::Paramount head Sherry Lansing angrily demanded a new screenplay that didn’t rip off a classic English comedy. ::
If Myers already licensed the remake rights, I fail to see the problem Lansing was having. It's not as if whoever owns Ealing Studios would cause a problem, and it's classic enough for the comedy snobs (which Myers clearly considers himself) while being funny enough for people who never heard of "PASSPORT TO PIMLICO" or "Ealing Studios".
::Garth here loses his virginity to a femme fatale played by Kim Basinger in a subplot begging for the cutting room floor. ::
I wonder if this subplot wasn't some sort of deal Myers made with Dana Carvey after he originally tried to push Carvey out of the sequel altogether? He'd gotten Penelope Spheeris shoved out of the director's chair and seemed to feel he could to the same to his co-star, so the movie would be All Mike Myers and...Whichever Babes He Wanted to Bang at the Moment! Kind of like what he did with the AUSTIN POWERS movies, given his ego seems to far outdistance any talent he has.....
::According to Lorne Michaels, Myers assumed that Paramount knew that he would be remaking Passport to Pimlico and had bought the remake rights in preparation. ::
I took that to mean Mike Myers had bought the remake rights to PASSPORT TO PIMLICO—though it could also read like "Myers just assumed Paramount had already purchased the remake rights to PASSPORT TO PIMLICO because he believed everybody shared his love of postwar Ealing comedies not starring either Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers."
I admit I find the latter explanation a bit fishy given that, when you're making a movie that's a remake of an earlier movie, you kind of want to be SURE you have the right to do that, either by purchasing the remake rights or by picking a property in the public domain. When my former wife and I did a humorous Sherlock Holmes video back in the 1980s, we got in touch with the U.S. representative of the Conan Doyle estate at that time to purchase the rights to the characters for that project (I knew him because I belonged to Sherlockian Scion Society at the time)—which cost us a whooping US$100 and a credit to the last surviving direct descendant of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Had we waited until now, when the character is in the public domain (largely—long ugly story there!), we would've just gone ahead and produced it.
You do NOT want to surprise the head of Paramount Pictures by having her find out, deep into production, that the movie you're about to start production on is a remake of a 44-year old British comedy she may or may not even know exists.
Another fun fact about Wayne's World 2: the producers were actively trying to convince Nirvana, rather than Aerosmith, to be the big rock band cameo. The film was made so on the fly that they still hadn't secured either band yet by the time they were halfway through shooting it, so in an attempt to coax Nirvana, they screened what they'd shot so far to the band while they were on tour. They brought along Bobcat Goldthwait, who opened for them on that tour, and Bobcat later described that dead-silent screening, during which none of the band members laughed even once, as "the only time I ever felt sorry for Lorne Michaels."
My memory of this film is pretty painful, for personal reasons: I was writing for an alt-weekly in Missoula, Montana, and I went to see this on a Friday night with some friends. Being of that age and that place, we partook of much herbal goodness beforehand. We laughed our asses off. End of story... or so I thought.
On Monday, my boss asked me if I could write a review of the movie. I said "hell yes" and wrote an absolute rave, calling it a "classic American comedy." [I cringe so hard writing that now.] On the day my review came out, the daily paper's review totally slagged it. I was like, "Wait... did I like that because I was high?"
Fast-forward a few years and I'm at a friend's place. He recommends putting on WW2. I'm like, great -- I can decide whether I got it right! The problem: I was baked this time, as well. I watched, laughed the whole time, and said, "Nope, I was right. It's the Missoulian that was wrong."
Fast-forward a few more years, and the movie is on network TV. I think, "great, I can confirm this is hilarious." I watch it stone-sober and, sadly, stone-faced. I'd clearly gotten it wrong.
If you know anyone who saw WW2 in the theater in Missoula in 1992 because of a rave review, let me know and I will shamefacedly reimburse them their ducats.
How much could it have cost to buy the story rights for "Passport to Pimlico"? Well, if word had somehow gotten out that the movie had already started filming, maybe they would have asked for quite a large sum indeed. I'd still like to think that they could have come to an arrangement. It's not like any other studio was going to get into a bidding war with them, eh? And also, I'd kind of like to see what that version of "Wayne's World 2" would have looked like, even if I'm having a hard time picturing that film as a sure-fire hit, an instant classic.
I watched the version that was released and I didn't hate it, but of course it was somehow not nearly as satisfying and clever as the first one was. Reading that it was re-written so quickly and that it mostly just borrowed elements from the first film and yet still wound up being "sort-of" entertaining anyway: impressive!
"Another 48 Hours" is the sequel that always jumps in to my head as the least successful variation on the "just shoot the first film all over again" template.
::Paramount head Sherry Lansing angrily demanded a new screenplay that didn’t rip off a classic English comedy. ::
If Myers already licensed the remake rights, I fail to see the problem Lansing was having. It's not as if whoever owns Ealing Studios would cause a problem, and it's classic enough for the comedy snobs (which Myers clearly considers himself) while being funny enough for people who never heard of "PASSPORT TO PIMLICO" or "Ealing Studios".
::Garth here loses his virginity to a femme fatale played by Kim Basinger in a subplot begging for the cutting room floor. ::
I wonder if this subplot wasn't some sort of deal Myers made with Dana Carvey after he originally tried to push Carvey out of the sequel altogether? He'd gotten Penelope Spheeris shoved out of the director's chair and seemed to feel he could to the same to his co-star, so the movie would be All Mike Myers and...Whichever Babes He Wanted to Bang at the Moment! Kind of like what he did with the AUSTIN POWERS movies, given his ego seems to far outdistance any talent he has.....
> If Myers already licensed the remake rights
That's not how I read the situation, but if so: yeah, that would make the decision to dump everything sound even more strange.
Did I misread this?
::According to Lorne Michaels, Myers assumed that Paramount knew that he would be remaking Passport to Pimlico and had bought the remake rights in preparation. ::
I took that to mean Mike Myers had bought the remake rights to PASSPORT TO PIMLICO—though it could also read like "Myers just assumed Paramount had already purchased the remake rights to PASSPORT TO PIMLICO because he believed everybody shared his love of postwar Ealing comedies not starring either Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers."
I admit I find the latter explanation a bit fishy given that, when you're making a movie that's a remake of an earlier movie, you kind of want to be SURE you have the right to do that, either by purchasing the remake rights or by picking a property in the public domain. When my former wife and I did a humorous Sherlock Holmes video back in the 1980s, we got in touch with the U.S. representative of the Conan Doyle estate at that time to purchase the rights to the characters for that project (I knew him because I belonged to Sherlockian Scion Society at the time)—which cost us a whooping US$100 and a credit to the last surviving direct descendant of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Dame Jean Conan Doyle. Had we waited until now, when the character is in the public domain (largely—long ugly story there!), we would've just gone ahead and produced it.
You do NOT want to surprise the head of Paramount Pictures by having her find out, deep into production, that the movie you're about to start production on is a remake of a 44-year old British comedy she may or may not even know exists.
Maybe Sherry Lansing either hated Ealing Comedies, or had had a bad experience with Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, or Margaret Rutherford!
“The spirit of the pretentious jackass beloved by some of the most pretentious assholes in the world tells Wayne to stage an epic concert.”
~ Said by some pretentious asshole ~
Another fun fact about Wayne's World 2: the producers were actively trying to convince Nirvana, rather than Aerosmith, to be the big rock band cameo. The film was made so on the fly that they still hadn't secured either band yet by the time they were halfway through shooting it, so in an attempt to coax Nirvana, they screened what they'd shot so far to the band while they were on tour. They brought along Bobcat Goldthwait, who opened for them on that tour, and Bobcat later described that dead-silent screening, during which none of the band members laughed even once, as "the only time I ever felt sorry for Lorne Michaels."
My memory of this film is pretty painful, for personal reasons: I was writing for an alt-weekly in Missoula, Montana, and I went to see this on a Friday night with some friends. Being of that age and that place, we partook of much herbal goodness beforehand. We laughed our asses off. End of story... or so I thought.
On Monday, my boss asked me if I could write a review of the movie. I said "hell yes" and wrote an absolute rave, calling it a "classic American comedy." [I cringe so hard writing that now.] On the day my review came out, the daily paper's review totally slagged it. I was like, "Wait... did I like that because I was high?"
Fast-forward a few years and I'm at a friend's place. He recommends putting on WW2. I'm like, great -- I can decide whether I got it right! The problem: I was baked this time, as well. I watched, laughed the whole time, and said, "Nope, I was right. It's the Missoulian that was wrong."
Fast-forward a few more years, and the movie is on network TV. I think, "great, I can confirm this is hilarious." I watch it stone-sober and, sadly, stone-faced. I'd clearly gotten it wrong.
If you know anyone who saw WW2 in the theater in Missoula in 1992 because of a rave review, let me know and I will shamefacedly reimburse them their ducats.
But the shop owner and his son? That’s a different story, altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes.
"the original conception of Wayne’s World II was a remake of a post-war British comedy"
So you're saying it could have been even worse?!
How much could it have cost to buy the story rights for "Passport to Pimlico"? Well, if word had somehow gotten out that the movie had already started filming, maybe they would have asked for quite a large sum indeed. I'd still like to think that they could have come to an arrangement. It's not like any other studio was going to get into a bidding war with them, eh? And also, I'd kind of like to see what that version of "Wayne's World 2" would have looked like, even if I'm having a hard time picturing that film as a sure-fire hit, an instant classic.
I watched the version that was released and I didn't hate it, but of course it was somehow not nearly as satisfying and clever as the first one was. Reading that it was re-written so quickly and that it mostly just borrowed elements from the first film and yet still wound up being "sort-of" entertaining anyway: impressive!
"Another 48 Hours" is the sequel that always jumps in to my head as the least successful variation on the "just shoot the first film all over again" template.