John Carpenter is one of the most beloved filmmakers of all time, with him being the mastermind behind many dark and cynical sci-fi and horror films from throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and beyond. Massive franchises like Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York, and more are all his creations with many of his films inspiring generations and becoming classics. While Carpenter mostly stays away from directing nowadays, with his most recent film being 2010’s The Ward, many of his franchises have continued to get sequels and remakes, such as the modern Halloween trilogy and Zack Snyder’s upcoming Escape from New York remake.
Unfortunately, Carpenter was never given the awards season recognition that he deserves, something that is most likely due to the horror genre being broadly looked down upon by critics. This led to only one of Carpenter’s movies ever getting nominated for an Academy Award, and it probably isn’t the one you’re thinking of.
While 1982’s The Thing is now considered a horror classic, at the time of its release, it had a much worse reputation. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and it was a box office flop, only making $20.9 million against a budget of $15 million. So, when Columbia was looking for a director to produce a sci-fi script they had purchased from Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, Carpenter was eager to get on board. The screenplay told the story of an alien who comes to Earth in response to an interstellar message from NASA. Once on Earth, the ship of this Starman is shot down by an American missile. So, the alien inhabits the body of a dead man, kidnaps his widow, and goes on a cross-country run from the authorities in order to get back to his ship and return home.
Carpenter believed that Starman‘s romantic sci-fi story was the perfect way to distance himself from the gritty thrillers that had defined his career thus far. The director hoped to emphasize the bond that forms between the two main characters, who would go on to be played by Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen. So, Carpenter was hired, and Starman hit theaters on December 14, 1984.
Unfortunately, Starman didn’t capitalize on the success of contemporary alien films like 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The film only made $28.7 million against a budget of $24 million, marking another box office failure on Carpenter’s track record. However, the film was a critical success. It received mostly positive reviews, and they’ve only gotten better over time, with the film currently holding 83% on Rotten Tomatoes. On top of that, Bridges was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the film, although he lost to F. Murray Abraham for Amadeus.
Shockingly, this is the only John Carpenter feature to ever get nominated for an Academy Award. The director has made some of the most popular and influential films of all time, many of which have featured cutting-edge visual effects, beautiful music, and incredible performances. While Carpenter was the editor, writer, and composer on the Oscar-winning 1970 short film The Resurrection of Broncho Billy, it is shocking that most of his features have been completely snubbed.
Nowadays, Starman isn’t nearly as well remembered as works like Halloween and The Thing, mostly due to its box office failure and its tonal juxtaposition with the rest of Carpenter’s filmography. However, the film did spawn a franchise. Shortly after the release of the film, a Starman TV show premiered on ABC on September 19, 1986. The series acts as a sequel to the original story, with the alien returning to Earth and taking the body of a deceased photojournalist, played by Robert Hays. The Starman finds his son, and they go on a journey to find Jenny Hayden, Karen Allen’s character from the original film. Starman was received poorly and ended after its first season.
While the TV show ended the Starman franchise, it almost came back. In 2016, it was announced that Shawn Levy would direct a Starman remake, although the project was later abandoned. With remakes of Carpenter’s classics constantly happening in recent years, it wouldn’t be shocking for a Starman remake to come back eventually, bringing back the romantic sci-fi story for a modern update.
