Chris Columbus has 900 boxes of old Mrs. Doubtfire footage, wants to make a documentary with it
Columbus says Williams would improvise so much that he'd burn through all of the film in the cameras
Aux News Mrs. Doubtfire
Before he died, Robin Williams supposedly stipulated in his will that Disney was not allowed to repurpose unused recordings of his performance as the Genie in Aladdin for new movies involving the Genie, which Disney apparently got permission to ignore for its “Once Upon A Studio” anniversary short. And now that that proverbial genie is out of the proverbial bottle, other people are apparently realizing that they should also be doing something with the mountains of unused Robin Williams content they’re sitting on.
People like Chris Columbus, who directed Williams in 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire. Speaking with Business Insider, Columbus revealed that he has “over 900 boxes” of additional footage from the movie sitting in a warehouse and he’d like to make a documentary with it at some point detailing Williams’ creative process. He also said that he shot “almost 2 million feet of film” for the movie (which is about 34 IMAX Oppenheimers, if that helps), all because Williams wanted to improvise as much dialogue as he could.
Columbus said that Williams pulled him aside early on and said, “I’ll give you three or four scripted takes, and then let’s play”—meaning that he would improvise—and Williams unsurprisingly had so much fun improvising as Mrs. Doubtfire that he would just burn through all of the film in the cameras. Eventually, Columbus started using four cameras so he could keep some focused on Williams and some focused on the rest of the cast so he could “get their reactions” to whatever Williams was doing (Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field would apparently break character a lot).
But regarding the Genie thing, Columbus has no interest in making any sort of Mrs. Doubtfire sequel. He says that he talked to Williams about it the year he died and that they had a “really strong” script, but Williams was apparently concerned about having to wear the Mrs. Doubtfire costume again. After his death, though, Columbus decided that he would never want to touch a reboot or a sequel or whatever, going so far as to say that if Disney ever tried to do it he would “certainly be very vocal about it.”
8 Comments
Well it’s better than mistreating a bunch of Native Americans.
I can’t wait to never watch this, should it get made.
God, that sounds diabolical
Three minutes in and the entire audience will stand up and declare they cannot handle any more schtick.
“He also said that he shot “almost 2 million feet of film” for the movie”Good grief!!
For comparison, Apocalypse Now went through about 1.25 million feet of film during its nearly year long production. A Clockwork Orange was 400-500,000. 1000 feet of film at normal speed is about 11 minutes of footage. Anchorman, 40 Year Old Virgin, and Knocked Up all each shot a little over 1 million feet of film because (like on Mrs Doubtfire) they were running 2-3 cameras in every scene and pretty much just improvising until the cameras ran out of film. Some people talked shit about the waste of film at the time, but I think money in the Kodak film division’s pocket is a good thing.2 million feet of film for a family comedy is absurd. I hope the film loaders were getting paid overtime rates.
Say “film” again. I dare you!
I’m betting there’s a lot of the pie stuff when he had to hide his face, and a lot of the restaurant stuff at the end. I’d love to see it. Especially anything with the kids, who looked like they were having a ball.
That sounds like a lot of manic rambling while the film crew wished he would get tired so they could break for lunch.