‘Analyze This’ At 25: Robert De Niro And Billy Crystal Remember Opening Bigger Than ‘Cruel Intentions’ And Beating ‘The Sopranos’ To The Idea
deadline.comEven a quarter-century later, box office victory still tastes sweet for Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. Reminiscing about their 1999 collaboration, Analyze This, during a Tribeca Festival / De Niro Con screening Friday, the pair swapped memories of sitting at De Niro’s former restaurant, Ago, on the Friday night the film opened. (Crystal drew the night’s biggest laugh by jokingly remembering asking De Niro what the name of the restaurant meant.
He was told, “‘Ago f–k yourself.'”). Analyze This faced younger-skewing competition in Cruel Intentions, the Sarah Michelle Gellar/Reese Witherspoon/Ryan Philippe thriller, but came out decisively ahead. “The box office was coming in, and it was like, ‘Oh my God.
Oh my God. We’re crushing them!'” Crystal remembered. “It was one of the great nights of my life, to share this with this man, that we made this movie together and loved working with each other and made something that here 25 years later people still enjoy and laugh at.” The film’s $18 million opening was a record at the time for both stars and its final global cume was $177 million.
De Niro said he wasn’t overly nervous about the commercial outcome, but he conceded, “The fact that it does well means people see it.
Read more on deadline.com
