Lost in Space (1998)
The big-budget 1998 reboot of Irwin Allen's 1960s space family, with Gary Oldman as the sneering Dr. Smith, Matt LeBlanc, then starring in Friends, and Dick Tufeld back as the voice of the Robot. It knocked Titanic out of first place and then got a 27 on Rotten Tomatoes.
The original Lost in Space ran on CBS from September 1965 to March 1968, 83 episodes of Irwin Allen's space-age Swiss Family Robinson, with Jonathan Harris ad-libbing his way through Dr. Smith and Dick Tufeld voicing the Robot whose "Danger, Will Robinson!" outlived the show. New Line's remake, written by Akiva Goldsman and directed by Stephen Hopkins on a budget reported at $70 to $80 million, started shooting at Shepperton Studios on March 3, 1997, with more than 700 visual-effects shots planned and farmed out to Jim Henson's Creature Shop, The Mill, Cinesite and the Computer Film Company.
William Hurt and Mimi Rogers led the Robinsons, with Heather Graham, Lacey Chabert and Jack Johnson as the kids, Matt LeBlanc as Major Don West and Gary Oldman as the saboteur Smith; Tufeld returned to voice the Robot, and four original cast members, June Lockhart, Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard and Marta Kristen, took cameos. The premise stayed: the family launches toward a nearby star system to open the way for emigration from a dying Earth, and sabotage throws them off course.
It opened April 3, 1998 to $20.2 million in 3,306 theaters, the biggest April opening to that point, and it ended Titanic's 15-week run at number one. Then the reviews landed: 27 percent on Rotten Tomatoes ("Clumsily directed and missing most of the TV series' campy charm, Lost in Space sadly lives down to its title"), 42 on Metacritic, a B-minus CinemaScore and one and a half stars from Roger Ebert, who called it a "dim-witted shoot-'em-up." It finished at $69.1 million domestic and $136.1 million worldwide.
The awards split the difference: six Saturn nominations, including one for Oldman, against a Razzie nomination for Worst Remake or Sequel and a Stinkers win for Chabert as Worst Supporting Actress. Apollo 440's remix of John Williams' theme went to number four in the UK that summer, the group's biggest hit at home. Arrow Video gave the film a 4K release in September 2025.
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