The crews were invited to pre-release screenings of the film – on June 14 for the Burbank/Glendale screening and on June 19 for the London screening. An offer had been extended for attending the world premiere at Radio City Music Hall in New York City – it covered a flight from Gatwick airport in London to NYC, four nights at the Best Western Milford Plaza Hotel near Times Square, and tickets to the premiere. The cost ranged from £580 for a single occupancy room, to £453 for a quadruple occupancy room. The folks from The Forum had been squished together for two years, so the multiple occupancy rooms generally weren’t a problem. At least 35 people from the London crew made the trip to New York. Tom and Pat Sito were the hometown guides for much of the group.
The London production had been under strict instruction to not talk about the project, so it was a great surprise to the crew to see the Disney promotional machine in full force in New York… including a full window display at Macy’s. The crew members were giddy about picking up Roger Rabbit merchandise.
‘Who framed Roger Rabbit‘ went into general release in North America the next day, on June 22, 1988. It wasn’t released in the UK until November 1988. The crew marveled to see the line-ups to get into the movie theaters. Shown below is the Ziegfeld Theater in NYC and the Cinerama Theater is Los Angeles.
photos courtesy of Pete Western, Nik Ranieri, and Tony Clark