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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)
Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17637
Location: North Carolina
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 Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 10:14 am Post subject: |
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Here's a personal anecdote concerning the nationwide "free" advertising Star Wars got in 1977.
After seeing the issue of Time magazine shown on a newsstand in 1977 at the Atlanta airport when I worked for Eastern, I was pretty damned excited about this new movie. And yet the way it was being released, it wouldn't even start showing in Atlanta for another two weeks! 
After seeing that article, it seemed like everybody was talking about Star Wars — including Johnny Carson, who walked out on stage at the beginning of a show and smiled while he waited for the applause and cheers to die down. As soon as it did, Johnny made his first joke of that night's monologue.
"Come on, admit it. You'd all rather be in line to see Star Wars!"
The audience exploded with wildly enthusiastic hoots and hollers and more applause. And that's when I decided I damn well wasn't going to wait two weeks to see this new movie!
Since I worked for Eastern Air Lines, it was easy to get passes for my wife and I to New York, where a friend of ours lived. He took us to a big, beautiful theater with stadium seating and stereo sound — neither of which were available in any Atlanta theater back then. My wife and I enjoyed Star Wars in 70mm on a screen so large it was like looking at Kansas propped up on it's side!
An amazing experience . . . 
When Star Wars finally opened in Atlanta it was so popular that one rundown theater on the bad side of town that had been showing soft-core porn for years closed for a month to receive an expensive renovation using money the owner borrowed, and then he took out a large ad in the Atlanta Journal to announce —
STAR WARS IN STEREO, FOR THE FIRST TIME ATLANTA!
It played for six months, and the owner paid back the loan. 
All that . . . from a movie I don't ever remember seeing a single trailer for, either in theaters or on TV.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Jun 17, 2022 2:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Custer
Space Sector Commander
Joined: 22 Aug 2015
Posts: 929
Location: Earth
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| Posted: Wed May 09, 2018 1:28 pm Post subject: Re: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) |
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| Bud Brewster wrote: | | Star Wars: A New Hope captured the nation's attention when it first came out, simply by the enthusiastic word-of-mouth that spread through fans of the genre! |
They certainly encouraged that fandom buzz - I was involved with various fanzines back then, generally of a comics rather than hard sf persuasion, and I was among the fans invited along to a special advance showing in Central London - at the Dominion, Tottenham Court Road, which is now a theatre, showing "Bat Out of Hell" currently I see. There was even a kind of "press kit" sent out, including probably the first three issues of the Marvel Comics adaptation? The scrolling text, the music, that first scene of the large spaceship going overhead, followed by an almost endlessly larger one... and we were hooked, yes? |
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