Of the top movies of the early 1990s, Ghost may have been the biggest that nobody talks about anymore. Think about it: it was the second highest-grossing film of 1990 (behind only Home Alone) and yet you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who could name a scene outside of the sensual pottery sequence. Hell, can you even give a rundown of the plot? But this was the film that your parents were going to see in theaters or renting, proving an immediate topic of the pop culture water cooler. Yet, this was far from being anticipated, as even star Demi Moore figured Ghost could have been a huge bust.
While noting that her most recent film The Substance had potential to either find its audience or flop, Demi Moore said, “I felt that way also about Ghost because it had so many different genres mixed together that, truly, I thought, ‘This could either be amazing or a f*cking disaster.’ Either way, it’s usually the kind of juice that says, ‘Step in. Take the risk. Roll the dice. Let’s see what happens.’”
What happened was Ghost — led by both Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze — became a sensation that, despite falling to Home Alone domestically, ended up being the top earner of 1990 worldwide with $517 million, not to mention breaking the record for home video rentals. With that kind of haul, it would trail only Jurassic Park, The Lion King and Forrest Gump by the time the first half of the decade was over. It, too, edged out eventual Best Picture winner Dances with Wolves.
Speaking of awards, Ghost would win Whoopi Goldberg the Best Supporting Actress Oscar (Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze would both get Golden Globe nods) and Bruce Joel Rubin would take home Best Original Screenplay. Other nominations included Best Picture, Best Editing and Best Original Score.
While I maintain that Ghost mostly lives on through *that* scene (the AFI even cited “Unchained Melody” as one of the greatest movie songs because of it) and was mostly propelled by soon-to-be Sexiest Man Alive Patrick Swayze, there’s no denying its success isn’t one of the more notable of its time. And to think that Airplane! and Top Secret!’s Jerry Zucker directed it!
Do you think Ghost lives on ~35 years later or was it too much of its time?
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