live action of the actors and the roller coaster background footage from the Pike's parking lot with the stop-motion animation of the Beast's destroying a shooting miniature of the coaster. Release Warner Bros. acquired the film for $800,000 (including a large advertising campaign) and released it on June 13, 1953 in New York and Los Angeles. The film had one of the widest and fastest release of the time, planning to have most of its bookings in its first two months, opening in 1,422 theaters nationwide within the first week. Original prints of Beast were sepia toned. Critical reception In his review of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms for The New York Times, A. H. Weiler was not impressed with the story: "And though the sight of the gigantic monster rampaging through such areas as Wall Street and Coney Island sends the comparatively ant-like humans on the screen scurrying away in an understandable tizzy, none of the customers in the theater seemed to be making for the hills. On sober second thought, however, this might have been sensible". Hy Hollinger's review in Variety focused more on the impressive special effects: "Producers have created a prehistoric monster that makes Kong seem like a chimpanzee. It's a gigantic amphibious beast that towers above some of New York's highest buildings. The sight of the beast stalking through Gotham's downtown streets is awesome. Special credit should go to Ray Harryhausen for the socko technical effects". Our Culture Mag critic Christopher Stewardson rated the film 3.5 out of 5. Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively collected 21 reviews and gives the film a 90% approval rating, with an average rating of 6.60/10. Box office The film earned $2.25 million at the North American box office during its first year of release and grossed more than $5 million. Legacy The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was the first live-action film to feature a giant monster awakened/brought about by an atomic bomb detonation, preceding Godzilla by 16 months. During the production of Godzilla, its pre-published story was very similar to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and was titled . As above-mentioned, the Rhedosaurus was originally planned to breathe "atomic flame" similar to Godzilla's atomic heat beam. The film's financial success helped spawn the genre of giant monster films of the 1950s. Producers Jack Dietz and Hal E. Chester got the idea to combine the growing paranoia about nuclear weapons with the