How Chucky the Doll Made Oprah Winfrey Eat 30 Lbs of Mac and Cheese
In the late 1990s, Oprah Winfrey took an unusual turn and starred in a horror film. Audiences were much more interested in a new movie about Chucky the Doll that was in theaters at the time. This event led Oprah to eat 30 pounds of mac and cheese. Here’s a look at what Oprah thought about this binge years later.
Oprah Winfrey hadn’t heard of Chucky the Doll until he overshadowed her movie
Oprah has appeared in several historical films, like The Color Purple, Selma, and The Butler. One of the least remembered is Beloved, based on the classic novel of the same name by Toni Morrison. The combination of a massive star and a classic book could have been Oscar gold, but that wasn’t the case. According to a 2011 USA Today article, Oprah told Piers Morgan that Beloved‘s failure led her into “a massive, depressive macaroni and cheese-eating tailspin.”
Chucky the Doll had something to do with this. “[Beloved] premiered on a Friday and I remember hearing on Saturday morning that we got beat by something called Chucky,” Oprah recalled. “I didn’t even know what Chucky was. So, I asked my chef at the time to make some macaroni and cheese … and I ate about 30 pounds worth. I’m not kidding!”
How ‘Beloved’ is seen in retrospect
Of course, many great movies, including The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, and Sleeping Beauty were not successful when they first came out. All of them became more acclaimed and popular with time. Sadly, Beloved is not one of those films. While Morrison’s novel has only grown in stature, its film adaptation is usually seen as a footnote in film history rather than a towering achievement. Bride of Chucky is probably still more famous than Beloved.
Oprah herself wasn’t too upset by the film’s failure. “I think the way life is set up, for most people who have the opportunity to succeed, is that if you get the lesson, you don’t have to repeat that again,” he said. Notably, Oprah hasn’t appeared in a single horror film since Beloved.
How Chucky the Doll overtook Oprah Winfrey at the box office
Box Office Mojo reports Bride of Chucky earned more than $32 million in the United States and more than $50 million altogether on a $25 million budget. That’s pretty impressive for a horror film from the 1990s. Bride of Chucky undoubtedly benefitted from a resurgence in slasher films after the success of Wes Craven’s Scream. Like Scream, Bride of Chucky was humorous and hip.
Beloved was not so beloved. Box Office Mojo says the film made $22 million in the United States and doesn’t account for any gross overseas. $22 million isn’t as impressive as Bride of Chucky‘s $50 million haul. Beloved‘s gross becomes even more dismal when you account for the fact that Beloved had an $80 million budget. The movie wasn’t just a disappointment, it was a flat-out bomb. Oprah had one of the most successful careers of any public figure and Beloved was one of her rare missteps.
Beloved is based on one of the most acclaimed novels of modern times but audiences were more interested in the exploits of a killer doll than Beloved‘s film adaptation.
