The studio even went the extra mile of striking some 70mm prints for special exhibitions to showcase the magisterial cinematography of the late Frank V. The great Alan Dean Foster wrote the official novelization, and the legendary Jack Kirby provided the artwork for a comic adaptation.

Toys were produced, lunchboxes manufactured, and even a few books made it into stores. At the time it was the studio’s most expensive release, one they backed up with a $6 advertising campaign that included a massive merchandising unheralded for a live-action Disney film. Two weeks later, Walt Disney Pictures unveiled their own elaborate attempt to cash in on the post- Star Wars demand for effects-driven screen excitement, the $20 million extravaganza The Black Hole. Paramount’s mega-expensive (for its time), oft-delayed Star Trek: The Motion Picture went into theaters on December 7 (the 38th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, oddly enough), having practically completed post-production mere days earlier, and became the season’s reigning blockbuster. I was too young to remember my first Christmas, but at the time it happened two of the splashiest space spectacles ever conceived by the major studios were screening to decidedly mixed receptions. I was born on March 10 of that year (one day after actor Oscar Isaac), and two months later, Ridley Scott’s Alien premiered and blew the minds of audiences everywhere. It was a harsh lesson that Hollywood had a long time coming, but it would take them even longer to allow for the lesson to fully sink in.įor fans of silver screen sci-fi, 1979 was quite a year. The moment Star Wars opened to record-obliterating box office and became an instant pop culture phenomenon in every corner of the globe, that all changed. Execs at the major studios found them to be not exactly worth granting the kind of exorbitant budgets normally set aside for the splashy historical costume epics and grand-scale musicals that were still being made even though they have long been proven to be relics of a much different age. Science-fiction cinema was no longer going to be treated as cheap, disposable schlock Hollywood execs ordered green-lit a few times a year to pad out their coffers.ĭespite the existence of the rare genre feature that made a significant cultural impact, be it The Day the Earth Stood Still or MGM’s unbeatable two-fer of Forbidden Planet and 2001: A Space Odyssey, sci-fi was seen as pure kids’ stuff. The jaw-dropping critical and commercial success of the original Star Wars (or Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope if you’re a purist, or George Lucas), a film that was being written off as a flop before its release even by the very studio that financed it, sounded a wake-up to the industry that could not be denied.

Disney the black hole