The Shawshank Redemption is one of the most beloved, and critically acclaimed, films of all time. On top of having an excellent cast; including Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, Clancy Brown, and Bob Gunton, it was also directed by Frank Darabont, who is best known for his work in The Walking Dead.
Even though the film is a thriller, it almost has a lighthearted essence to it, which makes audiences love it all the more. It has an excellent approach to storytelling, showing the worst sides of humanity being overshadowed by a glimmer of hope. All of these aspects have helped the film become the highest-rated film on IMDb, holding a score of 9.3.
Despite this, the film had a very poor run at the box office when it was initially released. It would seem that Robbins has a theory about why this happened. As bizarre as it sounds, there may be some truth to it.
Tim Robbins Had A Theory About The Shawshank Redemption’s Initial Failure
Tim Robbins gave an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he celebrated the 25th anniversary of the cult-classic film, The Shawshank Redemption. Here, he answered many questions about the film, including why he thought the movie initially failed, and his answer was quite interesting.
The actor does not think that the poor box-office reception the movie got early on had anything to do with the quality of the movie. Instead, he believed the reason to be the title of the film.
“When it came out, and was not well received at the box office, there were various reasons given: Well, it’s the title, no one can remember the title.”
Robbins believed that the movie’s title was far too complicated for the general audience to remember, which made it difficult for the movie to maintain relevance early on. He even revealed that he came to this conclusion after several instances of fans being unable to remember the name of the movie when they met him.
“And that makes sense too, because for years after that film came out, people would come up to me and say, “You know, I really liked you in that film Scrimshaw Reduction” or “Shimmy, Shimmy, Shake” or “Shankshaw” — you know, so many different ways that people got it wrong.”
Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the world remembering a complicated title such as The Shawshank Redemption, had it not been for how successful the movie became in its video and cable phases.
Tim Robbins Thought The Shawshank Redemption Needed More Time
Tom Robbins then went on to talk about how the box-office performance of the film did not matter much, according to him. The reaction, or lack thereof, that the movie had during its initial release did not count as much when it came to the future relevance of the movie. Instead, it was how it performed during its video and cable phases that mattered, according to the actor.
“But again, the immediate reaction at that time wasn’t as important as whether the film would have life in video and on cable.”
Robbins’ reasoning behind this was that he believed that the movie needed to be watched multiple times to be truly understood. Since it dealt with a lot of very sensitive themes and specialized in hidden storytelling, a lot of its intentions were lost to the audience during their first viewing.
“And when given a chance, when people actually started to see the movie, it became something that was a movie that people had to watch several times.”
Giving the movie another chance, or even more than that, proved to be exactly what it needed, as audiences began to understand the message. This helped the film become one of the most successful movies of all time.
The Shawshank Redemption is available for streaming on Apple TV.
