The Simple Trick Teen Wolf's Studio Used To Turn The B-Movie Into An '80s Classic
by Jeremy Smith · /FilmBack in the mid-1980s, Michael J. Fox became a household name when the NBC sitcom "Family Ties" rocketed into the Nielsen ratings' top 10. While everyone in the ensemble was wonderful, Fox was the breakout star as Young Republican smartass Alex P. Keaton. Regardless of your politics, the character was wittily written and vibrantly performed by Fox. Filmmakers took notice and felt confident he could make the leap from the country's living rooms to the big screen.
We know now that Robert Zemeckis' "Back to the Future" was the film that made Fox a full-blown movie star in 1985. However, things might've played out a little differently if the dorky teen comedy Fox completed before Zemeckis' time travel blockbuster had opened first.
Yes, Rod Daniel's "Teen Wolf" nearly beat "Back to the Future" to the multiplexes, but Atlantic Releasing Corporation had a hunch the latter film was going to be a pop cultural phenomenon and delayed the release of its small-scale lark in order to ride the bigger movie's wave. It worked. "Teen Wolf" opened on August 23, 1985, and finished second at the domestic box office, grossing a terrific-for-the-era $6.1 million. It actually fell less than $1 million short of toppling "Back to the Future," which was in its eighth week of release, from the top spot and became a leggy sleeper hit that grossed $33 million against its $4 million budget.
In a 2020 interview with Y! Entertainment, one of the film's producers said that its success caught the industry by surprise — and actually ticked off John Hughes.
Teen Wolf outgrossed John Hughes' Weird Science
According to producer Scott Rosenfelt, who would go on to nurture small, critically acclaimed projects like "Mystic Pizza" (Julia Roberts' breakout movie) and "Smoke Signals," Atlantic had initially planned to open "Teen Wolf" earlier in the year. "I think we would have done all right anyway," Rosenfelt admitted. "But having 'Back to the Future' open right before us propelled 'Teen Wolf' into studio numbers."
He's not exaggerating. By the end of 1985, this shamelessly silly comedy about a normal teenager who inexplicably discovers that can transform into a werewolf had out-grossed such major studio productions as "Silverado," "Prizzi's Honor," and "Weird Science." That it outdid Hughes' equally silly, "Frankenstein"-inspired comedy about a couple of teenagers who use a home computer to create a flesh-and-blood perfect woman irked the director of "The Breakfast Club." As Rosenfelt told Y! Entertainment, "John hired me to produce 'Home Alone,' and the first thing he said to me was, 'Remember when you made 'Teen Wolf,' and you beat my movie?'"
Perhaps Hughes would've triumphed had Anthony Michael Hall been cast as Marty McFly, but he ultimately had nothing to complain about. While "Weird Science" didn't set the box office ablaze, it did become a smash with Gen X-ers when it hit home video and cable. Decades later, both movies are nostalgic favorites, even though neither one is particularly good.