Sunday, March 13, 2022

Box Office Flashback: July 16, 2021

The summer movie season rolls on, with some huge hits (and a couple of huge bombs) in this batch.

One Year Ago--July 17, 2020:

#1 Movie:

Beauty and the Beast

New Re-Releases:

Beauty and the Beast--$0.5 million/106
Iron Man--$0.4 million/112
Bohemian Rhapsody--$0.2 million/140

Five Years Ago--July 15, 2016:

#1 Movie:

The Secret Life of Pets--$50.8 million

New Wide Releases:

Ghostbusters--2/$46 million/$128.4 million/21/74%/60--After losing their academic jobs due to a video of them encountering a ghost going viral, scientists Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy (reteaming for the first time since Bridesmaids, also directed by Paul Feig), and Kate McKinnon, along with MTA staffer and amateur NYC historian Leslie Jones, decide to go into business as...well, see the title.  They discover that the increased supernatural activity in the city is being caused by a mad scientist (Neil Casey) who has nefarious plans for the ghosts he is bring from another dimension.  Chris Hemsworth, Andy Garcia, McKinnon and Jones's fellow Saturday Night Live star Cecily Strong, Michael Kenneth Williams, Matt Walsh, Charles Dance, and Ed Begley, Jr. co-star, along with cameos from the stars of the original franchise (Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Sigourney Weaver), as well as appearances from Ivan Reitman, the original's director, Daniel Ramis, the late Harold Ramis's son, and numerous other cameos.  Despite the seeming seal of approval from the makers of the original, and the solid reviews, this ended up becoming the most polarizing film of the year, with the negative reaction to the all female Ghostbuster team undoubtedly contributing to the film underperforming at the box office.  The backlash led Sony to cancel plans for a sequel, instead opting to make a third official installment in the original franchise in 2021.  This is the fourth, and to date, final collaboration between McCarthy and Feig.
Director: Paul Feig

The Infiltrator--8/$5.3 million/$15.4 million/119/72%/66--That would be Bryan Cranston, playing a U.S. Customs agent who successfully goes undercover as a corrupt businessman, setting up money laundering services for various drug lords, which then get busted by the feds.  Based on a true story, this drama co-stars Diane Kruger, John Leguizamo, Benjamin Bratt, Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs, Daniel Mays, Yul Vazquez, Michael Paré, and Olympia Dukakis. This one seemed rather out-of-place, being released in the middle of the summer, and while reviews were decent, they weren't good enough to attract an audience.
Director: Brad Furman

New Limited Releases:

Café Society--$11.1 million/132/71%/64--Woody Allen's annual film for 2016 was this comedy-drama about the Hollywood-based love triangle and its aftermath between a powerful agent (Steve Carell), his secretary (Kristen Stewart), and Carell's naïve nephew (Jessie Eisenburg).  Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll, Jeannie Berlin, Ken Stott, Anna Camp, Paul Schneider, Sheryl Lee, Tony Sirico, and Don Stark co-star.  This would prove to be the final Allen film to date to be even remotely successful at the U.S. box office.
Director: Woody Allen

Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party--$13.1 million/126/4%/2--Directed by and hosted by conservative commentator and convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza, this documentary (to use the term loosely) "examines" the history of the Democrats, which D'Souza wants you to know, is unbelievably racist, right from founder Andrew Jackson onward, unlike the pure and noble Republicans.  Critics had a field day with the film, but nevertheless it attracted a decent audience for a political documentary, though it made less than half of D'Souza's attempt to influence the election four years prior, 2016: Obama's America.
Director: Dinesh D'Souza and Bruce Schooley

Ten Years Ago--July 22, 2011

New Wide Releases:

Captain America: The First Avenger--1/$65.1 million/$176.7 million/12/79%/66--The setup of the Marvel Cinematic Universe rolled on with this fifth entry (and second of the summer, after May's Thor), telling the origin story of Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who is rejected for military service in World War II, until he agrees to take Stanley Tucci's "super-soldier" serum and becomes Cap.  Under the command of Tommy Lee Jones, he eventually teams up with friend Sebastian Stan and British agent Hayley Atwell to take down Nazi terrorist organization Hydra, run by Hugo Weaving and Toby Jones.  Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Richard Armitage, Kenneth Choi, and Dominic Cooper co-star.  Thanks to its 1940s setting (the only MCU film to date to not primarily take place in the present day), this is the only MCU title for most of the actors (with only Evans, Stan, Atwell, and Jones returning for subsequent entries), but several would show up in the spin-off series Agent Carter.  Critics, for the most part, were positive, and audiences liked it, even if the MCU had yet to start putting up MCU-like grosses.  There would be two direct Captain America sequels in 2014 and 2016, and Cap would return the next year in The Avengers.
Director: Joe Johnston

Friends With Benefits--3/$18.6 million/$55.8 million/60/68%/63--Six months after January's No Strings Attached, with Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman, became a minor hit, here comes another romcom telling another story about two friends (Justin Timberlake and Portman's Black Swan co-star and Kutcher's That 70s Show co-star and future wife Mila Kunis) who decide to start having casual sex without dating, only to have those pesky feelings get in the way.  Patricia Clarkson, Jenna Elfman, Bryan Greenberg, Nolan Gould, Richard Jenkins, and Woody Harrelson co-star, with cameos from Andy Samburg, Emma Stone (who, along with Clarkson, starred in director Will Gluck's previous film Easy A), Shaun White, Jason Segel (Kunis's co-star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall), and Rashida Jones.  While critics were moderately positive toward the film (at least more so than they were towards No Strings Attached), it ended up making about $15 million less than the earlier film.
Director: Will Gluck

New Limited Releases:

Another Earth--$1.3 million/201/66%/66--After being released from prison, a young woman (Britt Marling) tries to make amends with the man (William Mapother) whose family she killed while driving drunk, while the discovery of a parallel Earth sets the scientific community abuzz.  This indie drama got some decent reviews, but despite some buzz, it didn't break out of the art houses.
Director: Mike Cahill

Fifteen Years Ago--July 21, 2006:

#1 Movie:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest--$35.2 million

New Wide Releases:

Monster House--2/$22.2 million/$73.7 million/32/75%/68--In this animated horror-comedy, three kids (voiced by Mitchell Musso, Sam Lerner, and Spencer Locke) realize that the run-down old house belonging to the neighborhood grump (Steve Buscemi) is actually alive and evil.  Maggie Gyllenhaal, Kevin James, Nick Cannon, Jon Heder, Jason Lee, Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, and Kathleen Turner also provide voices.  The film, executive produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg, is the only feature film writing credit to date for future Community and Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon.  It would receive an Oscar nomination for Animated Feature, the only film relying extensively on motion capture to date to be nominated in the category.
Director: Gil Kenan

Lady in the Water--3/$18 million/$42.3 million/73/25%/36--The superintendent of an apartment complex (Paul Giamatti) discovers the titular lady (Bryce Dallas Howard)--in reality, a magical creature--in the complex's pool, and he and the other tenants (including Bob Balaban, Jeffrey Wright, Sarita Choudhury, Freddy Rodriguez, Bill Irwin, Jared Harris, Mary Beth Hurt, Tovah Feldshuh, and M. Night Shyamalan) have to figure out how to protect her from a vicious supernatural creature who wants to kill her until she can return to her home.  This would be Shyamalan's first out-and-out flop since his pre-Sixth Sense dramady Wide Awake, with critics not overlooking the fact that Balaban played a jerky, idiotic movie critic.  While Shyamalan would have a moderate commercial success in 2010 with The Last Airbender, it wouldn't be until The Visit in 2015 that he would have another critical success.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Clerks II--6/$10.1 million/$24.2 million/105/63%/65--12 years after Kevin Smith's breakout film, he follows up that low-budget, black-and-white comedy with this full-color, bigger-budgeted (though still far cheaper than most of the other summer wide releases) follow-up (though most of the characters had been seen in other Smith films in the interim), in which the titular clerks (Brain O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson) are now working at a hamburger joint, where O'Halloran is engaged to Jennifer Schwalbach, despite his obvious chemistry with boss Rosario Dawson.  Smith and Jason Mewes reprise their regular roles as Jay and Silent Bob, while there are cameos by Wanda Sykes and Smith regulars Jason Lee (also providing a voice in Monster House), Ethan Suplee, and Ben Affleck.  Critics were amused, and the film made roughly the amount that most of Smith's films made during the aughts.  Other than a straight-to-video animated movie in 2013, this would be the final film in Smith's ViewAskewnverse until Jay and Silent Bob Reboot in 2019.
Director: Kevin Smith

My Super Ex-Girlfriend--7/$8.6 million/$22.5 million/111/40%/50--In this comedy, Luke Wilson breaks up with the increasingly controlling Uma Thurman, only to discover she's actually a superhero who is now dedicated to making life for him and his new girlfriend (Anna Faris) a living hell.  Eddie Izzard, Rainn Wilson, and Wanda Sykes (also in Clerks II) co-star.  Critics were largely unimpressed, and audiences were completely underwhelmed, as this, other than his little-seen early Canadian work, was the lowest-grossing film of Ivan Reitman's career.
Director: Ivan Reitman

New Limited Releases:

The Road to Guantánamo--$0.3 million/291/86%/64--This film, a mixture of drama and documentary, chronicled the real story of three British-born men of Pakistani descent who, after a series of misadventures, are captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in the months after the invasion and held for two years in Guantánamo Bay.  Using a mixture of interviews with the real men, and dramatic recreations using actors (including Riz Ahmed, in his film debut), it explores the treatment of captured POWs by the U.S. military in the early days of the War on Terror.  Critics embraced it, but the film failed to make much of an impression on North American moviegoers.
Director: Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom

Twenty Years Ago--July 20, 2001:

New Wide Releases:

Jurassic Park III--1/$50.8 million/$181.2 million/9/48%/42--The third and final film of the original trilogy has Joe Johnston taking over directing duties from Steven Spielberg, and also brings back original stars Sam Neill and Laura Dern, both of whom were absent from The Lost World: Jurassic Park in 1997.  In this one, Neill is recruited by William H. Macy and Téa Leoni to take them on an aerial tour of the second island, only to discover that it's actually a rescue mission to find their pre-teen son (Trevor Morgan), who disappeared on the island after a parasailing accident.  Alessandro Nivola and Michael Jeter co-star.  Critics were largely dismissive, and the box office declined fairly dramatically from The Lost World.  After this, the franchise would go dormant until Jurassic World in 2015.
Director: Joe Johnston

America's Sweethearts--2/$30.2 million/$93.6 million/23/32%/44--In this Hollywood romcom, co-written by Billy Crystal, bitter divorcing exes John Cusack and Catherine Zeta-Jones, both superstar actors, are convinced by the publicist (Crystal) of their final film together to pretend to be reuniting during the press junket, even though Zeta-Jones is now dating another actor from the film (Hank Azaria) and Cusack is secretly in love with Zeta-Jones's sister and assistant (Julia Roberts).  Hijinks ensue.  Director Joe Roth, normally a powerful producer directing his first film in over a decade, gathered a strong supporting cast, including Stanley Tucci, Christopher Walken, Alan Arkin, Seth Green, Rainn Wilson, Eric Balfour, and Roberts's niece Emma, but the film fell flat with critics, and faded fast at the box office after a strong opening.
Director: Joe Roth

New Limited Releases:

Hedwig and the Angry Inch--$3.1 million/165/92%/85--John Cameron Mitchell starred in and directed this adaption of his own stage musical (he wrote the book, with Stephen Trask, who also appeared in the original production's band and has a supporting part in the movie, writing the music and lyrics), playing a gay East German boy who undergoes a sex change so she can marry an American GI and escape--only to see the Berlin Wall fall a year later, and her husband leave her.  She ends up forming a rock band and takes a teenage boy (Michael Pitt) under her wing, only for him to betray her as well.  Miriam Shor (who, like Mitchell, is reprising her stage role) and Andrea Martin co-star.  The stage show had been a cult hit, and while the movie didn't break out of art houses during its initial run, it too has become a cult hit, while the stage show has, rather improbably, become a mainsteam hit, including a successful Broadway revival in 2014, during which Mitchell returned to the role.
Director: John Cameron Mitchell

Ghost World--$6.2 million/141/93%/88--Outcast teens Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson have plans to get an apartment together after high school, but instead, find themselves drifting apart after Birch befriends the shy and much older Steve Buscemi.  Brad Renfro, Illeana Douglas, Bob Balaban, Dave Sheridan, Tom McGowan, David Cross, Bruce Glover, and an unbilled Teri Garr co-star.  The comedy-drama was wildly acclaimed, and did good business on the art house circuit.  This marked the narrative film debut of documentarian Terry Zwigoff.  It would be Oscar nominated for Adapted Screenplay.
Director: Terry Zwigoff

Twenty-Five Years Ago--July 19, 1996:

#1 Movie:

Independence Day--$21.3 million

New Wide Releases:

The Frighteners--5/$5.6 million/$16.8 million/96/67%/52--Peter Jackson, who had moved from cult New Zealand horror director to respectability with his acclaimed 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures, made his American studio film debut for executive producer Robert Zemeckis with this horror comedy, in which Michael J. Fox (in what is, to date, his final lead role in a live-action film) plays a psychic con man who works with three ghosts (John Astin, Chi McBride, Jim Fyfe) to "haunt" houses until the owner pays him to "exorcise" the ghosts.  However, Fox finds his life in danger when a serial killer (Jake Busey) comes back from the dead with the ability to kill the living.  Trini Alvarado, Peter Dobson, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace Stone, and R. Lee Ermey co-star.  Reviews were mixed, and box office was mediocre, but Jackson's next film, released five-and-a-half years later, would be both a massive critical and commercial smash.
Director: Peter Jackson

Fled--6/$5.4 million/$17.2 million/94/18%/NA--This violent, dumb spin on The Defiant Ones has chain gang fugitives Laurence Fishburne and Stephen Baldwin on the run, and stumbling into a conspiracy involving, among others, a US Marshall (Robert John Burke), a cop (Will Patton), and a Cuban mobster (Michael Nader).  David Dukes, Ken Jenkins (also in Courage Under Fire), Salma Hayek, Bill Bellamy, and for some reason, RuPaul co-star.  Critics through it was mindless action, and it failed to make much of a box office impact.
Director: Kevin Hooks

Multiplicity--7/$5.1 million/$21.1 million/78/43%/NA--The summer's second comedy in which an ordinary guy uses an amazing sci-fi invention to upend his life (and allow the lead actor to play multiple versions of the same character), this starred Michael Keaton as a harried contractor who, after meeting a scientist (Harris Yulin) who has perfected human cloning, gets a couple copies of himself whipped up to take care of his work and home life, though going to great lengths to make sure his wife (Andie MacDowell) doesn't find out, especially after the two clones make a third.  Richard Masur, Eugene Levy, John de Lancie, Brian Doyle-Murray, and Julie Bowen co-star.  There was hopes that this would live up to Groundhog Day, the last high-concept comedy collaboration between MacDowell and director Harold Ramis, but critically and box-office wise, it couldn't hold a candle to The Nutty Professor.
Director: Harold Ramis

Kazaam--8/$5 million/$18.9 million/88/5%/24--NBA superstar Shaquille O'Neal, who had made his acting debut two years prior in the basketball drama Blue Chips, tried his hand at family comedy by playing the title character in this Disney flick, a genie whose new master is a Brooklyn kid (Francis Capra) who hopes to reconnect with his father (James Acheson).  Oh, and Shaq also raps.  Ally Walker and Efren Ramirez co-star.  Critics, of course, hated it, and audiences decided that, if they really wanted to see a funny Disney genie, they could just watch their tape of Aladdin again.
Director: Paul Michael Glaser

New Limited Releases:

Trainspotting--$16.5 million/97/91%/83--In this British/Scottish drama laced with pitch black comedy, Ewan McGregor plays a young heroin addict who makes several attempts to go clean, and ultimately notices that his friends (including Ewen Bremner, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, and Kevin McKidd) may not be the best of influences.  Kelly Macdonald co-stars.  The second collaboration of McGregor and director Danny Boyle (after 1994's Shallow Grave), this earned rave reviews and became a surprise mainstream hit in North America, despite its seamy subject matter.  It would receive an Oscar nomination for Adapted Screenplay.  A many-year-later sequel, T2: Trainspotting, would be released in 2017.
Direcotr: Danny Boyle

Walking and Talking--$1.3 million/195/88%/67--The directorial debut of Nicole Holofcener, as well as the first film she made with frequent star Catherine Keener, this comedy stars Keener and Anne Heche as best friends who are both going through troubles with men (Heche with fiancée Todd Field, Keener with ex Liev Schreiber and possible new guy Kevin Corrigan) and potentially with each other as Heche's wedding date grows nearer.  Vincent Pastore and Allison Janney co-star.  This earned terrific reviews and did decent business on the art house circuit.
Director: Nicole Holofcener

Thirty Years Ago--July 19, 2021:

#1 Movie:

Terminator 2: Judgment Day--$14.9 million

New Wide Releases:

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey--2/$10.2 million/$38 million/34/56%/60--Two years after Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure became an out-of-nowhere sleeper hit, Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves, also starring in previous week's release Point Break) returned, still struggling to make it as musicians, though their music had been prophesied to unite the world.  After a future terrorist (Joss Ackland) sends evil robot lookalikes to kill the duo, Bill & Ted have to battle Death himself (William Sadler) in order to return to the land of the living to fulfill their destinies.  George Carlin returned from the first film, and Pam Grier and Tony Cox joined the cast of this one.  Reviews were mixed, but the film made nearly as much as the first one.  A short-lived live-action TV show would air the following summer, and in 2020, Reeves, Winter, and Sadler would reunite for the much-later sequel Bill & Ted Face the Music.
Director: Peter Hewitt

Dutch--10/$1.9 million/$4.6 million/126/17%/NA--About a month after Christina Applegate headlined the unsuccessful Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, her TV dad Ed O'Neill had an even bigger flop with this road trip comedy.  O'Neill plays the title character, the blue-collar boyfriend of JoBeth Williams, who agrees to pick up her snobbish son (12-year-old Ethan Embry, then billed as Ethan Randall), from his prep school in Georgia and bring him back to Chicago.  Christopher McDonald co-stars.  Screenwriter John Hughes (suffering his third flop in a row after the runaway success of Home Alone) basically remade his own Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, right down to the Thanksgiving setting.  Twelve years later, O'Neill and Embry would co-star on a short-lived revival of Dragnet.
Director: Peter Faiman

Thirty-Five Years Ago--July 18, 1986:

New Wide Releases:

Aliens--1/$10.1 million/$85.2 million/7/97%/84--James Cameron's reward for making The Terminator into an acclaimed hit was to be given the reigns of his first out-and-out blockbuster, an action-packed sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 classic haunted house-in-space thriller.  And he knocked it out of the park.  Sigourney Weaver, the only survivor of the original, is found after 57 years in hypersleep, and agrees to help investigate what happened to the colony that was established near where the original took place.  Of course, the place is crawling with aliens, and Weaver has to rescue the one survivor, a young girl (Carrie Henn, in her one and only major film) and the rest of the Marine team.  Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, and Terminator veterans Bill Paxton and Michael Biehn co-star.  This was the rare summer blockbuster whose reviews and box office were both stellar.  The film would be nominated for seven Oscars, including Actress for Weaver, Art Direction, Sound, Editing, and Score, and would win two, for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.  There would be two direct sequels with Weaver, and several spin-offs and prequels in the 21st century.
Director: James Cameron

Vamp--11/$2.2 million/$4.9 million/106/40%/NA--In this little seen horror-comedy, college kids Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler, and Gedde Watanabe make the mistake of visiting Grace Jones's strip club, since that turns out to be a haven for vampires.  The survivors, along with a waitress (Dedee Pfeiffer) have to fight for their lives while waiting for sunlight.  Billy Drago co-stars.  This one would probably have been completely forgotten if Robert Rodriguez hadn't seemingly lifted the plot for his own From Dusk Till Dawn a decade later.
Director: Richard Wenk

Pirates--14/$1 million/$1.6 million/154/27%/32--Arguably the biggest cinematic financial disaster of 1986, this swashbuckling action comedy from Roman Polanski, his first film since the highly successful Tess, cast Walter Matthau as a pirate captain who spends the movie chasing down a MacGuffin in the form of a golden Aztec throne, which another captain (Damien Thomas) has in his possession.  The film reportedly cost $40 million--a huge sum in 1986--and despite a wide release, didn't come close to breaking into its opening weekend's Top 10.  Surprisingly, Polanski was able to bounce back just two years later with Frantic.  Despite being a critical and commercial bomb, it was still able to pick up an Oscar nomination for Costumes.  A quarter-century after this film's release, it made the news again when Charlotte Lewis, who as a teenager had played the film's ingenue, accused Polanski of sexually assaulting her during the film's pre-production period.
Director: Roman Polanski

Forty Years Ago--July 17, 1981:

New Wide Releases:

Arthur--$95.5 million/4/88%/69--In this smash hit comedy, Dudley Moore plays the title character, a filthy-rich New Yorker who sees life as one long, boozy party.  Unfortunately, his impatient grandmother (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is threatening to disinherit him unless he marries the daughter (Jill Eikenberry) of one of his family's business associates (Stephen Elliott).  Too bad that he's inconveniently fallen in love with working-class Liza Minnelli.  Ted Ross, Barney Martin, Paul Gleason, Lou Jacobi, Lawrence Tierney, and John Gielgud, as Moore's faithful butler/surrogate father, co-star.  The comedy smash of the summer (edging out Stripes by about $10 million), this also got across the board terrific reviews.  It would be nominated for four Oscars, including Moore for Actor, and Original Screenplay.  It would win two, Gielgud for Supporting Actor and Song for Christopher Cross's "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)", which was written by Cross, Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayar Sager, and Peter Allen, Minnelli's ex-husband.  A sequel would follow in 1988, and a poorly received remake with Russell Brand in the title role came out in 2011.  This would sadly be the only movie Steve Gordon would direct, as he would die suddenly the next year.
Director: Steve Gordon

Endless Love--$31.2 million/22/26%/30--Brooke Shields, who rose to fame in the late 70s in part because of her appearing in rather sexually graphic roles in films like Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon despite being underage, starred in yet another questionable movie, playing a 15-year-old (her actual age during filming) who falls hard for 17-year-old Martin Hewitt (who was 21 during production).  Their all-consuming love delights her mother (Shirley Knight) but worries her father (Don Murray), whose decision to try to break them up has disastrous consequences.  Richard Kiley and Beatrice Straight co-star, and the film also featured very early appearances by James Spader, Jami Gertz, Ian Ziering, and, in his film debut, Tom Cruise.   Even though director Franco Zeffirelli's last movie featuring teenagers in all-obsessive love with each other, Romeo and Juliet, had been a critical darling in 1968, they hated this one, but much of the crowd that had turned out the previous summer to see The Blue Lagoon came back out.  It would be nominated for one Oscar, for the title Song, written by Lionel Richie and performed by Richie and Diana Ross (the song would spend 9 weeks topping the Billboard chart that summer and fall, before being knocked off by the song that would beat it for the Oscar, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do")).  A way-toned-down remake would be released in 2014.
Director: Franco Zeffirelli

New Limited Releases:

Zorro, the Gay Blade--NA/NA/43%/52--In this spoof of swashbucklers in general and the old Zorro films in particular, George Hamilton plays the son of the now-deceased previous Zorro, who takes up the mantle himself, to defend the peasants from the evil new local magistrate (Ron Liebman).  But when Hamilton is injured, his flamboyant, openly gay (in the 1840s?) twin brother (also Hamilton) agrees to step in.  Lauren Hutton, Brenda Vaccaro, Donovan Scott, and Clive Revill co-star.  This was clearly inspired by Hamilton's last spoof film, 1979's Love at First Bite, which had been quite successful.  This one, however, got mixed-at-best reviews and didn't make much of an impact at the box office.  Hamilton wouldn't appear in another theatrical film until The Godfather, Part III in 1990.
Director: Peter Medak

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