Universal was so uncertain about the film that executives reportedly considered shelving it altogether. Producer Art Linson recalled that a memo circulated shortly before release warning executives Ned Tanen and Sid Sheinberg that the studio's future was in doubt if it was making movies like this high-school picture. Judge Reinhold remembered the cast being told that someone high in the company regarded the film as pornography, even though the filmmakers believed they had made an unusually authentic portrait of adolescent confusion, sexuality, work, and humiliation. The studio gave the picture only a limited release on August 13, 1982, opening it in 498 theaters without a major marketing campaign because it lacked established marquee names and was considered too sexually controversial. Tanen ultimately stood behind a theatrical release, and audience word-of-mouth transformed the supposed disaster: repeat viewers began quoting the dialogue, the run expanded to 713 theaters, and the film earned $27.1 million against a $4.5 million budget. Its eventual preservation in the National Film Registry in 2005 became an ironic rebuttal to the executives who had nearly hidden it.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1980s
The Studio Memo That Called Fast Times 'Pornography' Almost Sent It to the Vault
Fast Times at Ridgemont High / 1980s
Universal was so uncertain about the film that executives reportedly considered shelving it altogether. Producer Art Linson recalled that a memo circulated shortly before release warning executives Ned Tanen and Sid Sheinberg that the studio's future was in doubt if it was making movies like this high-school picture. Judge Reinhold remembered the cast being told that someone high in the company regarded the film as pornography, even though the filmmakers believed they had made an unusually authentic portrait of adolescent confusion, sexuality, work, and humiliation. The studio gave the picture only a limited release on August 13, 1982, opening it in 498 theaters without a major marketing campaign because it lacked established marquee names and was considered too sexually controversial. Tanen ultimately stood behind a theatrical release, and audience word-of-mouth transformed the supposed disaster: repeat viewers began quoting the dialogue, the run expanded to 713 theaters, and the film earned $27.1 million against a $4.5 million budget. Its eventual preservation in the National Film Registry in 2005 became an ironic rebuttal to the executives who had nearly hidden it.
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