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20 years ago - December 1, 1995

White Man’s Burden
John Travolta and Harry Belafonte star in this drama about an alternate universe where blacks are the established class and whites suffer prejudice. Travolta plays a factory worker who kidnaps the company CEO after being unfairly fired, and the movie explores race relations from the character points of view. Poor reviews and a moderate release pattern didn’t help the movie. White Man’s Burden opened at #8 (one spot above Get Shorty in its seventh weekend) with $1.7 million from 948 theaters. It left theaters before the month ended with $3.7 million.

Wild Bill
The third classic western in consecutive years - following Tombstone in 1993 and Wyatt Earp in 1994 - stars Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok in the days leading up to his murder during a poker game in 1876. Ellen Barkin plays Calamity Jane, Keith Carradine plays Buffalo Bill Cody, and David Arquette plays Bill’s murderer Jack McCall. The cast also includes John Hurt, Diane Lane, Christina Applegate, Bruce Dern, and James Gammon. Mediocre reviews, a moderate release, and a serious lack of audience interest led to Wild Bill getting killed at the box office. The movie opened at #12 with less than a million dollars for the weekend, and only $2.1 million overall - far short of its $30 million budget and the $25 million and $56 million grosses of Wyatt Earp and Tombstone.


25 years ago - November 30, 1990

Misery
Oh, what a deliciously dark movie. Just thinking about *that* scene is enough to raise the hairs on the back of one’s neck and cause nervous laughter. Rob Reiner directs this thriller based on Stephen King’s novel and screenplay by Hollywood acclaimed screenwriter William Goldman. James Caan plays a famous novelist who is saved from a snowy car accident by a fan who turns out to be a little too emotionally invested in his characters. As Annie Wilkes, Kathy Bates brings to screen one of film history’s greatest villains, switching from a nurturing caregiver to captor, hobbling her idol to make him rewrite his latest manuscript. Everyone’s a critic. But writers just need to write - they don’t really need ankles, do they? Critics and audiences loved Misery, putting it at #2 for the weekend behind Home Alone with $10 million from 1,244 theaters. Its U.S. gross of $61 million made it the highest-grossing movie based on Stephen King’s stories until The Green Mile in 1999. At the Oscars, Bates won the Best Actress Award on her first career nomination.

30 years ago - November 29, 1985

Rocky IV
Rocky IV is a movie so pro-American that it makes Ronald Reagan look soft on Communism. In Rocky III the opponent is a ruthless boxer who seems to enjoy inflicting pain. In Rocky IV the opponent is Ivan Drago, a seemingly indestructible, Terminator-like laboratory creation registering no emotion at all. The tragic loss of Apollo Creed leads Rocky into a David vs. Goliath scenario, and using a classic ‘80s training montage, heavily contrasts the American’s rudimentary barn conditions against the high-tech equipment and steroid treatment on the Soviet side. By the end, Rocky’s refusal to be crushed seems to inspire throngs of potential defections to the West. The Razzie Awards had the audacity to award the movie with Worst Director, Worst Supporting Actress (Talia Shire), Worst New Star (Brigitte Nielsen), and Worst Musical Score (Vince DiCola, replacing Tim Conti), but audiences knew better. Rocky IV had the best opening of the series, taking the #1 spot from King Solomon’s Mines (which fell to #4 this weekend) with $19.99 million from 1,325 theaters. Its U.S. gross of $127 million not only made it the highest-grossing entry in the series but also the highest-grossing sports drama of all-time until The Blind Side was released 24 years later. Dolph Lundgren’s high-profile role helped launch his career as an action star beginning with the lead role of He-Man in Masters of the Universe in 1987. Stallone and Brigitte Nielsen were married only two weeks after Rocky IV was released, and they co-starred in Cobra in 1986 before divorcing in 1987. Suffering a knockout blow, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union dissolved two years later. The Rocky saga continued with sequels in 1990 and 2006, and a new movie titled Creed, starring Michael B. Jordan as Apollo’s son, is in theaters now.

Santa Claus: The Movie
One of the biggest productions of a Santa movie in decades tells his origin story but mainly focuses on a contemporary elf story and the commercialization of Christmas. Dudley Moore stars as an elf whose failure to automate toy making at the North Pole leads him to unwittingly work at a New York toy company and its corrupt CEO, played by John Lithgow. Moore had the biggest hit of his career in 1981 with Arthur and had won the Golden Globe for his role in 1984’s Micki and Maude. Critics took note of the visual effects in the movie but weren’t impressed overall. Santa Claus opened at #2 ahead of last week’s One Magic Christmas with $5.6 million from 970 theaters. By the end of January the movie had grossed $23.7 million.



Come back next week for another installment of Marquee History!

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