40 years of success! The 80s movies coming to theaters and on TV

More and more lately in the cinema the maxim “nothing is created, everything is copied” is becoming true. What many don’t seem to know, however, is that it’s not easy to be successful. For every ten attempts to capture a new media phenomenon, less than half actually hit their mark with the target audience. In other words, even with a massive and very expensive marketing campaign, and rave reviews from most of the specialized media, it is not synonymous with a film that will fall heavily into the collective imagination, becoming the new wave of culture. pop.

That way, the hats must be taken off on those who actually earn their place among the greatest movies of all time. These timeless films which, in addition to never leaving the mind and soul of the general public (certainly reaching the majority of viewers), remain culturally, popular and socially relevant. Such works continue to generate money as they transcend countless pieces of merchandising, such as comics, games, toys and animation, and of course continue to bear fruit on the big screen.

We will focus here precisely on the films released 40 years ago in cinema, in 1981, which are still very present in the collective consciousness, and which will soon bear new fruits for Hollywood – whether on the big screen, with new ones. blockbusters, or on the small screen, with the new era of the television series. Check it out below and comment.

In 1981, the hero’s debut film Indiana Jones made its big screen debut and forever changed entertainment cinema – which has featured heavily in matinee films of the past. The success was such that the film became one of the first “blockbusters” in Hollywood and did not generate two other sequels until the 1980s (in 1984 and 1989). In the early 1990s, the character migrated to the small screen, in the form of a series that recounted his early adventurous years still in his youth, taken from the catchphrase contained in the third film.

Two decades later and the character still in Harrison Ford’s form was back at age 66 on a new journey (The Fourth Adventure), all while discovering a son. Now, for the first time, we will have a film without the direction of Steven Spielberg – this time only in the position of the producer. Who will direct the hero’s fifth adventure on the big screen is James Mangold, from the hit Logan (2017). Ford is back on board in the lead role, after rumors of a possible reboot with Chris Pratt as the character. The film opens in June 2023, but has no title revealed yet. What we do know is that this time a woman will be at the center of the adventure, with the character of the prestigious Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

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From an adventure blockbuster, we jump into a horror film. But not just any, but one of the most beloved franchises of the genre, which has come back in force and in class in recent years. Okay, Halloween – Night of Horror (1978) is over forty years old, but it turns out that going back four decades we are faced with the first direct continuation of John Carpenter’s timeless success, writing and producing. by himself. Once again, the sequel was popular with fans.

Since then, 10 films have been released in total, including numerous sequels, reboots, and even remakes. In 2018, the eleventh feature film promised to reset the countdown again (i.e. after the premiere) and start a new trilogy. It was this movie, again starring Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie, that brought the franchise back to life, pushing Michael Myers out of the B-movie field and into mainstream audiences. This year the direct sequel to that movie, Halloween Kills premiered. And we are still heating the engines for the conclusion of this latest saga, with Halloween Ends, which will be released in October 2022. Wait.

evil Dead

We’re still in the horror movie business, however, now we’re out of the slasher and into an equally special genre – haunting movies in the woods. This genre that the Evil Dead helped create. The semi-amateur film by filmmaker Sam Raimi became one of the most cult works of the 1980s and raised the status of director. Little by little, Raimi was putting his name among the greats of the industry, and it all started 40 years ago, in horror without a lot of resources, but with a lot of creativity. Six years later, he had a better budget and was doing a sequel / remake of his first feature film.

In the early 1990s, the franchise concluded its saga of the living dead known as the Deadites and buffoon hero Ash (Bruce Campbell). The difference between Raimi’s Evil Dead films compared to other horror films of the time was the constant use of humor, which turns the trilogy almost into a parody, but without forgetting the heavier elements, such as possessions, beheadings and dismemberments. For twenty years, the universe created by Raimi fell asleep, until in the era of the 2010 remakes, Evil Dead – Death of the Demon would win a reimagination “pauleira”, which forgot all burlesque humor to invest massively in the gore – with the right to a performance inspired by the protagonist Jane Levy.

The comedic form of Evil Dead will earn its place on the small screen with the premiere of the show Ash vs Evil Dead, which will bring back Bruce Campbell for his most famous role. The show ran for three seasons. Now, a new movie called Evil Dead Rise is in post-production and is slated for release next year. This feature will be a direct continuation of the original trilogy and will take place against the backdrop of a building in the middle of town this time around, instead of the usual cabin in the woods. It remains to be seen whether the production will take into account the events of Ash vs. Evil Dead.

George Miller, the creator of the post-apocalyptic Australian franchise Mad Max, is not hiding from anyone the rocky relationship he had with his main stars in the franchise’s fourth film, Estrada da Furia. Mad Max films began in 1979 as an independent, cult production. Forty years ago Miller delivered one of the best action films in history with the direct sequel to that film, an evolution in every way. After the third film, in 1985, the franchise would take a long hiatus and stall for a while in the 1980s.

Three decades later, already in a time of constant revitalization of well-known and potentially profitable brands, Mad Max would return to pop culture, this time in the form of Tom Hardy – replacing veteran Mel Gibson. On set, Miller had a nightmare trying to take control of both Hardy and Charlize Theron, as well as breaking up their fights. As a result, against all odds, Estrada da Fúria was successful, even receiving Oscar nominations, but Miller declined to hear both. For a movie centered around the character of Theron Furious, the director chose Anya Taylor-Joy as his replacement. The plot will be a pre-sequence, showing the character’s youth. Furious has promised a premiere in May 2024.

What, you ask? Calm down, dear reader. We know this title isn’t as flashy as the items above. But be aware that this is a production starring star Sylvester Stallone. Okay, that wasn’t Stallone’s “action king” though, as he would be known in the mid-80s after the release of Rambo 2 (1985) specifically. From then on, the actor will become one of the pillars of the “one-man army” sub-genre films. But here, going back forty years, the actor was still fumbling for his place in the Hollywood industry and circling around in search of a more dramatic role.

It was the Stallone from Rocky and Rocky 2 – two productions from the 1970s. So the actor started the 1980s not with an action blockbuster, but with a neo-noir cop, who behaves more like a thriller. However, the structural foundations that the actor would use in his characters during this decade were already taking shape, with Stallone playing the role of a tough and stubborn (bearded and furry) cop. Your mission is to find a terrorist who has a habit of blowing up everything in his path and slaughtering people at will.

The Maniac is played by one of the best and most charismatic villains in movie history: the late Rutger Hauer. The eternal Lando Calrissian, Billy Dee Williams as Stallone’s partner completes the cast. The news is this: Nighthawks, or Nighthawks in the original, will be made into an eight-episode series in its first season that will have Stallone not only in front of the cameras, but as a director as well. Who confirmed it was Frank Grillo, who will star in the show, playing the same character that Stallone played in the film. The release date has not yet been released.

To complete the list, the third element in the action-adventure triad from 40 years ago – with Indiana Jones and Mad Max. An invaluable cult object for moviegoers. The badass who wears an eye patch and doesn’t even need the other point of view to distribute punches, gunshots and explosions is just too iconic. Escape from New York also gives new air to the career of John Carpenter, then a more horrific director.

Here, the director has taken his most ambitious step with a science fiction combining action and suspense. Russell saw a renegade soldier in the future. He is the only one who can carry out a real suicide mission, but he must be “forced” to do so. It turns out that Manhattan has turned into a big open-air prison, a sort of big Alcatraz, where criminals are “begotten” and live on their own, creating their own laws – without any interference from the authorities, who only monitor from a distance.

It is in this more than chaotic scenario that the plane of the American president crashes – and Plissken must save it by running against the clock. Over ten years later, Carpenter himself made a sort of remake, with more humor and moving from New York to Los Angeles. This second did not have the same reception as the original. Since then, there has been talk of a possible remake for years – the one Gerard Butler was set to star in the day after 300. Now he’s finally stepped out in the role, with Leigh Whannell (The Invisible Man) at the helm. . The filmmaker ditched the remake of The Werewolf to create the new universe of Escape from New York. The film is already in the pre-production phase.

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