Commercial Reaction
The Wiz proved to be a commercial flop, as the $24 million production only earned $13.6 million at the box office. Though prerelease TV broadcast rights had been sold to CBS for over $10 million, in the end, the film produced a net loss of $10.4 million for Motown and Universal. At the time, it was the most expensive film musical ever made. The film's failure steered Hollywood studios away from producing the all-black film projects which had become popular during the blaxploitation era of the early to mid-1970s for several years.
The film has been available on VHS home video since the 1980s, and is periodically broadcast on television, often on Thanksgiving Day. The film was released on DVD in 1999; a remastered version entitled The Wiz: 30th Anniversary Edition was released in 2008. Extras on both DVD releases include a 1978 featurette about the film's production and the original theatrical trailer.
Read more about this topic: The Wiz (film)
Famous quotes containing the words commercial and/or reaction:
“If men could menstruate ... clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.... Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammed Ali’s Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields—”For Those Light Bachelor Days.””
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“Children, randomly at first, hit upon something sooner or later that is their mother’s and/or father’s Achilles’ heel, a kind of behavior that especially upsets, offends, irritates or embarrasses them. One parent dislikes name-calling, another teasing...another bathroom jokes. For the parents, this behavior my have ties back to their childhood, many have been something not allowed, forbidden, and when it appears in the child, it causes high-voltage reaction in the parent.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)