Watch A Great Horror Flick And Read The Book!

Martin Scorsese shared with The Daily Beast his 11 scariest horror films of all time, 2 of which are featured in our Blockbusting book (The Exorcist and Psycho). Of the 11 films, 82% were based on previously published short stories or novels.  Maybe it's time to climb under the covers this weekend and read a book!

#1 The Haunting, 1963 based on the novel by Shirley Jackson
#2 Isle of the Dead, 1945 original screenplay
#3 The Uninvited, 1944 based on the novel by Dorothy Macardle
#4 The Entity, 1983 based on the novel by Frank De Felitta
#5 Dead of Night, 1946 original screenplay by multiple writers including H.G. Wells
#6 The Changeling, 1980 based on the French Canadian story "L'enfant du diable" by Russell Hunter
#7 The Shining, 1980 based on the novel by Stephen King
#8 The Exorcist, 1973 based on the novel by William Peter Blatty
#9 Night of the Demon, 1958 based on the story "Casting the Runes" by Montague R. James
#10 The Innocents, 1961 based on The Turn of the Screw novel by Henry james
#11 Psycho, 1960 based on the novel by Robert Bloch

Psycho

The Exorcist

1950s Deja Vu - Nuclear Bombs and Movies

I feel like I'm back in the 1950s because ...


Fear of nuclear bombs is rampant again
     Today, per the New York Times, Iran won't agree to send their uranium to Russia and we fear they are trying to develop a nuclear bomb.
     In the 1950s, it was Russia's nuclear bombs we feared.  So, the U.S. test exploded 188 of them between 1950-1959 versus 82 exploded by Russia (per this great Australian Government Geoscience website I uncovered doing research for the book Cause of Death).

The costs of the top box office movies are at record highs
     Top 2 domestic box office movies 1950-1959:  The Ten Commandments, 1956 cost $105 million (in consumer price index adjusted $'s) and Ben-Hur, 1959 cost $118 million 

     Top 2 domestic box office movies 2000-2009:  The Dark Knight (Batman), 2008 cost $252.9 million and Shrek 2, 2004 cost $171 million (in consumer price index adjusted $'s).

3-D films are out in force
     The Top 5 1950s 3-D films (in terms of highest domestic box office) are  House of Wax, 1953; Hondo, 1953; Money From Home, 1953; Miss Sadie Thompson, 1953 and Bwana Devil, 1952

     The Top 5 2000s 3-D films (per boxofficemojo.com) are Up, 2009; Monsters vs Aliens, 2009; Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosarus, 2009; G-Force, 2009 and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, 2009

And horror is alive and well
      The top 1950s horror movies were in 3D:  House of Wax, 1953 (cost $925,000 - now $7.5 million); It Came From Outer Space, 1953 and Creature From the Black Lagoon, 1954 (costs unknown).

     Today's supernatural horror movie Paranormal Activity reportedly cost only $15,000 and is up to #12 on the list of 2000s supernatural horror films (per boxofficemojo.com).

Director Roman Polanski Top 5 Movies

I'm out of order!  Chinatown is only #243 out of 300 movies,  in terms of domestic box office (of the films featured in our Blockbusting book) but with Polanski in the news, and because I'm a big fan of his films, I thought I'd add this now.  Although I loved Chinatown (written by Robert Towne who also script doctored the magnificent film The Godfather), it's Polanski's older & less financially successful films that I like best:  Knife in the Water, 1963; Repulsion, 1965 (best horror film I've ever seen) and The Tenant, 1976.

Will "A Christmas Carol" Help or Hurt Disney's Animation Dominance?

14 of the Top 20 Animation Films (adjusted for ticket price inflation) were produced and/or distributed by the Walt Disney Company.

How Much Pay is Too Much?

The highest paid actors in 1937 made less annually than big stars make now per picture.  Hugh Jackman made nearly 3x more in less than three months than 30s star Fredric March made in a year.  Corporate executive compensation has also risen faster than inflation.  Executives at GE (which owns 80% of Universal), make 4 to 5 times more today than they did in the late 1930s.

Hugh Jackman was paid $20 million for approx. 90 days work on X-Men Origins: Wolverine (in production  from 1/18/2008 to 5/23/2008) while Fredric March, who starred in Nothing Sacred ( in production June 1937-August 1937) and The Buccaneer (in production August 1937 - October 1937) took home annual pay of $7.2 million in 1937 (in consumer price index adjusted dollars or $484,687 unadjusted).

GE Chairman Owen D. Young made $3.5 million in 1937 ($235,000 unadjusted) while in 2008 GE paid $18.8 million to John G. Rice, GE Vice Chairman, $16.3 million to Michael A. Neal, GE Vice chairman, $14.1 million to Jeffrey Immelt, GE Chairman and CEO and $14.0 million to Keith S. Sherin, GE Vice Chairman and CFO.

Director Steven Spielberg Top 10 Movies

Steven Spielberg's Top 10 movies (adjusted for ticket price inflation), garnered 54 Oscar nominations - 4 for directing.  The four films distributed by Universal were released prior to GE's purchase of an 80% share in that studio in 2004.  Spielberg's Oscar page is here; his AFI Life Achievement Award page is here; Click on the movie title to see movie trailers are for E.T. and Jaws

Director Robert Wise Top 5 Movies

Editor/Producer/Director Robert Wise directed The Sound of Music, the #3 all-time domestic box office film (adjusted for ticket price inflation). He was nominated for eight Oscars by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - three times for directing. His two directing Oscars were for West Side Story, 1961 and The Sound of Music, 1965 - two of the Top 10 Musicals of all time. The other eight Top 10 Musicals are: Mary Poppins, 1964; Grease, 1978; My Fair Lady, 1964; This is the Army, 1943; Fiddler on the Roof, 1971; Going My Way, 1944; The Jolson Story, 1946 and Funny Girl, 1968.

Robert Wise's Life Achievement Award page is here at American Film Institute (afi.com).

The West Side Story movie trailer is here at Movies.NYTimes.com

Director Victor Fleming Top 5 Movies

Victor Fleming got his start in the movie business as a cameraman during the silent era and worked with D.W. Griffith on Intolerance (1916), the most expensive movie made up until that point in time (at a cost of $489,653 or $9.7 million in 2008 $s).

Four of the movies Fleming later directed were nominated for Best Picture Oscars (Captains Courageous (1937), Test Pilot (1938), The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone With the Wind 1939) but he was nominated (and won) only one time for Gone With the Wind, which had had multiple directors - although Fleming was the only one to end up with the "Directed by" screen credit.

With a total of nine re-releases (1941, 1942, 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967, 1974, 1989 and 1998), following its initial 1939 release, Gone With the Wind is the #1 all-release domestic box office movie of all time (adjusted for ticket price inflation). In fact, its 1967 re-release made more money at the domestic box office than all original releases that year with the exception of The Graduate.

Featured Films Standing the Test of Time #1-#10

These 10 films are the first entry in the countdown of 300 Featured Films selected by George Lucas and explored in depth in the book George Lucas's Blockbusting due out from HarperCollins, January 5, 2010.