Tim Burton's ED WOOD : A bomb at the box office, now considered his best film

If page freezes refresh. Johnny Depp as cross dressing film director Ed Wood was never going to be a blockbuster. Over the years, it's now heralded.

Watch TIM BURTON'S ED WOOD by clicking here

From Wikipedia:

Ed Wood is a 1994 American biographical comedy-drama film directed and produced by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Ed Wood, the eponymous cult filmmaker. The film concerns the period in Wood's life when he made his best-known films as well as his relationship with actor Bela Lugosi, played by Martin Landau. Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie, and Bill Murray are among the supporting cast.

The film was conceived by writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski when they were students at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Irritated at being thought of solely as writers for family films with their work on Problem Child (1990) and its 1991 sequel, Alexander and Karaszewski struck a deal with Burton and Denise Di Novi to produce Ed Wood. Initially, Michael Lehmann was chosen to direct the project, but due to scheduling conflicts with his work on the film Airheads (1994), he had to vacate the director's position, which was taken over by Tim Burton.

Ed Wood was originally in development at Columbia Pictures, but the studio put the film in "turnaround" over Burton's decision to shoot in black-and-white. Ed Wood was taken to Walt Disney Studios, which produced the film through its Touchstone Pictures label. The film proved financially unsuccessful, returning only $13.8 million against an $18 million budget, but was met with critical acclaim upon release, with particular praise for Depp and Landau's performances and the makeup. It eventually became a cult classic and won two Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor for Landau and Best Makeup for Rick Baker (who designed Landau's prosthetic makeup), Ve Neill and Yolanda Toussieng. The film is now considered to be one of Burton's best works.

If there was an error in the film, it would be the scene between Orson Wells and Ed over the casting of Charlton Heston that takes place in a bar. Orson was only hired for TOUCH OF EVIL because of Heston, he portrayed many different ethnic types in film and radio (THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI) so he would never have attacked Heston. But when ED WOOD was made Heston was under attack for supporting the NRA and that he had received hundreds of death threats for marching with Martin Luther King had been forgotten.

Watch ED WOOD by clicking here

Martin Landau would famously win an Oscar for his portrayal of Bela Lugosi- and being cut off mid-sentence during his Oscar speech!

Behind the paywall- more on Ed Wood! LOOK BACK IN ANGORA and a MYSTERIES AND SCANDALS episode on Ed.

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The Chicago Psychotronic Film Society which begat The Global Psychotronic Film Society is quite a party. From it's earliest days with guests JOHN CLEESE, ROBERT DeNIRO, BILL MURRAY (our first dues paid member), DAN AYKROYD, SYDNEY POLLACK, RUSS MEYER, CLIVE BARKER, JOHN DUGAN, PENN AND TELLER, KENNETH ANGER, DARIO ARGENTO and many more there was nothing like it on earth. People travelled from all over the world to attend our parties or host them and none of the celebrities were paid to be at the events.

We did shows at bars and clubs LIMELIGHT, KABOOM, THE LYRIC OPERA (!), THE BIOGRAPH THEATER, THE LIAR'S CLUB and many more places. This meant you had to be 21 to attend and there were no dealer tables.

We were the only fandom that had an equal number of women in the group at a time when women avoided fandom! Join us on Facebook here: The party starts now

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