The future didn’t arrive on April 3, 1968, when the sci-fi film 2001: A Space Odyssey played at Times Square’s Loews Capitol Theater for a crowd of industry insiders, critics and celebrities.
The booing and boredom demoralized the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, and brought writer Arthur C. Clarke, on whose novel the screenplay was based, to tears. A reported 241 people walked out before the closing credits.
“But then a funny thing happened,” writes the New York Post‘s Reed Tucker in an anniversary tribute this week. “The film opened to the general public, and they were fascinated by it, especially younger counterculture types.
“Lines formed on opening day. A few weeks later, “2001” had raked in $1 million from just eight screens.”
Now considered one of the greatest films of all time, Kubrick and Clarke were ultimately vindicated.
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