"In the fall of 1981, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel fell in love with two men named Andre and Wally, and they told the world about it, thereby saving a tiny, eccentric, beguiling movie from a fast fade into commercial oblivion. I went to that movie, as did a few hundred thousand or more other people, because of that love."
"When "My Dinner with Andre" opened, it was barely there. In Opposable Thumbs, Matt Singer's book on the enterprising enterprise known as Siskel & Ebert, Shawn recalls the film eking out an unpromising handful of screenings at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York City, before the film's distributor started running miniscule ads saying, in effect, "closing soon in a theater near you, if it happens to be playing in a theater near you.""
"And then Roger and Gene's "Sneak Previews" episode aired on a Thursday, and the sellouts began, and "instead of closing," as Singer writes, the film "stayed at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema for a year straight, and it wound up playing in more than nine hundred theaters all over the United States." It cost a little under $500,000 to make it. It grossed roughly ten times that."
Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel praised My Dinner with Andre in fall 1981, sparking widespread audience interest that rescued the film from near-oblivion. The film centers on two real-life friends, Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory, sharing a dinner filled with philosophical anecdotes and theatrical reflection, giving the film a playlike intimacy. Initial distribution was minimal, with only a few screenings and tiny ads signaling imminent closure. A televised endorsement on Sneak Previews generated sellouts, extended runs, and nationwide expansion to over nine hundred theaters. The film cost just under $500,000 and ultimately grossed roughly ten times its budget.
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