John Candy documentary from Colin Hanks and Ryan Reynolds coming to Prime Video
Ryan Reynolds will produce a new documentary on John Candy for Prime Video, directed by Colin Hanks
Aux News Colin Hanks
Back in October, John Candy fanboy Ryan Reynolds revealed he and Colin Hanks had been working on a documentary of the late, great comedian. Now, Variety has the scoop that Prime Video is in talks to scoop up the project. Get your tissues ready, folks, because Reynolds promised there will be tears.
Insiders tell the outlet that the feature “will go beyond the persona and delve into the inner life that Candy kept private off-screen.” The film has been made “with the full support” of Candy’s widow Rose and their children Jen and Chris and will reportedly include “never-before-seen home videos, archives and interviews with the family to explore the man behind the movie star.”
Reynolds is a producer on the doc, and while Hanks’ involvement was previously unclear, Variety now reports he’s actually the director of the film. Hanks is known for his work as an actor in projects like American Crime Story and Life In Pieces, but he also has a few directing credits under his belt, including the documentary feature All Things Must Pass chronicling the rise and fall of Tower Records.
His father Tom Hanks famously appeared alongside Candy in two films, Splash and Volunteers (which also starred Colin’s mother Rita Wilson). The elder Hanks described the comic actor as “one of the great gifts to humankind” on Inside The Actor’s Studio in 1999, five years after Candy’s fatal heart attack.
“I don’t think he ever met a person he didn’t have a great conversation with. I don’t think he ever met a person who didn’t feel they were lucky to have been able to chat with John for a while,” the Oscar winner said at the time. “And I must say that the gregariousness that he had was actually born of how big his heart was.” Now, his son will be bringing that heart back to the screen.
27 Comments
John Candy and Robin Williams are the two deceased actors I miss on a daily basis. They were so endemic to the comedy I watched as a kid. Losing them was like losing two beloved uncles and there are days when I’m just so sad that they’re gone.
This. John Candy’s absence has been palpable, for what we were deprived of. His work in JFK showed he had incredible dramatic chops as well as comedic, and he no doubt would’ve flourished in the streaming era.
He was so good in JFK. I wished he’d been able to do more with that.
You’re as crazy as your mamma! Good day to you, suh!
His name gets mentioned in the oft planned, never accomplished biopic on Roscoe Arbuckle, and he’d have knocked that role out of the park.
I think he had big awards in his future. I’m glad everyone praises him as a great person although it makes the loss harder.
The Great Outdoors is still to this day one of my favorite comedies.
I was gonna say the pretty much same thing. They were legendary. I cried ugly tears (cause I’m ugly) after reading robins bio.
Candy and then Norm for me.
Phil Hartman tops this list for me, because he was still in his prime. (Candy was younger—but like Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, I wrote him off after Nothing but Trouble. Which is a terrible thing to say—unless you’ve seen Nothing but Trouble.)
Good thing you didn’t write Phil off after “Greedy”. They can’t all be winners. : )
Hell yes, I am seriously excited for this. There is so much of his career that I’ve always wanted to know more about, from “SCTV” all the way to “Camp Candy”. It is well past time to drill down deeper on that man’s legacy.
“Hey, it’s me… Harry! The guy with the snake on his face!”Goddamn, he was brilliant on SCTV. So talented.
For real. It’s about time for a full HD remaster and rerelease of that series, too. It’s too classic and consistently hilarious to only be available via fuzzy youtube clips and the occasional looping gifs.
The DVD box sets look just fine, not much you can do but AI upscale the masters. I seriously doubt they kept any of the film elements from the later seasons that shot some.
I wonder what happened to that Netflix SCTV special Scorsese was gonna do?
Johnny LaRue was my hero as a child. Geez, explains a lot.
He eventually got his crane shot!
I was rewatching the Fishin’ Musician with The Plasmatics the other day. Glamping with Wendy O!
I first saw John Candy on SCTV- my dad would let me and my brother stay up late to watch, which was a big deal in our house. He was amazing. That said, do we really need to know about his private life? I kinda don’t wanna know if he had problems with booze or abuse or anything.
Not telling Ryan Reynolds what to do with his documentary, but… it really ought to end with a crane shot….
Johnny finally got his crane shot…
Dude died way too young. What’s even more tragic is we’ll never get to know what he thinks of all these Marvel movies. RIP
He’d have been polite because he’d be playing Granny Goodness for the DCEU
FYI — Rita Wilson is Colin Hanks’ step-mother, not mother. Lots of people make this mistake!
“I don’t think he ever met a person who didn’t feel they were lucky to have been able to chat with John for a while. Well, I did hear he got on Steve Martin’s nerves when they travelled together around Thanksgiving once, but now that I think about it that might have been a popular film they were both in.”
John Candy was one of my heroes growing up. Partly because he was one of the few Toronto actors to still have his “Toronnah” accent even after making it big down south.“If it wasn’t for my bad leg…”