After a summer of movies that didn`t live up to expectations,
”Unforgiven,” directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, has startled Hollywood out of its dog-day lethargy with a bang.
In its opening weekend, ”Unforgiven” wound up with $15 million, making it the biggest August opening in history. But aren`t Westerns supposed to be dead? Isn`t the former mayor of Carmel, 62, supposed to be on his way to dignified semi-retirement?
Eastwood hasn`t had respectable ticket sales since 1986`s ”Heartbreak Ridge” ($42 million). Furthermore, everybody knows that men of a certain age- think Robert Redford, Paul Newman-are struggling for roles in the `90s. How did ”Unforgiven” and its quirky quartet of grizzled vets-Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris and Eastwood-succeed?
Warner Bros. refused to offer its opinion, but the word is buzz. John Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks national box office revenues, credits a strong trailer. And despite the fact that other studios assumed the movie was a prairie dog-”because Warner was releasing it in August,” as a competing studio`s publicity executive put it-the timing was sure-fire.
For its 1993 edition of ”The Films of Clint Eastwood,” Citadel Press plans to replace the cover art of the younger Eastwood as Dirty Harry (from 1976`s ”The Enforcer”) with a shot of ”Unforgiven`s” aging star.
