![]() ![]() Costing $13 million to make, this 1956 Biblical epic grossed $65.5 M in domestic theaters or the equivalent of over $1 billion in today's money. That one was The Ten Commandments, produced and directed by spectacle showman Cecil B. Of 1950s event movies, one stood above all others by the numbers. Movie attendance declined sharply with the advent of TV and yet, still the percentage of the American population that went to the cinema once a week on average was over three times recent rates. The best you could hope for was that a movie you missed might turn up on television in a few years, black and white, cropped, and with commercial interruptions. ![]() There was no substitute for a theatrical outing. Shortly after that, they could also very likely turn up at a Big Lots selling for, at most, the cost of two soon-expiring salty snack bags.īack in the 1950s, movies could truly be events. Either way, in just a few months, both will be available to rent in a McDonald's or supermarket vending machine for $1. A popular movie can be seen theatrically for maybe three months, an unpopular one for half that. ![]() Some movies today might be marketed as an event, but everyone can see right through such claims. The Internet serves as the world's collective DVR, streaming almost anything you want to see freely, ad-supported, or for a small fee. Now, many houses have hundreds of cable channels covering every niche at their fingertips. There were no video games, no home video, no Internet, no multi-functional phones. Back then, there were just a few television stations and even they didn't supply 24 hours of programming daily. Movies were such a bigger deal back in the 1950s than they are today.
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