An amazing mix of films would see their first lights from a movie theatre projector on this date in 1982. Which ones did you see in theatres?
On this date in 80s movie history, three new moderate to wide releases would join one New York City exclusive opening and one small regional release of what would somehow become a beloved movie, in theatres.
Chuck Norris would continue his assault on cinema bad guys and movie goers with this hokey action film which he plays the chief of security of a Hong Kong casino who goes after the syndicate who had his boss murdered. MGM would send the film out to 239 theatres, where it would gross $603k in its first three days. Feeling those were good enough numbers (they weren’t), MGM would book the film into an additional 337 screens the following week. The weekend gross might have grown to $1.11m but the per screen average would fall 24%. After twenty-two weeks of playing mostly in dollar houses, Forced Vengeance would end its theatrical run with $6.66m in ticket sales.
Over the course of the next several months, The Last American Virgin would become something of a hit, and secure a spot on a list of most beloved 1980s teen sex comedies, but I have never been a fan of the unnecessarily cruel tone of the film. I don’t mind an unhappy ending. I welcome them. Movie stories should regularly be bittersweet if not downright depressing. But there’s something about how Rick treats Gary throughout the film, not just in the final moments, that has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Cannon Films, in need of a hit after a number of under-performing movies in the previous few years, would mine their own Israeli film library for The Last American Virgin, having the writer/director of Eskimo Limon (released as Lemon Popsicle in America), Boaz Davidson, update the setting of his film from 1950s Israel to 1980s America, and update the soundtrack from the early days of rock and roll to the current day new wave.
Opening on five screens in Kansas City and on two screens in Minneapolis, The Last American Virgin would do a surprisingly decent $34k in its first three days. Not too shabby for a not very heavily publicized independent movie from a then-unknown distributor. Buoyed by the success in these two markets, Cannon Films would continue to push the film out market by market across the country, including in 49 theaters in Los Angeles on September 24th, and on 63 screens during its last stop in New York City on January 14th, 1983. After five months, the final box office gross for the film would be $5.83m.
Night Shift wasn’t Ron Howard’s first movie as a director, not was it his first hit movie as a director. But it would be the one that would make him a Hollywood director for the next forty years, and it would make movie stars of two of its actors. Just not the one it was supposed to make into a movie star. I don’t know why 1970s television stars like John Ritter and Henry Winkler were never able to successfully crossover into feature stardom. For Winkler, playing the straight guy in a comedy and having your co-star be Michael Keaton making the most of his biggest movie role to date, and it was never even a contest. Keaton was able to parlay his role here into a career that would arguably have its first major peak just seven years later, as Batman. The film would also make Shelley Long a household name just a couple months before Cheers would premiere on NBC (although it would take another season before Cheers itself became a successful show).
Opening on 683 screens, Night Shift would gross $2.54m in its first weekend of release, a not great number, but the film, as they say, had legs. In its first ten weeks of release, it would never lose more than 25% of its audience from week to week, and after five and a half months in theatres, the film would finish with a respectable $21.1m gross.
Here’s just how little was expected from An Officer and a Gentleman from Paramount Pictures when it was first released:
When the movie opened in theatres, its star, Louis Gossett, Jr., who would win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in the film, was shooting Jaws 3-D in Florida. He wasn’t initially aware of how well the film was doing, as the studio hedged its bets by only opening the film in 346 theatres nationwide, and none near the Orlando shooting location for the shark flick. That opening weekend, the film would gross $3.3m, with its nearly $10k per screen average being 50% higher than the next movies on that list, E.T. and Garp. Within two weeks, the film would be playing in more than 700 theatres, and by Labor Day weekend, it would be the #1 film in the nation.
Buoyed by the incredible sales success of the movie’s love song, future Best Original Song Oscar winner “Up Where We Belong,” the film would spend twenty weeks in the box office top ten, and play in theatres for more than a year, before exiting with $129.76m in ticket sales.
Wes Craven, as good a filmmaker as he was, was not the right director for Swamp Thing. Or, at least, a PG-rated Swamp Thing. To be honest, an R-rated Swamp Thing from Wes Craven would have likely been a far better movie than the treacly one that ended up getting released into theatres. Ray Wise stars as a scientist who is transformed into a monster when an act of sabotage by a paramilitary leader who wants the scientist’s work for himself. Embassy Pictures would open the movie in 56 theatres in the New York City metropolitan area, and it would gross a decent $330k in its first days (especially compared to the numbers for Forced Vengeance). But, for reasons never fully understood, the movie was gone from all of its New York theatres after just seven days. It would eventually find a cult audience on cable and home video, and there would be a sequel movie made in 1989, and a television series in 1990. Neither would be very successful.
As for the national top ten that weekend:
1) E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Universal)
$10,359,961 from 1521 theatres.
$169.83m after eight weeks.
2) The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Universal)
$9,012,785 from 1435 theatres.
$28.41m after two weeks.
3) An Officer and a Gentleman (Paramount)
$3,304,679 from 346 theatres.
$4.33m after five days.
4) Young Doctors in Love (Fox)
$2,590,344 from 796 theatres.
$14.27m after two weeks.
5) Night Shift (Warners)
$2,539,630 from 683 theatres.
$2.54m after three days.
6) Rocky III (United Artists)
$2,405,990 from 1147 theatres.
$96.44m after ten weeks.
7) The World According to Garp (Warners)
$2,378,221 from 365 theatres.
$7.18m after two weeks.
8) Six Pack (Fox)
$2,072,697 from 783 theatres.
$8.03m after three weeks.
9) Poltergeist (MGM)
$1,847,018 from 867 theatres.
$54.89m after nine weeks.
10) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Paramount)
$1,617,938 from 840 theatres.
$222.25m after sixty weeks.