Barry Sonnenfeld Talks About Nearly Directing The 2004 Film
May 23, 2021 23:53:15 GMT -5
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Post by gothicarchiesfan on May 23, 2021 23:53:15 GMT -5
While watching a very long interview with Barry Sonnenfeld about his work, I noticed a small section where he talked a little bit about his work on the original version of the movie, back in 2002. I've cut it out and presented it here, along with some highlighted portions of interest.
- Sonnenfeld had loved the Lemony Snicket books and especially liked their presentation of most adults being foolish and out of touch, whether wicked or noble.
- He loved them so much that he lobbied very hard to direct the movie after Scott Rudin purchased the rights.
- The movie was initially meant to be a much smaller venture with $40 million budget, but as has been mentioned before, Paramount still kept trying to cut it down.
- The movie instantly got inflated to blockbuster status (and thus, much more expensive) when Carrey was hired.
- Scott Rudin left the project because he had a lot of conflicts with the studio and also possibly Daniel Handler.
- Because of Paramount's repeated attempts to cut the budget, Sonnenfeld got Sony to agree to finance half the film but the head of Paramount said it wouldn’t work.
- Sonnenfeld postulates that this was because Paramount's top brass didn’t really want to take on the effort of producing such a large scale movie and were willing to cede creative control and much of the financing to another studio, so they could just sit back and let their half of the cash flow in.
- Dreamworks Studios' head executive Walter Parkes did not get along with Barry Sonnenfeld, due to some bad blood that had developed during the production of Men In Black. Sonnenfeld alleges that he was very controlling, and often liked to direct his movies, from the back seat, as it were.
- Dreamworks pretended that Sonnenfeld had quit the project, and only admitted that they had fired him when his lawyer confronted them.
- The movie was so close to shooting that Sonnenfeld had not only already designed all the sets for his version of the film with Rick Heinrichs, but had even listed every single specific camera shot in the movie.
- Sonnenfeld says he feels that the final version of the 2004 film focused too much on Jim Carrey's antics. "It's not the Count Olaf movie."
- Sonnenfeld had loved the Lemony Snicket books and especially liked their presentation of most adults being foolish and out of touch, whether wicked or noble.
- He loved them so much that he lobbied very hard to direct the movie after Scott Rudin purchased the rights.
- The movie was initially meant to be a much smaller venture with $40 million budget, but as has been mentioned before, Paramount still kept trying to cut it down.
- The movie instantly got inflated to blockbuster status (and thus, much more expensive) when Carrey was hired.
- Scott Rudin left the project because he had a lot of conflicts with the studio and also possibly Daniel Handler.
- Because of Paramount's repeated attempts to cut the budget, Sonnenfeld got Sony to agree to finance half the film but the head of Paramount said it wouldn’t work.
- Sonnenfeld postulates that this was because Paramount's top brass didn’t really want to take on the effort of producing such a large scale movie and were willing to cede creative control and much of the financing to another studio, so they could just sit back and let their half of the cash flow in.
- Dreamworks Studios' head executive Walter Parkes did not get along with Barry Sonnenfeld, due to some bad blood that had developed during the production of Men In Black. Sonnenfeld alleges that he was very controlling, and often liked to direct his movies, from the back seat, as it were.
- Dreamworks pretended that Sonnenfeld had quit the project, and only admitted that they had fired him when his lawyer confronted them.
- The movie was so close to shooting that Sonnenfeld had not only already designed all the sets for his version of the film with Rick Heinrichs, but had even listed every single specific camera shot in the movie.
- Sonnenfeld says he feels that the final version of the 2004 film focused too much on Jim Carrey's antics. "It's not the Count Olaf movie."