E.T. leads the pack of record-breaking hits
The lines snaking around 1,323 movie theaters this summer are long and eager; faces of every hue and age glow with anticipation. Outside Los Angeles' Cinerama Dome theater, a young woman on crutches stands patiently for 90 minutes, waiting to buy a ticket. Outside a theater in Washington, D.C., an elegant couple keeps cool by sipping tangerine daiquiris. Inside every theater there is applause as two names that certify movie magic appear on the screen: Steven Spielberg and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. One Boston man in his 20s exults: "This is our generation's Wizard of Oz." In Atlanta, two schoolgirls are still sobbing as they leave the theater, then segue into a spirited argument over who cried more. Back at the Cinerama Dome, the closing credits for E. T. roll by to one more standing ovation. The moviegoers may also have been applauding themselves, for they are helping to create the movies' biggest-ever hit.
That happy spirit is contagious. The summer escape hatch from work, school and the nightly news is leading Americans straight to their local moviehouses, and not just to see E.T. The mysterious combustion between a movie and its audience has created half a dozen outsize hits and made this the hottest season in U.S. film history. Records have been shattered at the box office. Biggest opening weekend for a movie: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (June 4-6). Biggest opening two weeks: E.T. (June 11-24). Flashiest streak for the industry: the past six weeks, every one of which earned $100 million in the U.S. Moviegoers were still lining up to see Rocky III ($75 million in six weeks), Conan the Barbarian ($39 million in eight weeks), Spielberg's suburban gothic chiller Poltergeist ($39.5 million in five weeks), and the surprise hit of the spring, the basement-budget Porky's ($100 million in 16 weeks).
The biggest noise—the music of a celestial cash register, 3 million light years above Sunset Boulevard—is for E.T. Spielberg's rapturous space romance touched down on June 11, made $86.9 million in its first 25 days (see chart) and by last weekend had raced to a record $100 million. As one awed executive says, "E.T. is beyond moviemaking." Indeed, it is mythmaking. It has become that rare film that seizes the popular imagination and attracts people who rarely go to the movies. Already the word is being passed in Hollywood and on Wall Street: E.T. should pass Star Wars to become the all-time box-office champ.