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35 YEARS AGO

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial - June 11, 1982
This family-friendly sci-fi adventure from Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Melissa Mathison was so successful and embraced that it became a national shared experience.  Unlike the creatures in Star Wars (the current box office champion) and other sci-fi adventures, E.T. was sweet, and vulnerable, and shared a bond with his young rescuer, played by Henry Thomas.  It opened at #1 with $11.8 million - big, but not a record - and then held that spot for five weeks, dropped to #2, but then returned to #1 over and over - even dropping to #5 in October but reclaiming #1 again at Thanksgiving.  In all, E.T. was #1 for 16 weekends, which is still the all-time record (Titanic is next at 15).  It didn’t fall out of the top 10 until the following January, and by the time it left theaters a year after release, it had set the all-time domestic box office record with $359 million.   Setting aside re-release earnings, E.T.’s first run record would stand for 15 years until it was broken by Titanic.  Finding someone who hadn’t seen this movie in the 1980s would have been as hard as finding an alien in a corn field.  At the Oscars, the film was nominated for Best Picture, Director, Writing, Cinematography, and Editing, and won Best Sound, Visual Effects, Sound Effects, and Original Score by John Williams.  Ironically, the 1983 video game based on the movie was so bad that Atari buried truckloads of unsold cartridges in a Texas landfill, where they were unearthed in 2014.
 
Grease 2 - June 11, 1982
Michelle Pfeiffer and Maxwell Caulfield starred in this musical sequel set in 1961. Grease was a huge $160 million hit in 1978, so you’d think there would be money to be made from a sequel.  For comparison, Grease made nearly $9 million in its opening weekend alone.  Grease 2 opened at #5 with $4.6 million and finished with $15.1 million in total.  It’s no wonder there wasn’t a third picture. That said, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta’s re-teaming in 1983 with Two of a Kind was a bomb too.

Firefox - June 18, 1982
Clint Eastwood stars as a USAF pilot on a mission to steal a high-tech fictional fighter plane from inside the Soviet Union.  Among the plane’s nifty features is its control by thinking in Russian.  Firefox opened at #2 with $8.1 million from 881 theaters (compared to over 1500 for Star Trek II in its third weekend), and finished with $46.7 million, Eastwood’s best box office performance to date.

Blade Runner - June 25, 1982 - HWDYK quiz
Another of Philip K. Dick’s ideas became one of the most iconic science fiction movies of the modern era under the direction of Ridley Scott.  Harrison Ford stars in a role less charming than his Indy and Han Solo heroes, but fitting the film’s dark mood (set in the year 2019).  Thirty-five years later, Ford will be returning as Deckard alongside Ryan Gosling in the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, due in theaters this October.  Blade Runner opened at #2 with $6.1 million from 1,295 theaters and eventually earned $27.5 million.  

The Thing - June 25, 1982 - HWDYK quiz
Depicting a decidedly different angle on alien visitation, John Carpenter’s horror starred Kurt Russell as a helicopter pilot at an Antarctica research station under attack by a lethal doppelgänger. It received weak reviews at release but you might find it on some Best Horror Movies lists now.  The Thing opened at #8 with $3.1 million but held steady enough at the box office to earn a total of $19.6 million.

Megaforce - June 25, 1982
Megaforce was a flop at the box office for good reason, but I had to include it as one of those 1980s memories for a young kid.  The film was directed by stuntman and Burt Reynolds director Hal Needham, so naturally it featured cool futuristic motorcycles and vehicles.  Megaforce opened at #9 with $2.3 million and made only $5.6 million.  It still has a 0% RottenTomatoes.com score, but that’s just from the critics!  Movie fans of my generation remember this one more fondly.  If you can’t find this as a rental, look for it from RiffTrax.

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