This weekend, the landmark movie-review show At the Movies will air its final episode, as hosts Tony Scott and Michael Phillips take on Eat Pray Love, and, appropriately, The Expendables. Although Disney announced it was pulling the plug on the 35-year-old show last March, the program, through different names, hosts and corporate entities, has proven so surprisingly resilient that eulogies may be premature. As the old monster movies used to conclude: The End … Or is It?
At the Movies so far:
Sept. 4, 1975 WWTW, a PBS affiliate in Chicago, begins a once-a-month movie-review show called Opening Soon at a Theatre Near You with Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune. The often-sarcastic professional rivals introduce drama and conflict into the traditional review monologue.
1977 The show, renamed Sneak Previews, becomes biweekly and airs nationally on PBS. The show includes an animated Spot the Wonder Dog to introduce the “dog of the week” segment. Within two years, Sneak Previews becomes the highest-rated show in the history of U.S. public broadcasting.
1980 The affiliate decides to take the show off PBS and sell it commercially, but Siskel and Ebert reject their new contracts.
1981 A new show, At the Movies, is produced by a syndication arm of the Chicago Tribune. Spot the Wonder Dog is briefly replaced by Aroma the Skunk.
1984 Siskel and Ebert are co-hosts of a Warren Beatty tribute at the Toronto film festival.
1986 The hosts, seeking better terms, move to Buena Vista Television, a division of Disney, under a new title, Siskel and Ebert and the Movies. They introduce the thumbs up/thumbs down system. The phrase “Two thumbs up” is later trademarked by Siskel and Ebert.
1990 Time magazine critic Richard Corliss writes a lament for film criticism in Film Comment called All Thumbs, or, Is There a Future for Film Criticism? Ebert later includes the piece in an anthology of film writing.
1994 Siskel and Ebert guest-star on an episode of the animated show The Critic, in which each of the feuding pair wants the character Jay Sherman (Jon Lovitz) as his new partner.
1995 Erie Way in Chicago is renamed Siskel & Ebert Way.
1998 Siskel has surgery for a brain tumour and takes a leave of absence, writing: “I'm in a hurry to get well because I don't want Roger to get more screen time than me.” He dies the following February, two weeks after taping his last show.
2000 Ebert continues to do Roger Ebert at the Movies with various guest hosts, including Bill Clinton. Eventually, Chicago Sun-Times entertainment columnist Richard Roeper becomes Ebert’s new partner in the newly named Ebert and Roeper and the Movies.
2002 The show is renamed Ebert and Roeper.
2006 When Ebert is absent for oral-cancer surgery, Roeper uses a rotation of guest hosts, including John Mellencamp and Jay Leno. After surgery, Ebert is unable to speak, but says he hopes to recover.
2007 The title is changed to At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper. In a contract dispute with Ebert, who is still unable to return to the show, Disney pulls the “thumbs” system from the program.
2008 From April to August, Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune becomes the new co-host. In August, both Ebert and Roeper end their relationship with Disney; the famous balcony set is dismantled.
Sept. 6, 2008 The show reverts to an earlier title, At the Movies, as Disney tries to skew younger, with broadcast journalist Ben Mankiewicz and widely reviled twentysomething E! Entertainment reporter Ben Lyons, who declares Will Smith’s zombie flick I Am Legend “one of the greatest movies ever made.”
2009 On Aug. 5, Disney fires the two Bens and announces that Michael Phillips and New York Times film critic A. O. Scott will be the permanent hosts, which wins back credibility but can’t save the show.
March 24, 2010 Disney announces that the show, despite its “rich history and iconic status” is “no longer sustainable” and will end in August.
March 25, 2010 Ebert announces he is “deeply involved” in talks to produce a new movie-review show focusing on independent and foreign films, documentaries and classics, with as-yet unnamed hosts. Ebert says he hopes to provide some reports himself with the aid of computer speech software. He promises that “the thumbs will return.”
