“The Rocky Horror Picture Show’’ has been running continuously in theaters longer than any other movie in history — 40 years — and is among the top-grossing musicals ever released in North America. Not too shabby for a horror-film spoof that distributor Twentieth Century Fox had written off as a flop months before it came back from the dead — beginning with its debut as a weekend midnight show in Manhattan on April Fool’s Day in 1976. A British-made adaptation of a campy rock musical comedy that flopped on Broadway in 1975 after long runs in London and Los Angeles, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show’’ attracted sellout crowds when it premiered on Sept. 24, 1975 at a single theater in Los Angeles. But this poorly reviewed (“tasteless, plotless and pointless,’’ said Newsweek) homage to horror and sci-fi films was dead on arrival when it expanded to eight other cities. Fox canceled a planned Halloween premiere in New York City and a national rollout. “Rocky Horror’’ would probably have gone straight to cable TV — the era’s graveyard for problematic movies — if it hadn’t been for a young Fox distribution executive named Tim Deegan. Noting a lot of repeat business at that one Los Angeles theater, Deegan suspected — correctly — that “Rocky Horror’’ had the makings of a cult hit. He decided to test that theory in Manhattan, where several films had monthlong runs playing midnight shows on Friday and Saturday nights at Greenwich Village’s Waverly Theater (now the IFC Center). “Rocky Horror” replaced “The Night of the Living Dead’’ on April 1, 1976, without so much as a single local review. It wasn’t until Labor Day weekend that people started talking: “Buy an umbrella, you cheap bitch!’’ a schoolteacher from Brooklyn shouted when Janet — played by then-little-known Susan Sarandon — used a newspaper to shield herself from a storm. By the end of the month, moviegoers were showing up costumed like characters in the movie, complete with guys in fishnet stockings. Soon they were lip-syncing and performing in front of the screen. By 1979 — when the film had moved to the now long-gone Eighth Street Playhouse for an 11-year-run — there was an organized pre-show, and rituals had been established such as throwing rice during the wedding scene. By then, “Rocky Horror’’ was showing in a handful of New York City venues amid 230 around the country — but only at midnight on weekends. The “Rocky Horror’’ phenomenon was immortalized the following year in “Fame,” whose plot includes cast members attending a screening. Though the film has been available on home video since 1990 and was first broadcast on TV by Fox three years later — it’s now available to stream on multiple platforms — it continues to play in theaters around the country, including its current Manhattan home, the Bow Tie Chelsea, no doubt thanks to audience participation. That theory will tested when Fox presents a “reimagining’’ this fall, with trans actress Laverne Cox taking on Tim Curry’s iconic role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the “sweet transvestite from Transylvania.’’ It’s hard to get an exact handle on how much “The Rocky Horror Picture’’ show has made over the years, because of its unique release pattern. No international box-office figures seem to be available at all, though the musical continues to play overseas. Box Office Mojo lists a total lifetime North American gross of almost $113 million, which puts it at No. 8 among all live-action musicals released since 1975. Adjusted for ticket price inflation, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show’’ has sold a whopping $479 million worth of tickets. Box Office Mojo puts it in 76th place among all films, just ahead of Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky,’’ which won the Best Picture Oscar not along after the other “Rocky’’ began its unlikely journey to cinematic immortality.
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