Field of Dreams shot to the top of the sales chart in the wake of the Major League Baseball game inspired by the film. Released in 1989, Field of Dreams is an adaptation of the novel Shoeless Joe and centers on Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) a farmer who builds a baseball field in a cornfield that attracts the ghost of baseball legends. The film was a box office hit and nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score.
In 2019, in honor of the film’s 30th anniversary, it was announced that the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox would play a Field of Dreams baseball match in Iowa on August 13, 2020, and would mark the first MLB game played in Iowa. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the game by a whole year, where it finally happened on August 12, 2021. The game was a huge hit with audiences as it was the most-watched regular-season game since 2005.
That turn in viewership also translated to purchases of the original film. According to Deadline, Field of Dreams jumped to the top spot of Amazon’s Movers and Shakers list in movies and television with the region free Blu-ray taking the number one spot on the sales charts, up 60,800%. The basic DVD took the number two spot while the multiformat Blu-ray was in the number five spot on the list.
The broadcasters pulled out all the stops to play on the film’s iconography. Kevin Costner even returned to the field and was the game’s master of ceremony, with a special video filmed of Costner entering the field to capture the cinematic scope of the event. In a career that spans high-profile films like Dances with Wolves, The Postman, The Bodyguard, Man of Steel, and Waterworld audiences could feel a certain spark seeing one of the biggest stars of the ’80s and ’90s return to one of his most iconic locations.
The game’s success and resurgence in popularity for the film are sure to have long-reaching impacts. The MLB will certainly try to recapture the magic with another themed game, possibly A League of Their Own, which is currently being adapted into a television series for Amazon Prime. Universal Pictures distributed Field of Dreams, and the studio could look at the strong Blu-ray and DVD sales and see that as the chance to greenlight a sequel to the film, as the studio has recently bet high on legacy sequels to properties like Jurassic Park, Halloween, and The Excorcist. Universal Pictures could certainly test and see if they film it to see if an audience will come.
Source: Deadline
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