Ok ok ok, I know this isn't news about upcoming film, but I still thought this was absolutely fascinating. Can you imagine THE TRUMAN SHOW with this actor and tone? Wow... that sure would have been a completely different type of movie. Hmmmmm....
here's an interesting tidbit I'd meant to share with you back in June about TRUMAN SHOW, but, er, never got around to it.
With the video release of the film coming up, maybe it's appropriate.
As a bit of future trivia, it might interest your readers to know that TRUMAN SHOW sold as a spec to Paramount back in 1993 or so, and that Andrew Niccol (the writer) was attached to direct. This, apparently, was a condition of him selling it to Paramount.
Well, since this was before Niccol directed GATTACA, the studio decided to give him a "director's test". They gave Andrew about $50,000 and a Saturday to go film a scene from his script and see what he could do.
The cool part, was that master-thespian Gary Oldman played the role of Truman for this test, and Annabella Sciora(sp?) played an anonymous passerby. This was back when the script was much darker than the Peter Weir vision. The test scene featured Truman confronting Annabella on a street corner. He is beginning to suspect all is not right with his world, and that everybody around him knows his identity. So he grabs Annabella's baby and this is where Oldman went nuts, screaming: "SAY MY NAME! I KNOW YOU KNOW ME! SAY MY NAME!" He threatens to smash the baby against the sidewalk, until Annabella finally says: "Truman", thus proving all his worst fears were true.
The test was short, they spent about a day filming it in the neighborhood around Paramount (I was present for the filming). I never did see the finished product, but obviously Niccol didn't pass the "test" because he didn't direct the movie. He had Gary Oldman ramping up the intensity as only Oldman can do it, in a much more serious, brooding vein than Jim Carrey ever did, shouting at the top of lungs, and it's interesting to wonder what the film might have been like with Oldman in the lead.
Anyway, like I said it's future trivia, the kind of thing you wish they would put on the DVD Special Edition but never will.
Bye now,
The Prisoner (#6)
