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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 1994 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Turner Broadcasting Systems merged with New Line Cinema and soon was successful with two blockbusters. Both starred popular comedian Jim Carrey: The Mask (1994) and the slapstick Dumb and Dumber (1994). [Note: Coincidentally, The Mask launched the career of then-unknown Cameron Diaz.] Carrey had started his career as a stand-up comic in Canadian clubs, after which he brought his act to the Wayan Brothers' TV show In Living Color in the early to mid-1990s as the wacky masochistic, accident-prone Fire Marshal Bill. His irrepressible, extroverted rubber-faced character headlined in a trio of films in 1994. Superstar Carrey had also appeared in an earlier third popular hit in the same calendar year - his breakout film: Warners' Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994). | |
| The R-rated biopic-documentary Crumb (1994) sympathetically portrayed counter-cultural, sex-obsessed cartoonist R. Crumb, known for 1960s-era underground comic books, the character of Mr. Natural, the phrase: "Keep on Truckin'", Fritz the Cat (the character was the inspiration for the first X-rated animated feature in Hollywood history by writer/director Ralph Bakshi in 1972), and the cover art for Janis Joplin's best-selling record Cheap Thrills. | |
| Disney's hit Christmas movie The Santa Clause (1994) was the cross-over breakthrough film for TV star Tim Allen. Although Allen had a criminal record and Disney was known for not hiring felons or ex-cons, an exception was made. He continued to work with Disney/Pixar as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story films, and starred in two Santa Clause sequels in 2002 and 2006. | |
| Turner Classic Movies (TCM), a 24-hour commercial-free network for programming classic films (mostly from the combined Turner and Warner Bros. library of film greats), was launched. | |
| Darnell Martin became the first female African-American director to helm (and write) a major studio production, for directing Columbia Pictures' comedy drama I Like It Like That (1994) (her debut picture). | |
| Writer/director James Cameron's True Lies (1994), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Bond-like secret agent, was a spy-adventure packed with special effects, thrills, co-star Jamie Lee Curtis (at age 35) doing a sexy striptease, and an exciting jet and car chase over the Florida Keys. Its production budget eventually totaled $115 million, but it was able to gross $146 million (domestic) and $379 million (worldwide). It was the first film with a budget to cross over $100 million. Later, Cameron's Titanic (1997) was also noteworthy for breaking the $200 million budget barrier. A sequel was planned for 2002, but cancelled in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. | |
| One of the first major video game theatrical adaptations, the action film Street Fighter (1994), with Jean-Claude Van Damme, was dedicated to co-star Raul Julia, who died after the film was completed - it was his last theatrical release. Van Damme had turned down the role of Johnny Cage in the more successful Mortal Kombat (1995), to star in this film. It turned out to be negatively-criticized and rated as one of the worst films ever made, although it was financially successful - returning nearly three times its $35 million budget with its worldwide box office tally ($99.4 million). It was followed by the reboot: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009). | |
| Director Jan de Bont's action-thriller hit Speed (1994) starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock became one of the most exhilarating and successful films of its kind. It won two Academy Awards, Best Sound and Best Sound Effects Editing, and was the 8th highest-grossing (domestic) film of the year, at $121 million. The spectacular heart-pounding film helped to boost Reeves’ critical rise in the 1990s, leading to later acclaimed roles in The Devil’s Advocate (1997) and The Matrix (1999). Reeves declined to appear in de Bont's sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control (1997), to go on tour with his band Dogstar. Jason Patrick was reteamed with Sandra Bullock - and it was rated as one of the worst sequels of all time. | |
| Three of the most powerful, influential and successful individuals in modern Hollywood -- director/producer Steven Spielberg, the recently-departed Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film and music industry mogul David Geffen -- formed the film studio DreamWorks SKG. (The SKG stood for the first letter of their last names.) It was the first new major studio in more than 50 years. | |
| The almost three-hour documentary Hoop Dreams (1994) followed the aspirations of two hopeful, hard-working African-American high school student athletes (from Chicago, Illinois) who dreamed to be professional basketball players. Because the exceptional film was not nominated in the category of Best Documentary Feature by the Academy, changes were made in the nominating procedure for future years. It was also the all-time top-grossing documentary film (until Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (2002)). | |
| The erotic thriller Color of Night (1994) won five Golden Raspberry Awards (from its nine nominations): Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Bruce Willis), Worst Actress (Jane March), Worst Screen Couple, and Worst Supporting Actor (Jane March as Richie). | |
| Disney's first Broadway musical was Beauty and the Beast, based on its film version of Beauty and the Beast (1991). | |
| Disney became the first studio to gross more than $1 billion at the box office domestically in a single year, mostly due to the release of The Lion King (1994), although Pulp Fiction (1994) and November's The Santa Clause (1994) were also hits. The Lion King was the highest-grossing traditionally (hand-drawn) animated feature film in the US at the time - and in history. It was later surpassed at the box-office by Disney/Pixar's computer-animated Finding Nemo (2003). The Lion King was Disney's first film based upon an in-house original story, rather than upon a well-known children's narrative. Its Hamlet-like story was beautifully animated, enhanced by a Hans Zimmer score, and contained songs by composer Elton John and lyricist Tim Rice. | |
| Disney's successful animated The Lion King (1994), the # 2 highest-grossing (domestic) hit of the year, was among the first feature-length film animations featuring many major stars' voices for its characters. (Previously, there was only one big voice-name, such as Robin Williams as the Genie in Aladdin (1992), or there were unknowns who lent their voices to the characters.) With box-office receipts of over $312 million, this film spurred a boom in animation production and merchandising, and other animation production studios besides Disney entered the picture. | |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) had eight theatrical re-releases (1944, 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987, and 1993), and then in late 1994, it was finally released on VHS home video (and laser disc) and sold 10 million copies in its first week of sale. After three weeks of availability, it sold over 17 million copies, and would soon surpass the all-time champ, Disney's Aladdin (with 24 million copies sold since its late-1993 release). It eventually sold 50 million copies worldwide, the best-selling cassette of all time. It was the last of the early Disney animated films released for home video, following Pinocchio (1940), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Cinderella (1950). [Snow White was later released for the first time on DVD, in late 2001.] | |
| Disney's live-action film The Jungle Book (1994) was the first Disney remake of an earlier animated feature film, The Jungle Book (1967).. | |
| Best Picture winner Forrest Gump (1994) was the top-grossing (domestic) film of the year, at almost $330 million. It used revolutionary digital photo tricks (digital compositing) to insert the film's main character into archival historical footage with three past Presidents (John F. Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon), and celebrities like Elvis Presley and John Lennon. It would encourage the trend of physically inserting actors into old existing footage, making it appear like the characters were interacting with each other. Shortly afterwards, this technique - which expanded to advertising commercials - controversially presented dead stars hawking products (i.e., James Cagney and Louis Armstrong appeared in Diet Coke ads, and John Wayne was in a Coors Light commercial). Forrest Gump's most impressive and surprising effect was the digitally amputated legs of actor Gary Sinise, playing a war vet. | |
| Tom Hanks won two consecutive Best Actor awards (presented in ceremonies in 1994 and 1995) for Philadelphia (1993) and for Forrest Gump (1994). He became the fifth performer to win back-to-back acting Oscars, and only the second performer to win consecutive Best Actor Oscars (the first was Spencer Tracy in 1937-1938). Oscar-winning Hanks took a cut of Forrest Gump's profits - reportedly 8% of the gross, which on top of his $20 million salary netted him about $60 million. | |
| The theme of director Oliver Stone's visually-riveting, controversial work Natural Born Killers (1994) was the media's exploitative and sensationalized precoccupation with violence. It was immediately lambasted and criticized as "evil" and "loathsome" for its graphic, violence-soaked satire. Presidential contender Senator Robert Dole singled out the film as a "nightmare of depravity." Its provocative story followed the murder-spree path of two serial killer-lovers and white-trash outlaws (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as Mickey and Mallory). Along with two similar films (Kalifornia (1993) and The Basketball Diaries (1995)), it was accused of allegedly inspiring copycat shooting sprees throughout the U.S., including the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre. | |
| Roland Emmerich's Stargate (1994), a mixed critical success, was the first movie to ever have an official website. It told about a distant world whose ruler was the powerful Egyptian god Ra (Jaye Davidson), and whose alien slave people were the descendants of the ancient Egyptians. It became an even greater hit on television, spawning the popular TV series Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007), the animated Stargate: Infinity (2002-2003), two further live-action spin-offs (Stargate Atlantis (2004-2009) and SGU: Stargate Universe (2009-2011)), and two Stargate made-for-TV movies. | |
| Kevin Smith's low-budget (about $30,000) comedy Clerks (1994), about two clerks/workers, went into general release after its successes at the Cannes and the Sundance Film Festivals. The cost of obtaining the rights to the soundtrack for the film was greater than the production costs for the entire film - a first in modern cinematic history. Although originally rated NC-17 (mostly because of its raunchy dialogue), it was re-rated as an R after Miramax appealed to the MPAA, and went on to become one of the most popular and successful comedy independent films of all time. | |
| Two years earlier, brash auteur writer/director and B-movie fanatic Quentin Tarantino's gangster flick Reservoir Dogs (1992) raised its own firestorm of protest. The notorious director was known for messy screen violence and a sadistic sense of humor. Now, Tarantino delivered another non-formulaic and inventive hit Pulp Fiction (1994) - an 'independent' film distributed by Miramax, that featured guns, femmes fatales, deadly hit-men, and drugs. The seminal, non-linear film upped the ante and made hyper-real violence its main centerpiece. (There was sadomasochistic behavior, random shootings, a homosexual rape and a drug overdose.) Its two main talkative, anti-hero characters (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson) were professional assassins who joked and swore while carrying out ruthless executions. It brought new fame to star John Travolta (in the ensemble cast) and a revolutionary script structure with its three interwoven (and fragmented) stories told in non-linear order. In addition to revitalizing the failing career of John Travolta, it kick-started the career of Samuel L. Jackson as a lead actor. The unpredictably time-shuffled, post-modern film with hip pop references, winner of Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or, shocked with its combination of violence, sex, drugs, and profanity (including 269 F-words). | |
| A Harvard School of Public Health study showed that violence occurred just as frequently in PG, PG-13, and R-rated films. The study was repeated a decade later, illustrating the existence of "ratings-creep", meaning that more risqué and violent scenes were being allowed in films rated G, PG, PG-13 and R than in the past. For example, The Santa Clause (1994) was rated PG, yet it had less sex and nudity, violence, gore and profanity than The Santa Clause 2 (2002), which was rated G. | |
| Ex-wife of former football player and actor/sportscaster O. J. Simpson, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman were stabbed to death in June of 1994 outside Nicole's home in Brentwood, California. Subsequently, Simpson was charged with two counts of murder, but eventually acquitted in November 1995. | |
| The theatrical run of Il Postino (1994) in New York City stretched for almost two years -- it was still in theaters after the video release and its premium cable run. | |
| The $8.1 million judgment against actress Kim Basinger for dropping out of the film Boxing Helena (1993) was overturned by an appeals court that ruled the jury received improper and ambiguous instructions. In March 1993, a Superior Court jury awarded that sum to Main Line Pictures, the film's producers, which had sued Ms. Basinger. She claimed that she objected to the script and nude scenes. The film, about a surgeon who cut off the limbs of the woman he loved, was released with Sherilyn Fenn replacing Basinger in the title role. | |
| SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound), a digital sound-on-film format in which the digital information was optically printed in two continuous strips along both edges of the 35 mm. film, was introduced by Sony. The revolutionary system avoided the need for separate CD-ROM soundtracks and synchronization codes. SDDS supported increased surround-sound options by offering eight channels of sound. | |
Now that the Internet (with increased bandwidth) was available to home users, the streaming of audio and video content (via the Internet) began to become more widespread and available. At Xerox PARC in mid-1993, the rock 'n' roll "garage" band Severe Tire Damage from Palo Alto, CA was the first group to perform live video and audio on the Internet, and their play was broadcast live throughout the world. Their show was sent out on the Internet Multicast Backbone, or Mbone, using about half of the available bandwidth of the entire Internet. With more technological developments in the next few years (new streaming formats such as RealPlayer, ActiveMovie, and Windows Media, QuickTime (QT), smaller frames and compressed file formats such as .mpg and .avi, Adobe Flash, and PTP video sharing), streaming media became more practical and affordable. |
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| John Waters' crime spoof and dark satire on suburbia, the R-rated Serial Mom (1994) starred Kathleen Turner as Beverly R. Sutphin, a caring and loving but serial-killing suburbanite mother living in Baltimore. The homicidal yet virtuous homemaker defended her family by killing those who offended or bothered her. The body count reached a total of seven, with various unlikely lethal methods involving a car, a fire poker, a pair of scissors, an air conditioner, a telephone and even a leg of lamb. | |
| The TV series Insektors (1994) was the first completely computer-animated cartoon series to be broadcast on television. It told about two warring anthropomorphic tribes of insects (the Joyces vs. the Yuks). It first aired in France, and was then dubbed into English for US and UK television. Its appearance was only a few months before another completely-CG animated cartoon series was aired - the full-length Canadian action-adventure series called ReBoot. | |
| Director Jonathan Kaplan's feminist western Bad Girls (1994) was the story of four prostitutes turned outlaws in the Old West. The film's original director Tamra Davis was replaced a few weeks into filming, and a completely new script was written with a new plot and characters. | |
| Viacom Inc. won the lengthy bidding war and sealed the purchase of the NY-based Paramount Communications Inc. for $9.75 billion - after its five-month battle with QVC Network Inc. Paramount's holdings included Paramount Pictures, the Simon & Schuster publishing house, Madison Square Garden, the New York Rangers hockey team and the Knicks basketball team. | |
| Legendary animator/cartoonist Walter Lantz died at the age of 94. The founder of Walter Lantz Productions, he had created the character of Woody Woodpecker (known for his staccato "huh hah hah HA ha" laugh) in the 1940s, and others including Oswald Rabbit, penguin Chilly Willy and Andy Panda. Lantz received an Honorary Academy Award in 1979 (at the ceremony honoring films of 1978) for "bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world through his unique animated motion pictures." The award was "presented" by Lantz's most famous creation, Woody Woodpecker, using combined live-action and animation. | |
| Iconic film-actor Burt Lancaster, one of the best American actors of all time, died at the age of 80 from a heart attack. He had appeared in every conceivable genre, including adventure films, swashbucklers, comedies, and serious dramas. His sole Best Actor Academy Award Oscar was for Elmer Gantry (1960), although he was also nominated for From Here to Eternity (1953), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), and Atlantic City (1981). As an independent film producer, he was responsible for films such as Best Picture-winning Marty (1955) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957). His screen debut was in the film noir classic The Killers (1946). | |
| By the year 1994, actor Mark Hamill had become the first Hollywood star to top both film and videogame charts. He topped film charts with his appearances in the Star Wars trilogy (1977-1983), and then in 1994, he took the role of Colonel Christopher Blair in the PC video-game Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994), the # 1 best-selling videogame, and then resumed his role in the two follow-up Wing Commander franchise sequels in a second trilogy of # 1 videogame hits: Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996) and Wing Commander: Prophecy (1997). |
