Long Live The Princess Bride!

It has come to my attention through a friend's Facebook wall that there are many many people out there who have not seen The Princess Bride, a 1987 cult classic. So I am posting it here as a public service, to further the betterment and continuation of pop culture.

Because it is pretty damn cool.


Here are five cool facts about The Princess Bride:

1) It started life as a novel by Oscar-winning screenwriter William Goldman.

2) The adventures of Wesley and Buttercup were originally bedtime stories Goldman told his daughters.

3) Before it was released by 20th Century Fox on September 25, 1987 in a lowly nine theatres, it was set up with at least three different studios. Two of these said yes to developing it on Friday...and either shut down or changed management on Monday.

4) On its release in those nine theatres, it made a paltry $206, 243 (per Box Office Mojo), eventually grossing $30,857,814 in 803 theatres after it was widely released on October 9. Absolutely catastrophic numbers in today's movie culture, where a $300 million worldwide gross for a superhero film is considered a "failure". Yet it is remembered and beloved by its many devotees 32 years later, thanks to its rediscovery on home video, which is where I first saw it, on a rainy day in High Prairie, Alberta

Are you listening, Hollywood?

And most importantly, despite creating a rich cinematic "universe" over its 98 minutes, and also despite rock-solid chemistry between stars Cary Elwes and Robin Wright as Wesley and Buttercup, no one at the studio expected to make multiple sequels, and as far as my memory serves, audiences weren't clamoring for one either. Neither the leads nor anyone in the films were signed to Marvel slave contracts, like poor Robert Downey Jr. (I know he isn't poor. But...you know. Deep in your heart, you know. And he knows too.)

Because movie fans were happy to lose themselves in a movie 98 minutes at a time.

And that was enough.

Aside from a video game in 2008, which featured voice work by Robin Wright as Buttercup, Mandy Patinkin as Inigo, and Wallace Shawn as Vizzini:




Are you listening Hollywood?

MTMG