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itrorev posted:For you older goons, I've always been interested about peoples thoughts regarding the original Star Wars (A New Hope) when it was being shown in theaters, back in 77. Remember, this is 1977 - no internet, no home consoles (Atari 2600 had just been launched), no VCRs. For fun kids played with action figures, went to the movies and read comic books. Since Lucas had kept the rights for all that crap, that was his advertising. You could not go into any store without seeing Star Wars stuff. There wasn't a ton of hype for movies like you get now. For almost all movies there was some newspaper ads and maybe magazine articles the month of the release, then ads on TV the week it came out - no months of hype like today. The movies had to stand on their own. Word of mouth could make or break a movie, and if you didn't catch it in the theater you were screwed. On May 20, 1977, Variety (5 days before its release): "Star Wars is a magnificent film. George Lucas set out to make the biggest possible adventure-fantasy out of his memories of serials and older action epics, and he has succeeded brilliantly. What Lucas lacks in originality is more than made up by enthralling special effects." Star Wars' opening day totaled $ 254,309 from just 32 theaters. It's first weekend box-office gross equaled $ 1.5 million. By the end of its first theatrical run, Star Wars was the most successful film in North American history with a gross in excess of $ 307.2 million. So to answer your questions - there was a lot of hype and advertising for it (in a roundabout way) and it was most awesome thing ever seen. Compare it to other sci-fi movies of its time (before Star Wars was released). And we're still talking about it today. Heres an old article about its British release: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/27/newsid_2544000/2544239.stm Has the unaltered Star Wars been released on DVD? That may be the biggest/most popular movie not yet released on DVD.
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Jun 24, 2008 05:08
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| # ¿ May 2, 2024 03:22 |
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