Of Drew Dietsch
| Published
Before blockbusters were limited to superhero movies or legacy sequels, the 90s offered a plethora of original, big-budget genre adventures that audiences were willing to take a chance on. I would give anything to go back to a decade when movies like Tremors, Anacondaand Deep Blue Sea received significant budgets and a chance to shine at the box office.
One such film that didn’t quite work then is Event horizon (1997). Directed by the guy who did the good Mortal Kombat movie (fight me i know death), Event horizon tells the story of an experimental spaceship that mysteriously went dark on its maiden voyage and the crew sent to find out what happened.
The scientist behind the spaceship’s new experimental engine, Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), hides some secrets from the team’s captain, Miller (Laurence Fishburne), and his working-class crew. Once they get to the ship and discover everything that happened, all hell breaks loose, literally.
Event horizon was bombed at the ticket office, But why?
A familiar enough ghost ship tale (it’s much better than Ghost Ship), Event horizon decided to up the ante by being one of the more ambitious sci-fi horror films that theaters had seen in a while. And that’s when things started to look shaky.
With a reported budget of $60 million (that’s nearly $120 million today), Event horizon is an expensive production with lots of elaborate sets and effects. You need time to get through it all. And wouldn’t you know, Paramountwho greenlit such a massive financial venture, had to rush the shooting and editing of the film.
Event Horizon’s failure is the fault of James Cameron and Titanic
Why was there a rush? Blame James Cameron and his big boat movie for not making its scheduled release, compelling Event horizon to squeeze much of what it wanted to do into much less time. Arguably, this even led to the film being heavily edited from director Paul WS Anderson’s original vision. A rushed production doesn’t always lead to a failed final film, but it certainly doesn’t help things and it certainly didn’t help here.
That probably didn’t help either Event horizon that it didn’t have the star power to sell itself to as wide an audience as possible. Even just four years away from Jurassic Parkhe was not an actor that audiences followed into riskier films. And Laurence Fishburne, although well established and respected at that point in his career, had yet to become even more famous and beloved thanks to The matrix. Cowboy Curtis didn’t move tickets, sorry. While the rest of the cast are solid and fun actors, none of them would make people go see a movie where this happens:
That is probably an important factor why Event horizon failed at the box office. While sick people like me will always be down for Hellraiser in space, Event Horizon’s big concept is a hard sell to regular moviegoers. See, the Event Horizon is a ship that can warp space to travel incredible distances in an instant. The problem is, this requires opening a portal to a hellish dimension (oops!), and eventually everyone ends up being attacked or possessed by an unknown evil force.
The odds and the critics were stacked against the success of the sci-fi horror film
There’s plenty of haunted house horror to be extracted from that situation, and Event horizon manages some legit spooky moments along with all the extreme effects. But audiences aren’t usually hyped for this kind of genre mash-up. They were too busy that weekend in 1997 to see Police Country which, well, I don’t blame them. Police Country rules.
Still, Event horizon to be an original sci-fi horror with a non-superstar cast trying to do something a little out there after getting busted by the studio? The odds were definitely stacked against it, and Event horizon refueled at the box office, which opens at number 4 just before the third week’s showings of Rome. ROME.
Maybe the 90s weren’t as good as I remembered. Event horizon languished in theaters until it was pulled after earning $26 million domestically, less than half of its reported budget. Ouch. As far as the bean counters go, this was a failure.
What about the crowd that showed up? What did they think? They were not kind to Event horizon at all. CinemaScore is a polling company that asks opening night paying audiences to give the movie they just saw a letter grade (because I guess movies are like math homework), and the average grade their respondents gave was D+, which is pretty abysmal for them. Just to give some comparison, CinemaScore too Rome was a C+!
Prominent film critics did not help the film’s reputation. Roger Ebert gave Event horizon only two out of four stars, noting that it draws inspiration from the iconic Stanislaw Lem sci-fi story Solarisand doesn’t do much of anything substantial with its horror movie riff on the idea. That might be a bit of a fair criticism, Roger, but the two-star rating definitely hurt the perceived value of the film for a certain number of educated film fans. Meanwhile, he gave Spawn three and a half stars. Out of four!
Event Horizon eventually found an audience
Thank God, the story of Event horizon didn’t stop there. The film did surprisingly well on home video, and Paramount even tried to get Anderson to restore footage that had been thrown away due to rushing the production. Unfortunately, these elements were destroyed or could not be located. This mythical version of Event horizon which we will unfortunately never see helped get fans even more interested and supportive of the film.
Nowadays, Event horizon has received much more love than its first theatrical run. There’s a loaded Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, a 4K ultra-high definition, you can find tons of videos online where fans dig deep into the film and its production, and Christopher Nolan might even be a fan as the memorable ‘wormhole demonstration scene’ performed by Sam Neill gets a bit of a nod in Nolan’s own Interstellar.
As of this recording, a Event horizon The TV show is still evolving to give the story more room to experiment with its twisted ideas. Obviously, the movie created a corner that sci-fi horror fans still want to visit.
Suffice it to say, Event horizon was a failure that proves that the box office isn’t what makes or breaks a film’s legacy. Although it took a while, Event horizon crawled out of the mess of its theatrical rise to become a true cult favorite that new fans are still discovering today. The films and stories that matter will find the audiences that want them.
