UPI: 4.21.81: Headline: "Heaven's Gate,' the all-time movie bomb"
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Heaven's Gate
exithereplease — 5 months ago(October 07, 2025 08:48 PM)
HOLLYWOOD – 'Heaven's Gate,' the all-time movie bomb that closed in New York less than a week after its opening last November, came to Hollywood Thursday in a new, shorter version that could well become a box-office smash.
Shortly before the screening at Mann's Chinese theater, as the final feature of the three-week Filmex movie festival, United Artists executives crossed their fingers nervously at a champagne reception, awaiting the reaction of the industry's stars and fans to their patchwork.
Director Michael Cimino, who spent nearly a year shooting the picture on locations in Kalispell, Mont., at a cost of $40 million, devoted the past five months to re-editing, re-dubbing and re-scoring 'Heaven's Gate.'
The critics, who scathingly blasted the original version as one of the worst films ever made, may also pan the re-worked version.
But 'Heaven's Gate' is now an extravagently mounted, action-packed horse opera of classic proportions that will almost certainly lure many more people to the box office that critics thought possible last fall.
Although it is still seriously flawed and not brilliantly acted, the film's offerings of color, panoramaand action have seldom been equaled on the screen.
'Heaven's Gate' brims with violence, brutality and death – and appears to accurately reflect the grimy, crude men and women who helped settle the country.
A western starring Kris Kristofferson, Isabelle Huppert, Christopher Walken and Jeff Bridges, 'Heaven's Gate,' as originally released, was characterized by New York Times critic Vincent Canby as 'a jerry-built ship that slides straight to the bottom.'
The New York Daily News suggested 'Heaven's Gate' could be improved by adding English subtitles and releasing it in Russia.
Its original length, 3 hours and 39 minutes (not including a 15 minute intermission) has been cut to 2 hours and 27 minutes.
One executive associated with the film said, 'Some of us feel the film in its new form could be a box-office bonanza. Others just want to get it open, take the write-off and get on to other things.'
United Artists is spending more than $6 million to advertise and exploit the film throughout the country this time around.
But the company's doubts about its success are reflected in the fact that it will saturate the continent with simultaneous openings at 850 theaters in the United States and Canada. United Artists hopes it will garner some weekend business before the critics have another go at it.