"It has become common in recent years to look back on the '80s as one of Hollywood's worst decades – a tawdry era of infantilization, golden age of the video shop, when Best Picture winners were elephantine bores, and the comic book blockbuster, that still dominates cinema forty years later, was born.
It is almost hard to imagine now that the simple, throwback pleasures of Star Wars were once seen as a fluke rather than a game-changer, but if you look at the top-grossing films of each year during the 80s, its influence is self-evident. Many of the decade's most revered films were failures when first released, from classics like Once Upon a Time in America and The Thing, to perennial cult favourites like The King of Comedy, Blade Runner and Heathers. Patterns of success during this decade speak for themselves, whereas its failures are far less predictable, and, viewed today, generally more rewarding."
