Rumors and Hearsay (the good kind) Plans for a cinematic version of Fox’s long-standing TV show, The Simpsons, have been rumored and spoken of for more than fifteen years at this point.
The first time thought of giving the Simpsons a movie came in late 1991 or early 1992. It was then that The Simpsons’ creator Matt Groening and producer James L. Brooks conceived of an idea that they thought had feature film potential. Together the two began feeling out the possibility of making a movie involving the Simpsons. However, given the surprisingly generic nature of this idea and their (and The Simpsons’ writers) inability to flesh out the script into something that would have offered audiences at least 80 minutes of quality entertainment, Groening and Brooks soon gave up on the idea and turned their silver-screen premise into the fourth season’s premiere episode, "Kamp Krusty".
In "Kamp Krusty", Bart and Lisa scheme to go to Springfield’s summer camp du jour, Kamp Krusty. Once there, Bart and Lisa are shocked and chagrined to learn that the camp’s namesake, Krusty the Klown, has almost nothing to do with the camp and that the children themselves are treated like sweatshop workers. Bart then organizes a revolt against the leaders of the camp.
In the mid-nineties, Groening tinkered with the idea of making a live-action version of The Simpsons. This idea was wisely scrapped soon afterwards… though I’ve always found it interesting to consider who would have been cast in the major roles. More on this in a minute.
Even though Groening rightfully tabled a live-action Simpsons movie, one actor still had hopes that it would come true: Phil Hartman. Hartman reportedly wanted to have a Troy McClure spin-off movie in which he played the titular character. This too was scrapped.
The first real sign that a Simpsons Movie was going to be happen came in 1998, when Fox purchased the web domain: www.simpsonsmovie.com. A mere 460 weeks later, the movie will finally be released.
Casting Session: The Live-Action Simpsons Movie Now to my thoughts on the casting of a mid-90s, live-action Simpsons movie.
Homer Simpson would be played by Dan Castelleneta in a fat suit. Darkhorse: Chris Farley… on the condition that David Spade have nothing to do with the project.
Marge Simpson would be played by Joan Allen. Darkhorse: Cameron Diaz. Diaz would actually be my first choice but, after There’s Something About Mary, I’d be hesitant to cast an actress who had already received an inordinent amount of press for having hair that stood straight up.
Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson would all be played by unknown child actors. If there were any darkhorses, it’d be Mason Gamble as Bart, although after appearing as Dennis the Menace in John Hughes' film of the same name, it's kind of doubtful as to whether Gamble could be sold to audiences as another classic comic character.
The role of Mr. Burns would have first been offered to Barry Diller (upon whom the role is based). As soon as Diller turned it down, I’d recommend that Fox exhume the corpse of William Hickey and turn his body into a sort of marionette to be operated by the team who went on to work on Being John Malkovich.
Dr. Hibbert would go to Bryant Gumbel. Gumbel could probably provide the characters wardrobe as well.
Moe Syslak would be Ron Perlman. There would be no darkhorse candidate. If Perlman turned the role down, his role would be written out of the movie. If Syslak had a father or a brother though, I’d cast ACDC frontman Angus Young along side Perlman.
Barney Gumble would fall to Brian Cox. A strange choice, I know, but Cox would do something with the role and make it work. Darkhorse: Jim Belushi. I wouldn’t tell Belushi what role he was playing, I’d just have him sit at the bar, not tell him we were filming and let him respond as he normally would. We’d just have to edit out the parts where he’d turn to the director and ask, "Why do they keep calling me Barney?"
Press Photo of the Week
Clive Owen and Danny Huston in Children of Men
In this still from director Alphonso Cuaron's Children of Men, this scene takes place near a power plant where a giant pig is flying in the background. This is an homage to the Pink Floyd album cover for the group's 1977 release Animals. You can see the album cover here.
Publicist Tales For those who don’t know, publicists are hired representatives who work with the press in order to promote both movies and individual talent. They serve as liaisons between the Hollywood stars and journalists, spokespeople for stars in trouble and as the occasional facilitator of stories benefiting their clients/projects. They are also incredibly horrible, soulless, comically stupid people. The stories told here are all real and, though it might seem hard to believe, not inflated in any way.
Younger publicists refuse to ever say anything bad about the movies/clients they’re representing. This occasionally becomes an issue with me when the product in question is really bad or involves Eric Roberts in some way. Amazing and fantastic are two of a publicist’s favorite words. When pitching their clients, everything and everyone is amazing and fantastic. I’m a strong believer in the fact that if everything is amazing, then nothing is amazing, so I always ask for perspective. When a publicist tells me that X project or actor is fantastic, I’ll ask her to give me something that she thinks isn’t amazing, so I can see how our tastes match.
Good publicists will use this question as an out and say something to the effect of, “Okay, this new Billy Dee Williams movie isn’t Oscar worthy, but it’s interesting because it was shot over a five year time span. It’s got a lot of intriguing angles to it.” Publicists on the opposite end of the spectrum will attempt to actually answer my question. And I say ‘attempt’ because if they’re trying to answer it, they will never have a satisfactory response… because in their eyes everything is amazing.
A twenty-something publicist who was working on the DVD release of Will Ferrell’s Talledega Nights called me last year and informed me that I had to see the movie because it was, of course, amazing. I asked her to give me the title of a movie that she’d seen recently and didn’t like. And she was stumped. She couldn’t do it.
“Then give me the name of one movie you’ve seen in your life that you haven’t liked,” I said. There was a long pause before the publicist told me she still couldn’t think of one movie that fit the billing. At this point, I had a choice to make: I could have gracefully exited the conversation letting her off easy or I could have pushed forward. Fascinated by the fact that this woman was telling me that she couldn’t think of a single film she’d ever seen and hated (I can think of two that I’ve seen in the last five days, Zodiac and Shooter), I opted for the latter choice and steamrolled forth, telling myself that I wasn’t being an asshole, instead I was conducting a sociological experiment.
“What about books you’ve read that you haven’t liked?” I questioned. More nervous stammering.
“Food you don’t like?” I asked attempting to cover my ever-growing incredulity.
“I’m pretty easy when it comes to food,” she told me. “I’ll eat whatever.”
“How about fashion?” I tried. “There has to be some style of clothing you don’t like.”
The publicist took a deep breath and said, “You’re right and I know there have to be some.”
“Bell-bottoms? Flipping your collar up? Uggs? Tight rolling your jeans?” I asked, trying to help her out by mentioning several of the more egregious fashion blunders of the last two decades. Her ears perked up after hearing my last suggestion. “The last one!” she said triumphantly. “I don’t like guys who wear jeans.”
That comment I let slide, not sure that I was quite ready to learn why the only thing on the planet that this particular publicist didn’t like was the most universally approved fashion product of the last two centuries.
Greener publicists often break when they realize that they are just spinning lies to people; they haven’t completely accepted this part of the job yet. You could spend 10 minutes talking to an experienced publicist whose most famous client had just been arrested for driving drunk in a stolen car with his baby sitting in the front seat on top of a brick of cocaine and his mother’s dead body in the backseat and that publicist could be hard-pressed to find a negative thing to say about the person. On the other side of things is this exchange I had with a young female publicist for the movie Disturbia in the lobby prior to its screening:
ME: Is this movie going to suck as much as I think it’s going to? PUBLICIST: Everyone I’ve been talking to has been giving it mixed reviews! ME: (pregnant pause) Uh, I’ll take that as a yes. PUBLICIST: You have to remember that this movie was made for teens. ME: An emphatic yes. PUBLICIST: I really liked it! ME: So it sucks, huh? PUBLICIST: (long sigh and then resignedly) Yeah…
Rumors and Hearsay (the good kind)