Behind the Scenes: When Box Office Booms, United Artists 1968

Without a James Bond to guarantee a winner, major studio United Artists invested so wisely in production in 1968 that it virtually doubled its investment. From 30 films costing a total of $60 million, the studio hit the target with rentals of $115 million.

This was in large part due to a relative newcomer, a certain Clint Eastwood. UA’s share of the costs of the final film in the Sergio Leone trilogy The Good, The Bad and the Ugly had amounted to just $972,000 and that bought it the distribution rights to most of Europe, the US and the rest of the world. The picture was a hit Stateside with $5.2 million in rentals (the studio share of box office gross once the cinema had taken its cut) and it took in another $5 million at the global ticket wickets. The grand total of $10.2 million was ten times the cost, and this was before Easy Rider the following year made cost-to-profit ratio a significant measure of success.

But UA had also forked out $1.67 million to make Eastwood’s first American western, Hang ‘Em High directed by Ted Post with Inger Stevens as the female lead.  That racked up just over $6 million in the domestic market with another $3 million overseas, totalling $9.04 million.

But whereas those in the know, based on returns for the first two spaghetti westerns, could have predicted a solid audience response to the Clint Eastwood duo, that was hardly the case for a low-budget comedy with two stars whose movie careers had largely derailed.

Although a major star on television thanks to I Love Lucy, and a considerable power in television production – her company Desilu produced Mission Impossible, Star Trek and The Untouchables –  Lucille Ball was a spent force in the movies. She hadn’t made a picture in five years – Critic’s Choice (1963) flopped – and only two in the last decade. While still in demand, Henry Fonda was more likely to play second lead – to Richard Widmark in Madigan (1968) or James Stewart in Firecreek (1968) – or a supporting role in a big budget film and on those rare occasions when he was top-billed, Welcome to Hard Times (1967), the movie flopped.

Yours, Mine and Ours was based on a non-fiction best-seller, a melding of gigantic proportions of two families, totalling a dozen children. The comic opportunities were obvious to writer-director Melville Shavelson, back on home ground after Israeli war epic Cast a Giant Shadow (1966). A feel-good comedy without any sex was what Disney did, not a studio known for breaking boundaries. If nobody expected much, even if Ball could drag in her television fans, Hollywood had forgotten about the forgotten audiences, the older generation left out in the cold by the spate of movies mainlining on sex and violence. It proved the ideal antidote to the previous year’s The Graduate.

Made for just $1.7 million (plus $455,000 deferred, payable only if the movie went into the black) it was outrageously successful, knocking up $13 million in global rentals. Foreign audiences were less taken but by then nobody cared for it had scored over $11 million in rentals in the U.S, placing ninth in the annual box office league.

Although it cost considerably more – $4.3 million – UA pulled out another plum with Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway romantic thriller The Thomas Crown Affair which ransacked the global box office to the tune of $11.2 million in rentals.

Whereas, excepting the latter, all these had been low-budget gambles, UA took an almighty risk with musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the closest it came to James Bond given they shared the same author in Ian Fleming. Dick Van Dyke was in Mary Poppins form, but co-star Shirley Anne Howe was no Julie Andrews. The budget was a whopping $11.9 million, more than double the cost of its next most expensive production, The Charge of the Light Brigade. It just about sneaked home, earning rentals of $14.8 million. While, technically, the studio’s biggest hit at the box office, in terms of profit it lagged way behind.

Another risky venture was war film The Devil’s Brigade starring an out-of-favor William Holden who hadn’t had a hit since the start of the decade. Budgeted at $4.7 million there were some anxious moments at UA HQ when the domestic tally was just $3.85 million but audiences overseas were more welcoming and, in the end, the global tally of $8.6 million made it a certified hit. 

The $3 million spent, respectively, on comedy The Party starring Peter Sellers and western The Scalphunters with Burt Lancaster also hit the profit lode, the former with a global pot of $4.5 million, the latter $4.75 million.

There was also shrewd investment in overseas films. Beatles animated feature Yellow Submarine torpedoed $3.6 million on a budget of $1.1 million. British coming of age sex drama Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush cost just $602,000 but pulled in $2.5 million. A couple of French arties hit home runs. Claude Lelouche’s Vivre Pour Vivre with Yves Montand and Candice Bergen racked up $4.4 million but cost only $561,000 and Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black brought in rentals of just over $2 million on a budget of $747,000.

Out of 30 films, 17 ended up in profit, which was a pretty good result for an industry that was about to hit the financial buffers from overspending. With budgets averaging just $2 million the studio reduced the risk factor. While UA had built a successful business in the 1950s and 1960s by paying top dollar to stars, ceding control and financing vanity projects, now it was less inclined to gamble on unproven marquee value. Only Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Burt Lancaster, Peter Sellers and William Holden had the kind of box office track record that would have studios lining up to match their fees. 

SOURCE: “United Artists Corporation and Subsidiaries Motion Picture Negative Costs for Pictures Released in the Year Ended December 28, 1968,” United Artists Files, University of Wisconsin.