anybody know about it's inital release?
I can't imagine this thing was available nation wide. probably just followed the art house circut. does anybody know for sure? was it only available in select cities back in '71?
shareIn the movie BAADASSSSS (the Mario van Peebles movie about this movie.), They talk about it only opening in 2 theatres...1 in Detroit and one in Atlanta...After the film's success in those cities it opened in more cities...although I doubt it opened in all too many more.
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Van Peebles' film grossed $15.2M, more than Shaft ($12.1M) and good for eleventh on the list of highest grossing North American releases from 1971.
shareThey only released it in inner-city theaters at the time, as the film was in no way intended for a white audience.
shareThe movie was only released in "inner city theaters" because no mainstream distributor would touch it. I was a true independent film. . . Van Peebles made it with his own money and with the aid of investors, most notably and ironically, Bill Cosby.
What is remarkable about its gross is that it REMAINED in very few movie houses, and the gross was made up of predominately African American audiences.
Shaft was written as a movie for a white cop (note the writer, Tidyman won an Oscar for The French Connection). It was changed because of Sweetback. Yet no "blaxploitation" movie grossed as much as Sweetback.
this was the highest grossing independent movie ever in 1971. This movie wasn't blaxploitation either
shareshame to know that there aren't any real inner city theatres anymore. those that are are just chains from bigger movie corporations that play just as much mainstream *beep* as AMC and some other giants.
It's a god damn shame.
Shaft was written as a movie for a white cop (note the writer, Tidyman won an Oscar for The French Connection). It was changed because of Sweetback. Yet no "blaxploitation" movie grossed as much as Sweetback.
Shaft's original script may have been for a white cop, but the change to a black protagonist could not have occurred due to Sweetback. The Van Peebles film made its premiere on March 31, 1971, in Detroit, and by that time, director Gordon Parks had already filmed Shaft.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067741/business?ref_=tt_dt_bus
Shaft then hit theaters that summer, pretty much on the heels of Sweetback. You can see here that Sweetback topped the weekly box office three times that spring, while Shaft topped the weekly box office for five consecutive weeks that summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1971_box_office_number-one_films_ in_the_United_States
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