TomShadyac Tagged Articles at Cinematical

All of you aspiring screenwriters might want to pay attention to this little story. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Universal Pictures has picked up a new comedy spec from new writer Ben Frahm called Dr. Sensitive. The flick is about an insensitive doc and will produced, and maybe directed by Tom Shadyac, who helmed the similarly-themed Liar Liar, as well as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and the two recent Almighty comedies. Considering the man's history, this very well could be another Jim Carrey movie. That's all the news there is about the script, but the real story here is in Frahm.

Like many star-eyed hopefuls, Frahm left Ithaca, NY to head west and try his hand at writing a few years ago. Like most, he found another job to make money -- working as a special-needs teacher at a middle school. But this is where his luck turned away from the future of many hopefuls. While helping the kids, he wrote a draft of the script and shopped it around. Some companies were interested, but they wanted to give it to a writer in the biz to handle, leaving him only with a "story by" credit. While some would have jumped, he didn't. Then Nick Osborne, from Underground Films, spotted his script and query. The two worked together for a year on the script, teamed with Shady Acres, and then got the guy a mid-six figures deal with Universal. So, it's nice to know that some people who stick by their guns actually make it. If you're determined to be one of them -- let this be some hope!

The weekend gross for Evan Almighty was $32.1 million, far below the studio's projections and less than half of the opening weekend of it's predecessor, Bruce Almighty, in 2003. The film opened on over 3,600 screens and according to Nikki Finke, was well-received in the South and Mid-West, did fair business on the West Coast and Mountain regions, but did poorly on the East Coast and in Canada, where religious-themed movies don't seem to go over quite as well. Interestingly, Evan Almighty wasn't the only big story this weekend -- Stephen King had his biggest opening weekend ever with 1408, which sailed on good reviews and word of mouth into a second-place position, bumping off Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer with $20.1 million.

The biggest loser of the weekend might have been R-rated horror films. 1408, which is PG-13, had one of the biggest horror openings in a while, and was noticeably more successful than Eli Roth's torture-fest, Hostel: Part II. Roth recently ranted on his MySpace page that R-rated horror was in jeopardy, and that if movies like his weren't supported, they would go away. The studio lemmings will not miss this weekend's 1408 surprise, and, if they are persuaded that PG-13 is the wave of the future, they might put the kibosh on any number of R-rated horror films in the works. The next big test for R-rated horror will likely be Rob Zombie's Halloween, which is opening in late August. If that movie tanks as well, you can probably say goodbye to real horror for a long time.

If what Nikki Finke says is true -- that Evan Almighty needs to clear $500 million worldwide to really get into the black -- then I guess it's no wonder that director Tom Shadyac has embarassed himself so mightily during the film's promotion. The interview he did with Christianity Today, posted on their site on Monday, is pandering on an almost superhuman level. It's so fascinating to read, in fact, that I'm going to give you an official spoiler warning right here: don't read any further if you want to savor every line for yourself. In response to the fairly straight-forward question "What do you want people to take away from Evan Almighty?" Shadyac responds "Hopefully they'll walk away entertained. But also, I think we all have this 'idolatry of magnitude,' thinking that if we don't do something huge for the world that we haven't done anything. We forget the story of the widow's mite ..." Yes, he parable-checks.

He also offers up the following: "Someone asked me the other day, 'What's the biggest influence on your filmmaking career?' And they started naming filmmakers. I went 'Naw, it's Jesus actually.'" I guess, now that he mentions it, I do see the comparison between the two. Jesus included a lot of Ace Ventura-style slapstick in his early films, and some of the camerawork in The Nutty Professor is very Christ-like. Most of the rest of the interview is a lot of painful-to-read jousting, as the interviewer keeps trying to get Shadyac to label himself and the film as sort of 'by Christians, for Christians,' and Shadyac keeps trying to slip away with hippie-dippie statements about Jesus being his hero, and so forth. He says that he responds to the Sermon on the Mount, "to this guy who talked about loving your neighbor and loving your enemy. I know what's moving me and I know what I want to be true to in my work. And if people pigeonhole me for that, I don't really care." Brave, dude. Brave.

When you're the producer/director of a movie that's been widely reported as wildly over-budget, you're going to get a little testy when the release date starts to roll around. But according to Nikki Finke, Evan Almighty maker Tom Shadyac recently through threw a mega-nasty hissy fit during a meeting of Universal execs and marketing folks. The director's main gripe seems to be that Uni is scrimping on the TV advertising on Evan in a way to save some of the money that was tossed into a flick that (some say) cost over $200 million.

"I'm not seeing any ads, and I don't know why. I'm not getting answers. People are giving me information that isn't true ... I'm only hearing about all the other summer movies, and nothing about mine," is what Mr. Shadyac complained about, according to Ms. Finke's unnamed source. The filmmaker even went as far as firing his long-time marketing consultants over the issue. Sounds to me like someone's getting his "this is why the movie flopped" excuses ready.

Tom Shadyac's other movies include Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Patch Adams, Dragonfly and Bruce Almighty. Evan Almighty, which stars Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, Lauren Graham and more CGI animals than you've ever seen before, opens on June 22.

So it seems that Will Ferrell is not the only one who thinks audiences can't get enough of sports comedies -- although to be fair I can't help but giggle at the sight of Ferrell on a treadmill singing My Humps. The Hollywood reporter has announced that Tom Shadyac, director of Bruce Almighty, has signed to produce the cycling comedy Tour de Frank for Universal. The comedy pitch by Andrea King and Andy Marx is being produced through Shadyac's Shady Acres Entertainment in partnership with Universal. Shadyac is expected to direct, but so far he hasn't made any commitments.

Shadyac just finished directing Evan Almighty and also produced the upcoming Adam Sandler comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. So while he seems to be keeping busy with comedies, Shadyac is also working on a film based on the memoirs of John Francis, titled Planetwalker (also with Universal), and judging by Eric's description of that project, I doubt there will be any opportunities for lighthearted humor. There aren't many details on Tour de Frank's story so far beyond the initial set up of a comedy set in the world of competitive cycling; but I can already see a world of possibilities in spandex-related humor.