In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. He is befriended by Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate and prison contraband smuggler serving a life sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Working in the prison laundry, Andy is regularly assaulted and raped by "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs.
By 2013, The Shawshank Redemption had aired on fifteen basic cable networks, and in that year occupied 151 hours of airtime, rivaling Scarface (1983), and behind only Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). It was in the top 15 percent of movies among adults between the ages of 18 and 49 on the Spike, Up, SundanceTV, and Lifetime channels. Despite its mainly male cast it was the most watched movie on the female-targeted OWN network. In a 2014 Wall Street Journal article, it was estimated that based on the margins studios take from box office returns, home media sales, and television licensing, The Shawshank Redemption had made $100 million. Jeff Baker, then-executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, said that the home video sales had earned about $80 million.[3] While Warner Bros. does not report what it earns in licensing the film for TV, in 2014 current and former executives at the studio confirmed that it was one of the highest valued assets in Warner Bros. $1.5 billion library.[78] That same year, Gunton said that by its tenth anniversary in 2004, he was still earning six-figure residual payments, and was still earning a "substantial income" from it, which was considered unusual so many years after its release.[79]
Source: Wikipedia