‘Friday the 13th’ Proclaimed “In And Out Of Marketplace Quick”
Way back in May of 1980, not much was really known about Sean Cunningham, Harry Manfredini, Steve Miner, Kevin Bacon and the rest of the cast and crew of Friday the 13th 1980. All that was known about the film itself was that is was a negative pickup and that Paramount was crazy to give a small independant film a big marketing push and wide release in U.S. theaters.
Upon the film’s release in on May 9, 1980, Variety published their review of the film and compared to Siskel and Ebert’s review, Variety’s knocks on the Friday film read as tame and mediocre attempts to derail a fledgling franchise. However, one sentence in the review could not have been more further from the truth.
“Aside from the bloody mayhem excised from the advertsing, this Paramount Pictures pickup is dull fare that will be in and out of the marketplace quick.”
Oh how wrong the critics and industry observers were as Friday the 13th went on to dominate the box office for multiple weeks and spawn quite possibly the greatest horror franchise in cinematic history! Check out a portion of the review below.
It’s amazing how wrong people can be. F13 went on to beat out a lot of big Hollywood movies that Summer and made Paramount alot of money.
Oh how they were wrong. I wish I wouldve been a little bit older to see this, I was barely a year old when this came out in theaters.
Yea, everyone was wrong, except Paramount. Say what you will about Paramount, but they saw something in this little film and it payed off for the studio in a big way!
I believe F13 beat The Shining at the box office – it beat Jack Nicholson and Stephen King, go figure!
I wish we know who wrote that article. I wonder what that critic think now (if he/she is alive of course) after being so wrong with how F13th is a huge franchise nowdays & still popular to this day.
Great post…I wish I could read the whole article. I remember back in the day they had in my local newspaper an article on the special effects, and i’m pretty sure there was an article on Tom Savini, with a picture of Marci’s ax kill. Unfortunately, their online archives only goes back to the early 90s.
Negative publicity and horror goes hand in hand. Doesnt mean its no good, just means its not a big hit among the mainstream fans. Like I care what someone who loves Disney movies and romantic comedies thinks. And Siskel and Ebert? Well ones dead and the other will never be able to badmouth anything cool again…to that I say 2 thumbs up. Sound cruel? Well karmhas a bitch. FT13th rules, and I say its better than Halloween.