Movies
What Do ‘The Thing,’ ‘Blade Runner’ and ‘The Omen’ Have In Common?
They all were released on this day in history.
June 25, 1976 saw the release of Richard Donner’s incredible The Omen, a horror thriller that begins when mysterious deaths surround an American ambassador. Could the child that he is raising actually be the anti-christ? The devil’s own son? Harvey Stephens played Damien, with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick. Explains Wiki, The Omen was released following a successful $2.8 million marketing campaign inspired by the one from Jaws one year prior, with two weeks of sneak previews, a novelization by screenwriter David Seltzer, and the logo with “666” inside the film’s title as the centerpiece of the advertisement. The film was a massive commercial success in the United States. It grossed $4,273,886 in its opening weekend and $60,922,980 domestically on a tight budget of $2.8 million. The film was the fifth highest grossing movie of 1976.
Flash forward to 1982 where both Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and John Carpenter’s The Thing hit theaters.
The Thing, one of the earliest of remakes, was actually a flop when it came out. It opened #8 and remained in the top 10 at the box office for three weeks, says Wiki. The movie was released in the United States on June 25, 1982 in 840 theaters and was issued an “R” rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (limiting attendees to 17 and older without a guardian). The film cost $15,000,000 to produce, and debuted at #8 at the box office, with an opening weekend gross of $3.1 million. It went on to make $19,629,760 domestically. Carpenter and other writers have speculated that the film’s poor performance was due to the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial two weeks earlier, with its more optimistic scenario of alien visitation (which received a “PG” rating from the MPAA). In the film starring Kurt Russell, scientists in the Antarctic are confronted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of the people that it kills.
When was the first time you saw these three films and what was your initial reaction? Did any of our readers actually see The Thing in theaters? That would be insanely cool…
After pulling in $28 million at the worldwide box office this month, director (and star) Dev Patel’s critically acclaimed action-thriller Monkey Man is now available to watch at home.
You can rent Monkey Man for $19.99 or digitally purchase the film for $24.99!
Monkey Man is currently 88% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, with Bloody Disgusting’s head critic Meagan Navarro awarding the film 4.5/5 stars in her review out of SXSW back in March.
Meagan raves, “While the violence onscreen is palpable and painful, it’s not just the exquisite fight choreography and thrilling action set pieces that set Monkey Man apart but also its political consciousness, unique narrative structure, and myth-making scale.”
“While Monkey Man pays tribute to all of the action genre’s greats, from the Indonesian action classics to Korean revenge cinema and even a John Wick joke or two, Dev Patel’s cultural spin and unique narrative structure leave behind all influences in the dust for new terrain,” Meagan’s review continues.
She adds, “Monkey Man presents Dev Patel as a new action hero, a tenacious underdog with a penetrating stare who bites, bludgeons, and stabs his way through bodies to gloriously bloody excess. More excitingly, the film introduces Patel as a strong visionary right out of the gate.”
Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
Monkey Man is produced by Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions.
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