Now and Then

Lesli Linka Glatter directed it from a script by I. Marlene King, Suzanne Todd and Demi Moore produced, and New Line Cinema released it on October 20, 1995 on a $12 million budget, under a title changed from the working "The Gaslight Addition." It is set in the summer of 1970 in Shelby, Indiana, a fictional town modeled on Winchester, Indiana, and was shot in Savannah and Statesboro, Georgia. Gaby Hoffmann played Samantha Albertson, the narrator, Christina Ricci was the tomboy Roberta Martin, Thora Birch was Tina "Teeny" Tercell and Ashleigh Aston Moore was Chrissy DeWitt; Demi Moore, Rosie O'Donnell, Melanie Griffith and Rita Wilson played the same four as adults in 1995. Around them were Devon Sawa as Scott Wormer, Cloris Leachman as Grandma Albertson, Janeane Garofalo as Wiladene, Hank Azaria as Bud Kent, Bonnie Hunt as Mrs. DeWitt, Rumer Willis as Angela and, uncredited, Brendan Fraser as a Vietnam veteran.

The girls spend the summer raising money for a treehouse and, at Samantha's urging, sneaking out to hold séances in the cemetery, where a cracked tombstone convinces them they have raised the spirit of a boy known only as "Dear Johnny," all while feuding with the neighborhood Wormer brothers. It opened in second place with $7.4 million, behind Get Shorty and ahead of Seven, and finished at $37.5 million. Reviewers were unkind to the frame: it sits at 36 percent on Rotten Tomatoes from 22 reviews, and Roger Ebert called the story "made of artificial bits and pieces," though several reviews praised the four young leads.

Columbia put out the soundtrack on October 10, 1995. The film's real life began afterward, on home video and in constant cable rotation, where it picked up the large cult following it still has.