Tim Robbins

I was in Madison Square Garden to witness the Rangers win the Stanley Cup in 1996. I was at Shea Stadium in 1969 and in 1986 to see the Mets win the World Series. I have been blessed beyond words to see sports magic happen live. What I witnessed on Wednesday night from the back row of the Garden was miraculous….absolute magic that will live in my heart forever. To be able to share that with my two sons and daughter in law was beyond beautiful because I was able to watch them experience something I have known in my soul since my 11th birthday on October 16th 1969. Everything is possible. Dream big. Never give up hope. Believe in the impossible and make it happen. Go Knicks. You are a team for the ages.

Forever grateful to the audience that found Shawshank. It’s the quality that matters and time will be the ultimate arbiter. I hope the same will be true of Code 46, The Secret Life of Words and Catch a Fire.

The Shawshank Redemption flopped in theaters, $16 million worldwide on a $25 million budget, opening weekend just $727,000 in 1994, it disappeared almost immediately. It lost all seven Oscar nominations to Forrest Gump, no awards, no box office, the studio labeled it a failure and the director walked away devastated. Then something quiet started happening, VHS rentals, cable reruns, someone watching it alone on a Tuesday night and calling a friend the next morning. People who watched it told their friends, their friends told more people, it spread slowly, one recommendation at a time, no marketing push just genuine word of mouth. By 2008 it reached number one on IMDb, the audience voted it the greatest film ever made and it has stayed there ever since. It took 14 years to get there, a box office bomb turned into the highest rated film in history, built entirely by viewers long after the studio had already moved on.