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Hollywood used to open promising specialty films in a handful of theatres so audiences could find them and spread the word — but that didn’t work with PUNCHLINE.

At first, it looked like the comedy drama, written & directed by David Seltzer (THE OMEN) and starring Sally Field & Tom Hanks, would be a hit. Columbia opened it Sept. 30, 1988 at four theatres in New York, L.A., Chicago & Toronto to a very encouraging $160,742. Unfortunately, after  PUNCHLINE, which cost $15M to produce, expanded domestically it ended up grossing just $21M.

Its failure wasn’t for lack of trying. Seltzer started developing the project in  1979. Eventually, it got to A-List producer Daniel Melnick (ALL THAT JAZZ) & Field, a lead actress Oscar winner for NORMA RAE & PLACES IN THE HEART, who agreed to co-star and be a producer. The deal also had Seltzer directing his own screenplay.

When Seltzer began writing PUNCHLINE, he was hanging out in comedy clubs looking to cast a psychiatrist role in a project he was doing through his development deal at ABC. PUNCHLINE took a step forward when Robert Bookman, an ABC movie production executive who liked the script, moved to Columbia. Bookman had a top director who wanted to make Seltzer’s screenplay — Howard Zieff, director of Goldie Hawn’s hit 1980 comedy PRIVATE BENJAMIN. Zieff’s interest cooled, however, once he committed to directing the 1984 rom-com UNFAITHFULLY YOURS.

PUNCHLINE stayed in the deep freeze until ’86 when Melnick found it and a stack of other unproduced scripts in the Columbia vaults. Seltzer’s screenplay had gone nowhere under several studio regimes because they didn’t like its unusual blend of comedy & drama or its self-destructive lead character.
When no major star would sign on, Melnick proposed making PUNCHLINE with no stars for just $8M. Columbia’s interim studio chief at the time, Steve Sohmer, sent it instead to Field, with whom the studio had a production deal. After she came on board, Columbia gave it a $15M budget.

Hanks, a young and definitely up-and-coming actor at the time, also liked the project and was Seltzer’s first choice as its lead male actor. Columbia’s new chairman, David Puttnam, wanted PUNCHLINE to open for Christmas 1987, but it couldn’t be ready in time. Then Puttnam made a quick exit and  PUNCHLINE nearly went straight to cable. Following 20th Century-Fox’s June 3, 1988 mega-launch for Hanks’ comedy BIG, Columbia’s new studio head, Dawn Steel, decided Hanks should follow in his own BIG theatrical footsteps.

But despite the best of post-BIG plans, PUNCHLINE’s wide release over  the four-day holiday weekend Oct. 7-10, 1988 was no knockout with just $5.2M.