@Benton12 said:

@Benton12 said:

Lastly!Beating out "Raging bull" at the BO was no compliment. RB was a highly critically acclaimed but cuss-ridden trash film!

Look! They expected the film to be number 1 or 2 at BO and it was bad at #10. International sales are slightly less important. AND it was lower than number 2 there too. Internationalist ratings are less ih important for TV too. Mike Hammer starring Stacy Keach did great in the UK but not in the USA and it was soon 86'd!

Look at that - he’s indulging in iconoclasm by trashing Scorsese’s film. I thought that was my department. You are more than entitled to your opinion in such matters, Benton12. As far as I am concerned, Raging Bull is a masterpiece.

This diversity of opinion is what it’s all about.....

Having to get a film overseas to make it a giant hit is enough to give producers sequel pause!

I don't think anyone expected a movie about two characters from late-night TV to be nearly as big as the first sequel to Star Wars. The sequels to Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose were also eagerly anticipated, as well as another pairing of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy. Also, The Blues Brothers was only booked in about half the theaters a major release would be. After the production and advertising budget were recouped and the theaters got their share, there were still tens of millions in profit. I don't think an Empire staffer's wording 30 years after the fact definitively means a movie didn't meet its financial expectations; we'd have to know what the expectations were first.

So long as we're going off topic... Cleopatra was the highest-grossing movie in 1963, and it lost money.

@Quincey_Morris said:

I don't think anyone expected a movie about two characters from late-night TV to be nearly as big as the first sequel to Star Wars. The sequels to Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose were also eagerly anticipated, as well as another pairing of Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in Stir Crazy. Also, The Blues Brothers was only booked in about half the theaters a major release would be. After the production and advertising budget were recouped and the theaters got their share, there were still tens of millions in profit. I don't think an Empire staffer's wording 30 years after the fact definitively means a movie didn't meet its financial expectations; we'd have to know what the expectations were first.

So long as we're going off topic... Cleopatra was the highest-grossing movie in 1963, and it lost money.

Very,very last I will say on this. Quincy, first of all some of the original topic was under performing. Next, Carrie Fisher was in to bring in SW fans. They thought Belushi and Landis were pure gold together after Animal House. They expected very high profits domestically. Not quite and totally the case. Film barely broke even in the the US considering how much Landis went over budget. Stir Crazy probably made Columbia more profit in proportion to how much it cost than this item made Universal. This film here was meant to be a huge hit as it was so costly. Empire Strikes Back ( at 20 Century Fox) was the only movie that was ok to do better than it that year. A good analogy is hands down 'Superman Returns' in 2006. That movie needed to make around 500 million to break even and it made only near 391 mill. It too was salvaged, however, by merchandise selling for the film. Good night!