Why Didn’t This Ever Happen?

Watching recently I realized this movie genre no longer exists: the disaster pic. Decades ago we had various natural terrors screening, from giant earthquakes (plausible) to burning skyscrapers (less so — at the time) to upside-down sunken ocean liners (…… riiiiiight). This one may have been the first to take that dangerous left turn into real plausibility, so much that it may have scared the public off. The unknown, stick-figure psycho bad guy here may not be credible but the film did inspire at least one other studio to make a better, more plausible one with the same theme. 1977’s Black Sunday had bigger stars as organized terrorists also threatening The Big Game (not allowed to use That Other Name), making it fit right in with 21st-century reality decades later.

So why didn’t anything like this ever happen?

Don’t tell me it’s the new crack security employed at such venues since 9/11. Even if that were true — and you’d have to convince me — what about all those naive years between 1977 and 2001? Plenty of Superbowls (oops!), Stones concerts, and other huge gatherings to tempt gun-toting whacks to get famous. But none did.

Although I find it materially different, I guess you could include the Mandalay shooting as one. Even then again, it’s a long way from 1977 to 2017 without anything like that, despite two major studios films — one, a hit — showing us all how it could be done.