Today, Shawshank is widely hailed as a classic. The Library of Congress has added the film to the National Registry, and it’s entrenched at No. 1 on IMDb’s ranking of its users’ favorite films of all time, topping The Godfather. That wasn’t the case, however, in the waning days of 1994, when the film finished 51st in the year-end box office results, an anemic showing that put it behind Richie Rich, Blank Check and A Low Down Dirty Shame.
The Castle Rock Entertainment/Columbia Pictures release from first-time director Darabont had opened wide in mid-October with dismal numbers (it finished the weekend in ninth place despite 944 screens) and finished its original theatrical run the Monday after Thanksgiving. The final box office verdict was a grim one: $16 million, a good $9 million shy of its production budget.
The failure of Shawshank was blamed on the film’s timing (the indie sensation Pulp Fiction opened the same day in October), its ungainly title, its 142-minute running time, and its bleaker-than-bleak marketing materials.
The turnaround for the penitentiary epic arrived in early 1995 in the form of seven Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture and another for Darabont’s script about the unlikely friendship between two inmates in a Maine prison. Morgan Freeman was also nominated for best actor for his work opposite Tim Robbins.
The trophies went to Forrest Gump, but the nominations got the film back in theaters (it added another $12 million in box office). The film’s heavy rotation on cable television and its home video success then turned Shawshank into a second-life hit and, eventually, a cultural touchstone. The prison used in the filming has become a tourist destination with annual revenue of around $16 million — roughly the same as the movie’s total box office haul in its original release.
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