It's easy to look back at box office hits like Back to the Future or Titanic and see the enduring love for the movie reflected in its opening ticket sales. Of course, there are quite a few classics that weren't hits (or were actually total flops) at the box office when they first came out. While that might come up as a bit of trivia about a film, what most fans really care about is how much they love the movie. John Mulaney made that exact point during the new Martin Short documentary, Marty, Life Is Short, which you can watch with a Netflix subscription.
I have a lot of feelings about the new Netflix movie about Martin Short, which I think showcases the actor and comedian's life and work beautifully, and one of the things that stuck with me most was what comedian John Mulaney had to say about one of Short's early films, Three Amigos, which was written by Steven Martin, Lorne Michaels and Randy Newman.
The 1986 comedy from John Landis wasn't universally beloved by critics, nor was it a huge box office hit. In fact, it came in second to Eddie Murphy's The Golden Child in its opening weekend. From what Mulaney says in the documentary, it seems like it wasn't until recently that Martin Short, Lorne Michaels and Steve Martin saw that failure as the film's legacy, rather than the love the movie has received in years since...
Lorne, Steve and Marty, if you bring up Three Amigos, only recently will they embrace that people like it. When I first met Marty and told him how much I liked it, he went 'Yeah, but it didn't open. It lost to Golden Child.' Like that.
Mulaney, who worked with Martin Short on his short-lived 2014 Fox comedy, Mulaney, went on to add:
I remember Justin Timberlake telling him how much Three Amigos meant. Over time, it started to sink in. Like, 'Hey, we don't remember that it lost to Golden Child. We just think it's a great movie, and you need to accept that.'
In Three Amigos, Short, Martin and Chevy Chase play three silent film stars who are invited to a small Mexican town where they're hired to protect the locals from a villainous gang of bandits. The problem is, they think they're there to put on a show, and the people who hired them think they're actual heroes who can help them defeat real criminals with real guns.
As an '80s kid, I'm pretty sure Three Amigos was my introduction to Martin Short, and I remember thinking he was hilarious. Of course, I didn't see it in theaters, and based on the box office numbers, neither did a lot of people. According to Box Office Mojo, Three Amigos made just under $6 million during its opening weekend (going on to earn a total worldwide gross of almost $40 million). The Golden Child, which also opened on December 12, 1986, earned $11.5 million in its opening weekend (going on to make nearly $80 million worldwide over its run).
By the numbers, between these two movies, The Golden Child is undoubtedly the winner, and it seems like that impression stuck in Short's mind (as well as Steve Martin and Lorne Michaels), based on what Mulaney said. To be fair, it's no secret that box office numbers matter. How much a movie makes not only determines if the movie was a financial gain or loss for the studio, but it can also inform decisions that are made in the industry going forward -- decisions that can have a big impact on an actor's career. So I can understand why any actor, particularly one who was just starting to expand their career into film at the time, as Short was when Three Amigos came out, might have written the movie off as a flop. Maybe branding it a failure from the start made it impossible to see the legacy it had in the years -- decades, really -- since, until it finally clicked.
However, as movie fans, the box office numbers don't determine whether or not we like or remember a movie in the years that follow its release, and I think Mulaney made that point so absolutely perfectly with his comments in the documentary. There can be a huge difference between how a movie performed when it first came out and how (or even if) people remember it over time. Take a look at the box office numbers for all of 1986's releases, and you'll see a mixture of truly great, memorable movies and plenty of forgettable ones.
I'm glad to hear that it sounds like Short, Lorne Michaels and Steve Martin are able to see how many people love the movie today (and that includes celebrities like Matt Damon, apparently!). Maybe people weren't flocking to the theaters to see the comedy when it came out, but it made an impression on a lot of people, and decades later, there are still plenty who quote it and remember it with a smile.
On a somewhat related note, because this other movie was referenced briefly in the documentary, I just want to say that I freaking love Innerspace. I loved the 1987 movie when I was a kid ("I'm possessed!"), and I still think it's a charming sci-fi rom-com that should be talked about more.
