There are movie flops and there’s Heaven’s Gate by Michael Cimino. The 1980 western epic wasn’t just a commercial failure, it was such a disaster that after which the Hollywood system of the time was changed. On Tuesday evening you can watch one of the most legendary flops ever on ServusTV.
Heaven’s Gate bankrupted an entire studio
After the acclaimed, multi-Oscar-winning war film masterpiece Through Hell, Michael Cimino was considered one of the brightest directing talents of 1970s Hollywood. For his next film, Heaven’s Gate, about American farmers at the time of the Johnson County War in the late 19th century, he received an artistic license and a large budget from the United Artists studio.
However, the shooting of Heaven’s Gate turned into a disaster in which a perfectionist driven Cimino drove the budget to gigantic heights in the end. After, among other things, having incredibly expensive sets built and quickly destroyed again, and having completely overrun the days of shooting, he handed over a five-hour version after another eight months of editing work. Of course, it was still much too long and finally premiered as a 200-minute version.
The first reviews of Heaven’s Gate were extremely negative at the time and the western epic only made a disastrous 3.5 million dollars with a budget of 44 million dollars. This flop result actually bankrupted United Artistsafter which the studio was sold to MGM.
The New Hollywood era was buried by Heaven’s Gate flop
At the end of the 1960s, the New Hollywood movement was formed in the US film business. Directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, William Friedkin and Martin Scorsese were considered striking artists who could live out their visions without noticeable studio interference.
Michael Cimino was initially considered a New Hollywood prodigy, but Heaven’s Gate gave the slowly weakening era the final nail in the coffin. After the catastrophic events surrounding the film, major studios took action from the 80s again significantly more influence on productions and controlled the processes much more strictly. So Heaven’s Gate not only bankrupted a studio, it buried an entire Hollywood era.
The film will be shown on ServusTV on July 11 at 10:10 p.m.
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