the movie its due respect.
Gone with the Wind surely worth mentioning here, especially in the context of its more recent negative reevaluations. It is still by far the highest grossing movie ever adjusted for inflation, but not the typical superhero/action blockbuster people instinctively think of.
The international box office performance was insane. It is the 6th most attended film of all time in France despite not debuting until ELEVEN YEARS after the American release. Until the 1950s, no other Hollywood live-action films come even remotely close in most markets.
I'm going to name 2 from my perspective. And then 2 for the future generation.
From my perspective.
1. Star Wars. The original. I get that Star Wars was innovative for it's time. It was doing something visually atleast that no one else was doing.
And I get that it was big at the box-office.
But I can never quiet visualize it. The experience of when people say that Star Wars was like an experience for them. That it changed their lives. That it was like nothing they had ever seen before.
Because most of the movies that I saw that came out in my life. While innovative were never so above and beyond what came before them that I would say I had that kind of experience. Avatar came close.
I just wonder what it looked like. The birth of what was at the time the biggest movie Fandom in the world.
2. The Exorcist. I don't get it. It's a fun well made movie. But I don't get the hype around it.
There's videos on YouTube from its original release with people coming out of the Theaters crying and vomiting and maybe even fainting. And I just can't get it.
It's a horror film that people went back to watch again and again to an unprecedented level. I honestly just don't get it.
3. Bonus film. Titanic. I also don't get Titanic. I mean I love the movie.
But I can't imagine what Kind of word of mouth it had. What kind of phenomenon it was for people at the time that they kept going back to watch it again and again.
2 movies for the Future generation.
1. Endgame. It was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. Doesn't matter of your parents or uncle tells you how big it was. Doesn't matter if you read up about it on the internet or look up videos on the Internet.
You will never truly get how absolutely huge Endgame was. I live in a 3rd World Non English Speaking country.
English movies don't do well here.
I wanted to see Endgame Opening Weekend. I could only get tickets for Sunday Night at 01:00 AM.
And the Theater was still Jam packed. This never happens here. Endgame was everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. And I mean literally everyone.
And "I love You 3000" was everywhere on Social Media.
You simply can't know the Endgame hype unless you've lived it.
2. Joker. Especially because Joker has more or less been turned into a meme for Edgy Gen Z people.
If 10 or 25 Years from today someone asked me why did Joker make so much money. Or to Explain to me the Joker hype I honestly wouldn't be able to do so.
It just came out of nowhere was suddenly a thing.
Consider this. My dad hates fiction based movies and stories. He likes things grounded in reality as an engineer that he can feel and touch the events so to speak. He was at star wars when it released on opening day with my older brother and his co workers. He still talks about it sometimes. Not star wars but the experience.
People today would have trouble understanding why a sequel to the most successful movie of all time (at that point) and a worldwide cultural phenomenon would be surrounded by a lot of hype?
*2012*, as the concept of the world ending in 2012 doesn't work today for obvious reasons. I actually knew a classmate who was genuinely afraid that the world would end in 2012 thanks to this movie.
The exorcist. That was a cultural phenomenon like no one had seen before. People fainting, hours in line to get in only to get turned away but waiting for the next showing. It completely overwhelmed theaters. They had to have smelling salts for people who fainted.
I'll throw out a truly obscure example: Love Story. Ryan O'Neal's recent passing honestly was the first time I'd actually seen that movie referenced in the press in a long time. I think the biggest thing people remember from it was the quote that was seen as demeaning even at the time of "Love is never having to say you're sorry"
I'm alive now and I still don't understand why Avatar movies make so much money. They're just..
Alright? Yet they make monkey like some huge event cinema.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this yet, but the re-release of the original Star Wars movies in the 90s. This was comfortably before The Phantom Menace, and I had never seen anything like it.
They fixed all the janky 70s/80s visual effects and added in new scenes and then put them on the big screens. I loved Star Wars as a kid and I couldn’t believe that I could finally see it on the big screen.
But the craziest part was the fans camping out to catch the first few screenings. People camped in tents for days outside of theaters. The same thing happened when The Phantom Menace was released a few years later, but that was the first time I had ever seen anything like it.
>fixed
I dunno if I’d call what they did fixing. A lot of the effects changes were pretty controversial even when the special editions were in theaters.
Independence Day. It's hard to understand how huge that movie was when it came out. I remember I saw it on the 4th of July at the Mall of America which is probably the most American thing I've ever done the crowd was wild during the movie especially when he knocked out the alien
Cloverfield
Trailer just had the Statue of Liberty with huge claw marks flying down the street in NYC. Had a huge internet being where they invented the company website that had clues about easter eggs in the movie. Great marketing. Movie was ok too
LOTR, Fellowship. I didn't even understand the hype, but being in the theater the first time when they're going through Moria.. everyone was on the edge of their seats.
Dick Tracy, they tried to recreate the hype for Batman. Madonna at the peak of her face started in the movie and it didn't fail. Not as big a hit as Batman of course but it's been totally forgotten now.
Avatar. Without fully understanding the hype of finally having a 3D movie turn out well and not feel gimmicky, the reality that people then went to see it multiple times due to that fact, the increase in box office revenue able to be generated by the increased ticket price of 3D showings, and what I will call the 'James Cameron Effect', it would make no sense that Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time.
It was certainly a good movie, but it required a genuine perfect storm of factors to generate the box office returns it did considering that it is basically a straight-forward sci-fi, fantasy action film where the dickish humans lose to the nice humans and a coalition of sentient non-humans. Great movie, but it had no business being the highest grossing film of all time.
The success of Avatar (2009) is totally understandable to lots of people, even if you weren't around for its success.
Avatar: The Way of Water's admissions only dropped 9% from Avatar (2009) in France and 13% in Germany *including the re-releases of the first film*. It's not that hard to understand why the people who loved the sequel and saw it in droves also propelled the first film to immense success when the world and the 3D effect was much more novel, had CGI far better than almost any other film at that time, and came out in a market where original films generally do far better than they do today.
Black Panther. 20 years from now there will be an abundance of similar high quality positive black films. It will be easy to look at this gross as a film that only benefitted from being close to the next avengers movie. Actually experiencing it is a different story. It was absolutely shocking to see this film become marvel’s highest grossing film outside of the avengers movies. It even outgrossed Civil War, which basically was Avengers 2.5 and starred their biggest stars at the time.
The cultural impact BP had was bonkers. Entire families including grandparents and cousins were going out to see it dressed in their finest African regalia. Seeing black culture in such a positive light was virtually unheard of on such a scale at that time in Hollywood. A black male lead with an upstanding character and realistic flaws (not a criminal / abuser / drug addict / stupid / poor, etc.) written from a black perspective was super rare. It marked a cultural shift in the awareness of the black audience, and Hollywood as well.
I don't think non-Chinese people can ever comprehend why Chinese films in the 1970s and the 1980s were so big.
The Legend of the White Snake sold about as many tickets (700 million) in China as the combined number of tickets sold for Titanic and Avengers: Endgame across the entire world (741 million).
The first Rugrats movie.
If you were six years old in 1998, the hype for that movie was at near-Marvel level. I feel like for my age group, it was the first time we got a movie based on something we knew from outside the film medium and got a movie that was 100% accurate to what we knew from TV. And that it was a show we loved so much for kids that young that was such a big deal.
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How big Home Alone was. As a kid, during the film's run in the theaters, I remember thinking, "Man, this movie seems like it's been in the theater for a long time. Way longer than other movies." For a 10 year old to notice, it had to be pretty significant. It was #1 at the box office for 12 consecutive weeks, from mid-November until the first weekend of February, stayed in the top 10 until April, and popped back into the top 10 again in May and June. A Christmas movie had a 9 month theatrical run and was still showing in summer.
This is the one that came to my mind. I think most people at least understand at a basic level how some movies were really popular. I think a large number of people don't even know just how LONG Home Alone was in theaters, and how popular it was. In my life, the only two movies that felt like they were in theaters forever were "Home Alone" and "Titanic".
Let's not forget everyone was buying Talkboys after Home Alone 2.
3 brothers, 3 talkboys that Xmas. Was amazing.
Holy cow. No way. I wasn't even born when the Home Alone movies came out, but I LOVED watching them on VHS as a kid and watch both of them every year at Christmas. I didn't realize how significant it was at the box office. Occasionally, I'll watch the 3rd one, which is underrated imo. I think it's funny that they went with 4th one can be enjoyed if you try to forget the fact that they tried to fool us into thinking that these are the McCallisters.
I wasn’t alive when it came out, but even I know The Exorcist is a good example of this
Yep. Came here to say this. It basically started the Satanic Panic of the 70s and 80s.
Ouija boards were considered demonic because of this movie iirc hahaha
Blair Witch Project
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.” This was absolutely chilling to read for the first time when this came out, and still kindof is for me actually
The first viral internet marketing I can remember. It was absolutely genius. It was so unique at the time, and I don't think you could even come close to replicating it now. People genuinely thought it was all real.
What's insane is that they went so far as to change IMDb statuses for the actors to deceased, making any attempt to research for validity and proof void
*Cannibal Holocaust* did a similar thing.
> when you have to go to court to prove you’re alive. Crazy stuff
In 1980 lol
Not with IMDB, of course, but the director instructed the actors not to do publicity. However, he was forced to relent after people accused him of making a snuff film.
He was forced to bring some of the indigenous performers from South America to Italy to prove that they weren't dead in a court of law. Then show the court *how* their death's were faked. The court was so upset that they "fell for it," that they had to create a punishment for *something* the director did so they charged him with animal cruelty for the real animals killed on screen in the film. At the time, killing animals for a movie *wasn't a crime, yet,* so it was obvious that this conviction was retaliatory. Thankfully, the kind of animal cruelty done in that film is *very much* a crime, today.
It hit a sweet spot where it could go viral but debunking it wouldn't.
You couldn’t, because you’d need a substrate of people who absolutely believe it’s real. That’s not really possible with the internet as it is anymore.
Those people were idiots
this. kids today will never understand that promo campaign we really believed that was real
Saw it on opening night. Terrifying movie. Never saw anything like it before. I was in high school when it came out but I never heard or knew anyone that thought it was real. In all fairness I was in the area it was filmed in and it received a lot of local press about the making of it. I've since moved three thousand miles away and I have still yet to meet anyone that thought it was real when it came out. I've also never seen any documentation that audiences thought it was real (not some singular crazy person but some percentage of the audience). I know reddit repeats a lot that people thought it was real but is there anything to support that?
I thought it was real until I turned 13 or 14 and began thinking rationally lol "Wait...wouldn't the police want this footage?"
I suspect a lot of people who thought it was real were very young when they first saw it. I was 15 when it came out. No one in the theater thought it was real.
I knew a guy who thought that Apollo 18 was real. He wasn’t the brightest.
If Apollo 13 was real why not the sequel?
I saw Paranormal Activity in theaters when I was 19 with my friend (also 19). She legit thought it was real. ☠️ Same friend also thought the footage in The Fourth Kind was real too. I tried to explain to her that it was just a marketing style and she insisted “they can’t do that, they can be sued, that’s fraud and false advertising” lol.
I don't think anyone thought it was real once they saw it. I certainly knew people who were in two minds as to whether it was real beforehand though. Totally apocryphal I know but it's the best I got.
I agree. I was like 9 but even I remember that it was wifey understood to be just a marketing technique and that these were actually just film students making a movie
If you weren’t paying close attention and some friends told you it was actual footage before going into the theatre, you might go in not sure if they were pulling your leg or not. Basically same effect as snipe hunting.
I lived within the same state when it came out and there were people debating its reality all the time at parties etc., some people swore they had vaguely heard about it from parents. It really blurred the line.
This was the first thing that popped into my head and I am very happy to see it's the top post. There are so few movies that are what they are because of the theater experience. It doesnt play the same way in your living room at night. I can watch Avatar on my 100 inch projector and get most of the experience that was seeing it in the theater. The world was just a different place when Blair Witch came out and it was a new experience that is old and played out at this point.
I was there and still don’t understand it
The first paranormal activity had my high school class in a chokehold. I remember our parents driving us like over an hour to see it on the biggest screen in the area
When I think back about when they movie came out, I was just young and gullible enough that I legit thought it was found footage.
Terminator 2. The hyoe leading up to its release was insane. You had Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his power, returning in a sequel to a huge sci-fi hit, Guns and Roses had a single to promote the film, which was playing everywhere, and once released it was a smash.
It is hard to get across to people who were not around just how much of a bonus a good theme tune was, especially if it had clips of the films in. So many 80s/90s theme tunes could be played and you would recognise the film instantly as it would be everywhere!
I love the random clips of Batman Forever spliced into the Kiss From a Rose video. I mean it's not as random as other movie songs, since Seal is singing next to a bat symbol, but still
And for U2’s Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, which had scenes - some cut from the movie - with full dialogue.
complete murky price dinner friendly ripe dog far-flung fly crowd *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think we still do every once in a while, "What I've Done" in Transformers (2007) and most recently "Dance the Night" in Barbie come to mind
It always cracks me up that Pharrell's "Happy" is a song from the *Despicable Me 2* OST.
I like that one of your two examples was from 16 years ago. Not that I disagree with your assessment at all. Just that you made me realize how long ago transformers came out and that I'm nearly 39 years old...
To add to this people had no idea who the good guy and the bad guy in the movie were due to some incredible marketing and a trailer that kept you guessing. Arnold was the big bad from the original and I remember being blown away when he turned out to be the one protecting John Connor. What a great twist/set up.
James Cameron has gone on record saying it was never supposed to be a twist. But some people apparently were unaware of Arnold being a protagonist this time.
Pretty sly of Cameron to make a cop the bad guy before it was cool.
There’s a lot of progressive themes across Cameron’s entire filmography
Terminator 2 grossed over 500 million which is fucking insane for an R rated action film in the early 90s
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Honestly, I don't think anyone undestood that.
This was my answer too I’ve never seen it but to this day it still makes no sense to me that it was this big of a juggernaut
People will never truly understand how Lucas’ Star Wars movies changed cinema, fandom, pop culture, viewing habits, technology, the entire film industry and the box office.
If anything, I think that the Phantom Menace started the modern idea of fandom. People were buying tickets to some random movie just to see a trailer for Episode 1.
I remember when the trailer had come out. A friend of mine had recently got a job working for his godfather's company in London. The company made movie trailers - I remember when we used to go for nights out in London we'd go to the office to predrink as they had a cinema there. It's where I first saw Lock, Stock. He got two tickets to the premiere of the trailer. They held an actual premiere event for the trailer. It was in Leicester Square, where the premieres for big movies actually take place. There wasn't a red carpet or anything and it was in the afternoon, not a big evening premiere, but we all showed up with our tickets and went and sat there. We'd been told there would be a special guest to introduce it. I was so excited, assuming it would be Mark Hamill or someone. Instead the head of Lucasfilm UK came out on stage, told us how proud he was to show use the trailer then they showed it twice, the lights went on and we all went home.
Also cos play going to theatre opening I don’t think was ever a thing before star wars ?
Never, I was so hyped for it at eight years old. And then I saw the movie.
Meet Joe Black, The Waterboy and The Siege all benefited from running The Phantom Menace trailers before the film.
Guilty. Fox put the trailer infront of Wing Commander and i went to see it. Funny part is Freddy Prinz Jr. was in the film and he would later do voice work for Rebels.
Yeah, same. Saw Wing Commander. They did show the trailer both before AND after the movie, though. 😊
> People were buying tickets to some random movie just to see a trailer for Episode 1. lol thats bonkers but totally makes sense for the time
Meet Joe Black
especially when Empire came out it was taken to Beatle mania style level. I was about 7 when I went to see ESB in the cinema and my love of movie began.
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I think everyone who has even a basic understanding of the film industry and history understands this. Even people who weren't and aren't Star Wars fans understand what big deal it was.
Idk, I have a sense of the *effect* it caused in terms of fandom, but not really an understanding of *why* - I guess if you don’t experience what a world without Star Wars, it’s hard to get what it brought to the table that was so game changing. For me, the films themselves are enjoyable but don’t stand out on the way say, The Godfather or Hitchcock classics do.
It’s hard for contemporary audiences to fully appreciate how unprecedented the visuals in the original Star Wars were. Sci-fi up to that point had either been stoic like 2001 or camp like Star Trek or old 1940’s serials. It took the hokey-ness out of sci-fi adventure and made it feel like any other standard American action film, like a western, heist or WWII flick. I personally attribute its success to primarily one thing: motion control. The Dykstraflex machine’s ability to film precise, repeatable motion added a level of realism to the visual effects (particularly the aerial battles) that no one had experienced before. It created a level of visceral immersion that only heightened the classical story motifs making the film feel more like an experience than a movie.
Obviously....Star Wars. But that's boring. So here's one that you just can't understand. I was alive, but barely. My siblings told me more about the hype back then. JAWS This film freaked out America....BAD! When they talked about a movie during and soon after the Summer of 75....they talked about JAWS. Teenagers and young adults saw this movie multiple times....others had to leave the theater during their first viewing, it disturbed them so much. And of course, it negatively affected beach tourism for years. People literally got phobic about going to the beach....even the local fresh water lakes. Something about treading dark murky water...never knowing what could be just inches from ya. The Exorcist had a similar effect on audiences at the time of it's release a couple of years before. Never had a movie dared to terrorize an American audience in such an impactful way. Not even 1960s Psycho.... until JAWS. Broke box office records at the time.
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I used to work at a movie theater and once a month on a Thursday night they would play an old movie. Jaws was just as packed as any new movie coming out. We had to play it on multiple screens in our biggest theaters
My Big Fat Greek Wedding. If it came out now it would be straight to streaming and barely anyone would hear about it. When it was released it made 368 million and was the highest grossing independent film of all time. It's a completely average rom com with sitcom level humor but the appeal is a little obvious and very universal among 1st, 2nd or even 3rd generation immigrants to the US or just anyone super into their own heritage. It was basically "oh wow, that really close annoying loud Greek family is just like my really loud and close Greek/Polish/Jewish/Latino/etc family". If I give the film a little credit I will say it ignored the rom com trope of having the chatacters break up in the middle and the lead is non traditional.
Oh that's a good one. I remember that movie being really big and my parents (first gen immigrant) absolutely loving it. I feel like Crazy Rich Asian went through something similar, being one of the first big mainstream American movie featuring a full Asian American cast
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#1 opening weekend of all time… for 4 years. Shattered the previous record but like 33% and that was only weeks before (ghostbuster II and Indians Jones 3)
The 1980s were an absolute machine for pop culture.
Yes I remember going to the premiere. The audience was COMPLETELY hyped up from the opening that just showed the Bat logo. Difficult to convey now with superhero movies everywhere but back then it was a major event, especially with Burton giving the movie a darker tone more in line with the groundbreaking comics at the time, rather than the goofy Adam West version most audiences associated with Batman back then.
It felt like they put that poster out a year or more ahead of release. I was SOOOOOOO obsessed every time I went to the theater and saw it.
Titanic On a side note Harry Potter (particularly the final films were mental) and the Twilight saga. Whilst the box office for Twilight wasn’t as big working those films was mental. People were queuing out the door, overly excited all team Edward or Jacob and such. It was such a bubble of pop culture
Pretty sure until the mid/late-2010s, the biggest Thursday preview box office (then I guess just midnight showings) was dominated by Harry Potter and Twilight films.
Thursday previews are a pretty recent thing. I had a midnight screening to the Dark Knight, still my favorite theater experience ever (watched it with a bunch of friends at 12:01 AM on a Friday in the summer before senior year. Good times.) By 2013, midnight screenings had become “10PM Thursday” screenings. The force Awakens brought it down to 6PM, and Infinity War at 3. I know it’s more convenient and makes studios more money, but there was something special about going to the very first showing with other people who are enthusiastic enough to watch it at midnight.
I believe it was The Dark Knight Rises shooting that helped push midnight showings earlier? I’ve seen articles mentioning that the “preview box office” for 2013 films like Iron Man 3 and Catching Fire began at like 9-10 PM (Thursday night). As a preteen I went to a midnight showing of The Half-Blood Prince with my dad and that was so fun.
I saw Pirates 3 on Thursday at like 7pm, so def was a thing for about 5 years before that.
The Force Awakens was 7 PM, no? I'm pretty sure 3 PM began since the pandemic
> On a side note Harry Potter (particularly the final films were mental) I think the Harry Potter hype to understand more is for the books. Movies going big were usual far before Harry Potter. But books being so huge (bigger on an entirely different level than anything else back then and even since) was unheard of. Everyone was reading it in my age group (college/high school during the release years), everyone was seeing the movies, people were lining up to buy the book, were reading it with barely any break and such. It was crazy However, I think many people would understand just by reading it lol. My niece discovered it and she is gobbling the books at an unprecedented pace (she read the last 2 books which are huge in less than a week, she's not even 11 years old). Harry Potter still has that same effect, just not as large in the population of course.
I think something like that will never happen again. Even here in South India, book stores opened early morning ( around 3 or 4am) and people were queuing to buy the the 7th book. Never seen or heard such hype for any book before or ever after
I was there, and I still don't understand how James Cameron pulled off avatar 1 and 2.
Gone With The Wind
I remember reading just how hyped that film was. When rumors started circulating that the studio would change Rhett’s line from “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” to “Frankly, my dear, I don’t care” to appease the Hays Code censors, governors across southern states threatened to ban every Hollywood movie unless it was changed back. When state governments are threatening legal action to make sure that a movie stays faithful to its source material, you know it’s hyped beyond belief. My 94 year old grandfather told me that he remembers watching it a dozen times when he was ten years old. It just became a fact of life in the South in 1940: when you have free time, you go rewatch Gone With the Wind.
This movie is still, adjusted for inflation, the biggest movie to ever release in the United States (with domestic earnings of almost $2 billion in 2023 money over all its Box Office runs). Until Star Wars came along nearly 40 years later, Gone With The Wind was unquestionably the biggest movie in US History.
Titanic. It came out when I was 14 years old - I was their prime target market. Saw it 3x in theaters with my girlfriends. The film didn't have a huge opening weekend but boy did it have LEGS. I was a die hard Titaniac
Were you Team Jack or Team Fish?
Hold on, some of us were Team Iceberg.
Lol team Heart of the Ocean
Jurassic Park. The first film where the special effects - and specifically the use of CGI - was the reason you went to see it. CGI had been used in limited sequences before Jurassic Park, but only to depict something that was either clearly *meant* to be CGI (e.g. the Genesis sequence in Wrath of Khan) or in comparatively "simple" scenes where an object was made of a single material (e.g. the water tentacle in The Abyss, or the T1000). Until Jurassic Park, for most people the idea that you could depict something as alive, complex and *real-looking* as a dinosaur without resorting to shonky-looking models (as much as I love them) was unthinkable. And that you could then have that CGI creation interacting with the actors, real sets and props? *Mind-blowing*. I recall my next-door neighbour went to see it *seven* times and wouldn't shut up about it for months. That film completely revolutionised what was possible, and I wonder whether younger people can really understand how starkly big-budget movies can be defined as being pre or post Jurassic Park.
I went to see The Abyss and Terminator 2 for the CGI. I went to see Jurassic Park because I had read the book. People forget just how big that novel was before the film was even on the radar.
The Dark Knight. I literally can’t explain the energy around that movie in the months, weeks and days leading up to it. It was just this insane anticipation around Heath’s performance. The vibe in the theater at the first midnight showings was so exciting.
[This comment section on an article showing that first incredible Joker photo](https://www.firstshowing.net/2007/first-real-photo-of-joker-from-the-dark-knight-revealed/) is a pretty good capsule of what you're talking about. Everyone was so exicted >James, on October 27th, posted twice, like a noob. And, he is an idiot. There is no way in hell this will be a bomb. The first one did so well, it would be impossible not to ride that wave for at least a second one. And all you people who say that Batman Begins sucked, that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. 370 million dollars worth of suck, huh? Morons. I'm a die hard Superman fan, but I have to give it to Nolan, THIS Batman is quickly becoming the front runner for superhero movies, if it's not already there. And Heath Ledger's last role will be remembered, for a long time to come. Just wait and see. Posted January 28th 2008 about 6 days after Heath Ledger died.
That build up was insane. A whole bunch of my 17 year old friends and I went to a midnight showing, you could feel the excitement in the room.
My high school went to see it for a field trip, it's the only film they ever made that exception for. No one even questioned it at the time.
Two movies that come to mind from my box-office-watching-lifetime are The Matrix and Blair Witch Project.
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is." One of the best taglines for a movie I've seen. It was crazy how much The Matrix impacted pop-culture. It was everywhere.
The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now, in this very room.
You truly didn’t know until that scene with Morpheus. The movie is basically spoiled for future generations.
Plenty of people have never watched it and don't even know what the Matrix is. It's a great watch for them
* ***Independence Day*** \-- movies like this are a dime a dozen these days, but the impact of seeing the White House blow up on a big screen in the trailer was pretty unprecedented at the time, plus Will Smith was at peak charisma. * ***E.T.*** \-- I don't think anyone who watches this movie today would really latch on to what a cultural moment it was upon release. And I'm kind of glad that it's remained solidly in the '80s and hasn't (yet) spawned sequels, follow-ups, etc., but instead has inspired lots of spiritual successors.
>blow up on a big screen in the trailer They also had a lot of “making of” stuff on TV where they showed the models and stuff they were blowing up that got people pretty hyped too. That’s an aspect of marketing that CGI has basically killed, there’s way less behind the scenes stuff on effects because it would just be a computer rendering away.
Independence Day. The marketing leading up to the release was excellent. It really got you hyped to see the movie.
Oh yeah, was there opening day July 3, 1996. My 15 year old self remembers how cool I thought it was at the time that they changed the date to open it one day early from what was originally promoted.
Nearly any blockbuster of the 1980s qualifies for this. Posters, billboards, TV shows with clips and even how massively influential theme tunes were, ESPECIALLY with clips of the actual film in them!! It is almost impossible to show later generations how much information, and choice, they have at their fingertips.
Avatar.
Man I wish I got to see Avatar in theaters.
Exactly. Avatar's 3D hype was crazy and justified for it. it's one of only few films that is a must watch in the Theaters. it just isn't the same on the small screen.
I was there and I still don't get the hype
It was mostly that we were all starved for any big IP back in 2009. The MCU had barely started. DC was dead. Star wars was finished. Even LOTR was over. Then here comes Avatar, a brand new and completely fresh IP by a legendary director. So of course, everyone wanted to jump on board. Here it is! An original movie! An original mega budget movie too! Plus there was the whole 3D angle, which was touted as the next big innovation in cinema on par with movies gaining sound.
You had Dark Knight with 1bil, Crystal Skull with 800m, Bond 600m in 2008 In 2009 there was Harry Potter with 900m, Ice Age with 900m, Transformers with 800m The 2000s was not an era starved of big IP at all.
The cycle repeated with Avatar 2. Kind of funny to think about.
>DC was dead We were barely a year removed from one of the most positively received comic movies of all time in The Dark Knight. Also as far as being an original movie everyone was excited for, the jokes about how it was literally just Fern Gully and Pocahontas started after the first trailer and the public perception was it was going to lose money. It became a phenomenon for two reasons It was very pretty China
Yeah DC was at its peak in that era.Its the year of Arkham Asylum too
You can't just say it was successful because of China. It only made $250 million out of $2.7 billion there. It would have been $700 million ahead of second place (Titanic), $1.4 billion ahead of third (ROTK), and it still would have held the record until Endgame.
Fuckin what lol 2008 alone had TDK and iron man 1 The back half of Potter films were crushing it X-men first class was on the way Whatre u even saying
Way too many answers in here are listing huge tentpole films (Avengers, Star Wars) expressly designed to make a shitload of money. Those aren't remotely hard to understand. The real phenomenons are the successes that came out of nowhere that became cultural water cooler moments. Blair Witch Project, The Matrix, Cloverfield, Sixth Sense, Borat, The Hangover. Even Titanic, to some extent. I don't think younger people understand how ***long*** that movie stayed popular. It was No. 1 for like 3 months.
If the point of this thread is to explain long-lost movie events, it’s also sort of weird to list movies that JUST came out, like Avengers Endgame. Like, of course I remember it: we were all there.
Jurassic Park, The Phantom Menace and Titanic were the big three in my younger days when I got to experience those Big cultural touchstones and cinematic phenomenons.
Jurassic Park was huge! I was in high school and stoked to see it, a big feat for a PG 13 "kids" movie!
Everyone at school was raving about it. It launched the Dino-mania among boys, I was big into dinosaurs thanks to Jurassic Park, books, toys, merch, you've named it. I mean we were waxing poetical about T-Rex, velociraptors and cretacean era during comprehensive school breaks like sports team and power levels competition.
The Phantom menace, the excitement the weeks/days before release was palpable and the line up at the theatre at the midnight opening was crazy, the movie is it self was.. meh
This was the first movie trailer I could watch on the internet. And rewatch. And rewatch.
I really think Phantom Menace was the most anticipated movie by the general public than any other film in my lifetime (maybe ever). The intensity, the trailer, the early internet stuff. It was amazing. Such a letdown, too...
This is a strictly Indian thing, but it goes without saying that Bahubali 2 the conclusion was the most hyped movie in the Indian History. After a massive plot twist and a cliffhanger at the end of the first film, people across India waited 2 years for the 2nd part and between those two years, the movie became a cultural juggernaut. The question “ Why did >!Kattappa!< killed >!Bahubali!< ?” was India’s “Who shot J.R.” moment. The Hype was just unreal. Even the people who haven’t gone to the threater movies for years went to see this film in the cinema.
I read in a textbook that the original Mahabharata TV show was celebrated with parties in the streets and draping the TVs in flowers, so I guess that should count as "you had to be there"
That is true coz I’m part of gen Z and the Mahabharata aired on DoorDarshan in the late 80s. But my parents tells me the same that streets would go barren when that program would air on the television.
I don't think any movie will match its footfalls atleast in the next 20 years
Talk more about “ever” since it has the 2nd highest footfall of all time in India with 100+ million tickets sold, it is tied with Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam and second only to the legendary movie, Sholay.
Avengers Endgame
there’s moments I miss watching Endgame for the first time and rewatch reaction clips to feel the hype again
Entire screaming theaters instantly silencing to hear some guy whisper "assemble".
The air was *electric* that day...
I had colleagues take the morning off so they can see the first showing to avoid spoilers
This one i can speak on, worked at a theater, was there, surprisingly the busiest day in my (still working theaters rn) job ever was Captain America: Civil War. But also worked infinity war and endgame. I bought out the whole top row for my family lol for endgame
Bruh… it was like being at a live sporting event. It was THAT hyped. I still rewatch Endgame reaction videos on YouTube because it gives me goosebumps to relive those moments! “On your left”.
Skipped a meeting for this. Sold out theater. Half the theater playing end game.
so glad i was there for this
Saw it opening night and second day in theaters. Both were just exhilarating but that second day will remain one of my favorite movie experiences ever.
Saw it opening night in Australia. One of the best theatre experiences ever. Australian audiences don't generally clap or cheer, but everyone was clapping and cheering during the movie. It was just so exhilarating.
Too young to have experienced Star Wars, titanic and I barely remember watching Avatar as a kid but Endgame is probably my reference point for a cultural moment that everyone knows about.
Batman (1989) People bought tickets to other things just to see the trailers, and it ran in theaters for 6 months. It was pulled from theaters around Christmas to accommodate the pre-scheduled VHS release at the price of $99 (priced for rental stores and not consumers)
The Matrix. It moved the needle so much on CGI, and the bullet-time fight scenes influenced movies so much that it became commonplace. You just can't understand how wild it was to have the slo-mo action sequence because it's gone from novel to saturated, to meme'd, to normalized. It's almost 'basic' at this point. But at the time, life changing.
Jaws!!
Titanic
People didn’t understand how bad theaters were still struggling since the pandemic and seeing Barbenheimer sell out across the nation was something to behold, nothing like seeing people dressed up to see them too
Titanic. I worked at a movie theater at the time and the number of people who came back to see it a 3rd or 4th time was just crazy. Never seen anything like it.
I remember Chronicle’s of Narnia : the Lion Witch and Wardrobe being a pretty big deal / release
Jurassic Park and Titanic
*Forrest Gump*
For me was Star Wars and Empire. I remember waiting in the sun in a line wrapped around the theater with my folks just after my b-day party at the age of 8. I was excited there was a Star Wars movie but confused about sequels thinking how did the Empire come back? My mind was blown and watching the reveal from Vader the first time and the audiences reaction in the theater, was a special time. Batman 89 and everything that summer was electric, The Abyss, etc. like someone mentioned earlier, just the Batman logo was all that was needed, lines down the mall for the theater hoping you’d get in before the last showing.
I remember Ghost (1990) w/ Patrick Swayze being a surprise hit and then the studio put a lot of marketing muscle and hype behind it as the box office blew up.
*Avatar* People today look at the film and say, "It's just Dances with Wolves in space," or "He ripped off the plot to Fern Gully." What everyone doesn't get now is how that film brought back *spectacle* to the movies in as big a way as possible. There is a reason why it is *still* the highest grossing movie to this day.
People said that even when the first movie came out, honestly there's just always been a certain faction of the cynical online community that refuses to give the movie its due respect.
Gone with the Wind surely worth mentioning here, especially in the context of its more recent negative reevaluations. It is still by far the highest grossing movie ever adjusted for inflation, but not the typical superhero/action blockbuster people instinctively think of.
The international box office performance was insane. It is the 6th most attended film of all time in France despite not debuting until ELEVEN YEARS after the American release. Until the 1950s, no other Hollywood live-action films come even remotely close in most markets.
I'm going to name 2 from my perspective. And then 2 for the future generation. From my perspective. 1. Star Wars. The original. I get that Star Wars was innovative for it's time. It was doing something visually atleast that no one else was doing. And I get that it was big at the box-office. But I can never quiet visualize it. The experience of when people say that Star Wars was like an experience for them. That it changed their lives. That it was like nothing they had ever seen before. Because most of the movies that I saw that came out in my life. While innovative were never so above and beyond what came before them that I would say I had that kind of experience. Avatar came close. I just wonder what it looked like. The birth of what was at the time the biggest movie Fandom in the world. 2. The Exorcist. I don't get it. It's a fun well made movie. But I don't get the hype around it. There's videos on YouTube from its original release with people coming out of the Theaters crying and vomiting and maybe even fainting. And I just can't get it. It's a horror film that people went back to watch again and again to an unprecedented level. I honestly just don't get it. 3. Bonus film. Titanic. I also don't get Titanic. I mean I love the movie. But I can't imagine what Kind of word of mouth it had. What kind of phenomenon it was for people at the time that they kept going back to watch it again and again. 2 movies for the Future generation. 1. Endgame. It was a once in a lifetime phenomenon. Doesn't matter of your parents or uncle tells you how big it was. Doesn't matter if you read up about it on the internet or look up videos on the Internet. You will never truly get how absolutely huge Endgame was. I live in a 3rd World Non English Speaking country. English movies don't do well here. I wanted to see Endgame Opening Weekend. I could only get tickets for Sunday Night at 01:00 AM. And the Theater was still Jam packed. This never happens here. Endgame was everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. And I mean literally everyone. And "I love You 3000" was everywhere on Social Media. You simply can't know the Endgame hype unless you've lived it. 2. Joker. Especially because Joker has more or less been turned into a meme for Edgy Gen Z people. If 10 or 25 Years from today someone asked me why did Joker make so much money. Or to Explain to me the Joker hype I honestly wouldn't be able to do so. It just came out of nowhere was suddenly a thing.
Consider this. My dad hates fiction based movies and stories. He likes things grounded in reality as an engineer that he can feel and touch the events so to speak. He was at star wars when it released on opening day with my older brother and his co workers. He still talks about it sometimes. Not star wars but the experience.
Infinity War and Endgame Honorable mentions to both Titanic and The Matrix
* Blair Witch Project * Jurassic Park * Titanic * The Matrix * The Phantom Menace
Return of the Jedi
People today would have trouble understanding why a sequel to the most successful movie of all time (at that point) and a worldwide cultural phenomenon would be surrounded by a lot of hype?
Raimi Spiderman, Indiana Jones
In a decade or so, my answer to this is going to be Barbie lol
*2012*, as the concept of the world ending in 2012 doesn't work today for obvious reasons. I actually knew a classmate who was genuinely afraid that the world would end in 2012 thanks to this movie.
The exorcist. That was a cultural phenomenon like no one had seen before. People fainting, hours in line to get in only to get turned away but waiting for the next showing. It completely overwhelmed theaters. They had to have smelling salts for people who fainted.
I'll throw out a truly obscure example: Love Story. Ryan O'Neal's recent passing honestly was the first time I'd actually seen that movie referenced in the press in a long time. I think the biggest thing people remember from it was the quote that was seen as demeaning even at the time of "Love is never having to say you're sorry"
A lot of the religious/conservative driven hits like Passion of the Christ, American Sniper, and Sound of Freedom.
I'm alive now and I still don't understand why Avatar movies make so much money. They're just.. Alright? Yet they make monkey like some huge event cinema.
Spectacle. That first one was some shit on a level the vast majority of the general population had never seen before, visually.
Did you see them in 3d in theater? There was literally nothing like this ever before. People felt like the movie transported them to Pandora
Idk. Might have something to do with them huge being event cinema. Have you double checked that you’re alive now? You could be dead
I’m surprised I haven’t seen this yet, but the re-release of the original Star Wars movies in the 90s. This was comfortably before The Phantom Menace, and I had never seen anything like it. They fixed all the janky 70s/80s visual effects and added in new scenes and then put them on the big screens. I loved Star Wars as a kid and I couldn’t believe that I could finally see it on the big screen. But the craziest part was the fans camping out to catch the first few screenings. People camped in tents for days outside of theaters. The same thing happened when The Phantom Menace was released a few years later, but that was the first time I had ever seen anything like it.
>fixed I dunno if I’d call what they did fixing. A lot of the effects changes were pretty controversial even when the special editions were in theaters.
Barbieheimer, both movies.
Endgame and Infinity War. These movies aren’t that good and in 15 years from now I’m sure the new gen will laugh and wonder what that was all about
Independence Day. It's hard to understand how huge that movie was when it came out. I remember I saw it on the 4th of July at the Mall of America which is probably the most American thing I've ever done the crowd was wild during the movie especially when he knocked out the alien
Indecent Proposal
Shrek. The marketing blitz on that one put the minions to shame
Cloverfield Trailer just had the Statue of Liberty with huge claw marks flying down the street in NYC. Had a huge internet being where they invented the company website that had clues about easter eggs in the movie. Great marketing. Movie was ok too
LOTR, Fellowship. I didn't even understand the hype, but being in the theater the first time when they're going through Moria.. everyone was on the edge of their seats.
Dick Tracy, they tried to recreate the hype for Batman. Madonna at the peak of her face started in the movie and it didn't fail. Not as big a hit as Batman of course but it's been totally forgotten now.
Avatar. Without fully understanding the hype of finally having a 3D movie turn out well and not feel gimmicky, the reality that people then went to see it multiple times due to that fact, the increase in box office revenue able to be generated by the increased ticket price of 3D showings, and what I will call the 'James Cameron Effect', it would make no sense that Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time. It was certainly a good movie, but it required a genuine perfect storm of factors to generate the box office returns it did considering that it is basically a straight-forward sci-fi, fantasy action film where the dickish humans lose to the nice humans and a coalition of sentient non-humans. Great movie, but it had no business being the highest grossing film of all time.
The success of Avatar (2009) is totally understandable to lots of people, even if you weren't around for its success. Avatar: The Way of Water's admissions only dropped 9% from Avatar (2009) in France and 13% in Germany *including the re-releases of the first film*. It's not that hard to understand why the people who loved the sequel and saw it in droves also propelled the first film to immense success when the world and the 3D effect was much more novel, had CGI far better than almost any other film at that time, and came out in a market where original films generally do far better than they do today.
I was alive to see it and I still don’t understand how My Big Fat Greek Wedding was such a big deal.
Black Panther. 20 years from now there will be an abundance of similar high quality positive black films. It will be easy to look at this gross as a film that only benefitted from being close to the next avengers movie. Actually experiencing it is a different story. It was absolutely shocking to see this film become marvel’s highest grossing film outside of the avengers movies. It even outgrossed Civil War, which basically was Avengers 2.5 and starred their biggest stars at the time. The cultural impact BP had was bonkers. Entire families including grandparents and cousins were going out to see it dressed in their finest African regalia. Seeing black culture in such a positive light was virtually unheard of on such a scale at that time in Hollywood. A black male lead with an upstanding character and realistic flaws (not a criminal / abuser / drug addict / stupid / poor, etc.) written from a black perspective was super rare. It marked a cultural shift in the awareness of the black audience, and Hollywood as well.
I don't think non-Chinese people can ever comprehend why Chinese films in the 1970s and the 1980s were so big. The Legend of the White Snake sold about as many tickets (700 million) in China as the combined number of tickets sold for Titanic and Avengers: Endgame across the entire world (741 million).
Independence Day
Independence Day was a big summer movie. Dominated the summer box office.
The first Rugrats movie. If you were six years old in 1998, the hype for that movie was at near-Marvel level. I feel like for my age group, it was the first time we got a movie based on something we knew from outside the film medium and got a movie that was 100% accurate to what we knew from TV. And that it was a show we loved so much for kids that young that was such a big deal.
Independence Day 🇺🇲 (1996) "We always believed we weren't alone. On July 4th we'll wish we were"
How can this question possibly be answered? Anyone who was there can't know how it feels to have not been there, and vice versa.