The year is 1939. Production is underway on a multi-million dollar historical epic starring a renowned British actress and a dashing bad boy of American film. Its makers promise to deliver sophisticated special effects, innovative cinematic techniques, an iconic musical score, and a heartbreaking story that audiences will talk about for decades.
Once released, the film exceeds all expectations. It becomes the number one movie of the year and sweeps the 1940 Academy Awards. It smashes box office records for years to come. In one fell swoop, the course of Hollywood history is changed forever.
The name of the film…
What would Titanic have looked like if the story were relatively the same, but it had been made in the Golden Age of Hollywood circa 1939? Or in the heyday of the 1970s disaster movie? What if James Cagney had starred in The Godfather instead of Al Pacino? How would Jane Fonda fare in an early 70s take on The Silence of the Lambs? How different would your favorite movie be if it had been made twenty years earlier? Fifty years earlier?
Presenting Preboot Culture.
Preboot Culture is a series that seeks to answer these questions and more. Each week, I’ll examine a Hollywood movie and speculate what it would have looked like, sounded like, felt like, and what kind of impact it would have made, or wouldn’t have made, if it had been released in another era.
Preboot Culture is a journey through an alternate history, or histories, and a celebration of Hollywood history in all its aesthetic glory and goofiness.
Volume One begins January 1, 2022, with the Selznick International/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production of Titanic (1939).