The Pleasures of Disappointment: Sequels and the Godfather, Part II
2001; University of Illinois Press; Volume: 53; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1934-6018
Autores Tópico(s)Art History and Market Analysis
ResumoFilm critics normally view sequels as exploitative products that cash in on the popularity of earlier blockbusters, invariably inferior to the original films. However, most critics today consider the 1974 sequel to The Godfather not only better than the first movie but one of the best movies of the decade. This fact seems even more surprising when one considers that the first Godfather is one of the most beloved films of all time and was, for a brief period, the greatest blockbuster in film history. When The Godfather debuted in 1972, it shattered all the major box office records. It made $8 million in its opening week in national release. It brought in a million dollars a day for twenty-six days and $2 million a week for 23 consecutive weeks. In less than six months, it surpassed Gone with the Wind to become the biggest box-office grosser in history, earning $86,275,000 in rentals by the end of its first year in release. The critics loved it too, on the whole, except that many thought it romanticized and glamorized the Mafia. The astounding success of The Godfather surprised everyone involved with the picture, especially the executives at Paramount, who immediately began badgering director Francis Ford Coppola for a sequel. If the sequel had only a fraction of the financial success of the original movie, it would mean enormous profits. The Godfather, they reasoned, was a formula for success, and, plagued by financial troubles, Hollywood studios in the early seventies coveted successful formulas. In the late sixties and early seventies, theater attendance dropped to record lows. In 1946, 90 million Americans attended the movies each week. That figure dropped to 47 million per week in 1956, and by 1967 attendance fell to a mere 17.8 million, finally hitting an historic low of 15.8 million in 1971, the year before The Godfather's release (Steinberg, 371). Commentators blamed television, the high cost of movie tickets, and the poor quality of the films. Whatever the cause, Hollywood studios in the sixties recorded their worst financial losses in history. Scrambling for audiences, studio executives hardly understood what people wanted from the movies. As a result, studios in the seventies banked on the successes of earlier hits by producing strings of horror movies and disaster movies and whatever else they hoped would please the public. The Godfather spawned a litter of Mafia movies (such as The Don is Dead [1973], Lucky Luciano [1974], The Black Godfather [1974], and Lepke [1975]) just as Bannie and Clyde (1967) and Easy Rider (1969) had engendered movies about sympathetic outlaws and what had come to be called youth culture (Little Fauss and Big Halsey [1970], Getting Straight [1970], Dirty Mary Crazy Larry [1974], The Sugarland Express [1974]). Sequels to popular movies had an almost guaranteed audience, typically earning two-thirds of the profits of the original films (Chown, 103). Not surprisingly, Hollywood loved them, even though the critics did not, and the 1970s saw the greatest incidence of film sequels in Hollywood's history to that time. They Call Me Mr. Tibbs (1970 sequel to In the Heat of the Night), Ben (1972 sequel to Willard), Shaft's Big Score (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973, both sequels to Shaft), The Trial of Billy Jack (1974 sequel to Billy Jack), Herbie Rides Again (1974) and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977, both sequels to The Love Bug), Airport '75, '77, and '79, Sounder: Part 2 (1976), Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), Damien-Omen 2 (1978), and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) exemplify a small number of the sequels that made it to theaters in the seventies, critical assassination notwithstanding.1 Hollywood was taking few chances. Most of these sequels have not seen an audience since their first runs, whereas The Godfather, Part II has had several re-releases and regularly plays on network and cable TV, and, as we shall see, many film critics regard it as the best movie of the period. …
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