THROWBACK SERIES - OFFICE SPACE REVIEW!!!

Initial release date: February 19, 1999

Studios: 20th Century Fox/Judgemental Films

Tagline: Work sucks ...

Plot: Corporate drone Peter Gibbons hates his soul-killing job at software company Initech. While undergoing hypnotherapy, Peter is left in a blissful state when his therapist dies in the middle of their session. He refuses to work overtime, plays games at his desk and unintentionally charms two consultants into putting him on the management fast-track. When Peter's friends learn they're about to be downsized, they hatch a revenge plot against the company inspired by Superman III.

Cast

Ron Livingston - Peter

Jennifer Aniston - Joanne

David Herman - Michael Bolton

Ajay Naidu - Samir

Diedrich Bader - Lawrence

Stephen Root - Milton

Gary Cole - Bill Lumbergh

Richard Biehle - Tom Smykowski

Alexandra Wentworth - Anne

Joe Bays - Dom Portwood

John C. McKinley - Bob Slydell

Paul Wilson - Bob Porter

Writer/director: Mike Judge (Extract; Idiocracy; Beavis and Butt-head)

Rated R for language and brief sexuality (89 minutes)

Office Space is one of the funniest comedies to ever come out of the 90s. Today, everyone who has enjoyed the movie can quote it and it's weird that the comedy actually was a box office bomb in theaters. So, while I was picking out some movies to check out for my Throwback Series slate, I had to add this comedy classic!

This whole comedy will surely make you laugh hysterically all the way though. I have watched this comedy countless times over the years. And even though I know the humorous bits are coming, they are still hysterical!

All the characters have their little moments and the Milton character is definitely the most memorable character in the movie. Every time the character is on the screen, you can't stop laughing half the time. There are also quite a few moments in the movie that are very memorable, such as when they destroy the photo copier with baseball bats with gangsta music playing.

Office Space is, without a doubt, one of the funniest workplace comedies ever made and should be seen again and again!

Here are some fun tidbits for Office Space!!

• The "P.C. Load Letter" scene wasn't scripted. David Herman had more lines to say to Ron Livingston, but he was interrupted by the photo copier jamming and didn't understand what the error message meant.

• The iconic red stapler coveted by Milton was created for the movie by the prop department. They needed a bright enough color to be seen on film and chose red. After the movie was released, Swingline (a company that specializes in manufacturing staplers) began to receive requests from customers for red staplers. Having stopped offering red several years before, they made the decision to start offering the color once more.

• The movie is loosely based on Mike Judge's animated shorts entitled Milton, which ran on SNL and MTV's Liquid Television in the early 1990s.

• Jennifer Aniston shot her scenes in only two weeks.

• Principal photography began in Texas in May 1998.

• Fox apparently didn't like the gangsta rap music used in the movie. Fox president Tom Rothman told Judge he had to take it out and Judge said after production he would do so if the next focus group also disliked it. A young man in that focus group said the fact that the characters worked in an office but instead listened to gangsta rap was one of the things he liked about the movie, and Rothman relented.

• Office Space was released on February 19, 1999, at the end of the release calendar's "dump months," in 1,740 theaters, grossing $4.2 million on its opening weekend.

• In early March, Fox pulled it from 3/4 of the screens it had been on after it barely made a million dollars that weekend. The movie's grosses continued to decline, and after the end of March, when it pulled in less than $40,000 from 75 screens, it was pulled from release altogether.

• It went on to make $10.8 million in North America and an additional $8 million on home media release.

• Comedy Central premiered Office Space on August 5, 2001; that airing drew 1.5 million viewers. By 2003, the channel had broadcast the movie another 35 times. These broadcasts helped develop the movie's cult following.

• Office Space has become a cult classic, selling well on home video and DVD. As of 2003, it has sold 2.6 million copies on VHS and DVD. In the same year, it was in the top 20 best-selling Fox DVDs. As of 2006, it had sold over 6 million DVDs in the US alone.

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