Back when, what is now considered by many to be a classic movie, The Shawshank Redemption first came out it didn’t exactly light up the box office.
Morgan Freeman, who received an Oscar nomination for his role of Red in the film, thinks he knows why it only made $18 million at the box office and it all has to do with what he calls “a terrible title.”
Freeman explained to Seth Meyers…
“The original title was Stephen King’s book, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
Now, don’t choose Shawshank Redemption when you’ve got Rita Hayworth! But they said when I complained — and I did — that it won’t fit on the marquee. So what? Just put Rita Hayworth… You’ve got the one-sheet there, it’ll say the rest of it! But they chose not to, and so it took a while to catch on.
As for whether he knew it was going to be a good film, Freeman had a pretty good idea when he read the script…
“I read the script and it was so well done, such a good script. And I said to my agent, ‘OK, I’ll do anything in here.’”
Smart move, since it’s basically the movie that made him a household name and to this day is still the top rated film on IMDb.
Check out the rest of the discussion below…
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H/T Time