The Blues Brothers by Daniel de Visé

Author:Daniel de Visé
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

* * *

Bob Weiss had signed on to produce the Blues Brothers film. All involved had assumed directing duties would fall to John Landis, on the strength of Animal House and his rapport with Belushi.

Back in the summer of 1978, the Blues Brothers film “was really kind of a vanity deal,” Landis said. “Universal was trying to keep John happy.” No one had assigned the project a firm date. Landis started work on a Lily Tomlin film called The Incredible Shrinking Woman. Over the winter holiday, Universal had released Moment by Moment, a romantic drama starring Tomlin opposite red-hot John Travolta. Moment by Moment died at the box office, poisoning both actors’ prospects.

Inside the Black Tower, Sean Daniel had lobbied Ned Tanen for weeks to forget The Incredible Shrinking Woman and redeploy Landis on The Blues Brothers. When the receipts came in for Tomlin’s flop, he saw the opportunity.

Tanen telephoned Landis in early February with an update on The Incredible Shrinking Woman. “Your budget was $12 million,” he growled. “It’s now $3 million.” Landis had already spent nearly $1 million on costumes and sets. He said he could not make the film for that sum. “All right, then, we’re shutting it down,” Tanen replied.

“I think Ned wanted me to say, ‘It can’t be done,’” Landis reflected. The director obliged. In the press, Tanen blamed Landis and his waxing ambitions: “We didn’t want it to turn into ‘Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind.’”

Landis was free. Two days later, Tanen telephoned again. “Can you get The Blues Brothers done by August?” August lay a half year away—impossible.

“Sure,” Landis replied. On March 14, 1979, Variety announced that Landis would direct The Blues Brothers. His salary would be $625,000.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.