No. of Recommendations: 5
Here at the BillZ school of “Tips for politicos Seeking To increase Their Popularity With the Public” offer the following to you as a tool in your toolkit. Not sure what you can do about it, but we offer it anyway for your review;
A Rule All Creatives Must Follow: Never Kill the Dog
Adam McCay—who directed Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Vice—appeared on the Bill Simmons podcast to talk about his body of work and tell a few ridiculous stories.
First, recall (or watch) the hilarious scene in Anchorman where Jack Black’s character, a biker, punts Ron Burgundy’s dog, Baxter, off of a bridge and into a river. Now hear this:
The only thing (in the process of making the movie) that was a speed bump was the first test screening. We showed it to, like, everyone. (Jeffrey) Katzenburg was there, all of Dreamworks, everyone. It was a packed house. The movie plays, and we got huge laughs. After the screening, everyone’s coming up to us (McCay and Will Ferrel, who plays Burgundy). Katzenburg, all these guys were there shaking my hand going, “Oh my God, you have made one of the funniest movies.”
And then they came out with the scores, (which go from) zero to 100. And you always at least want to get a 65 or a 70. That’s respectable. Anything higher is great.
And the woman reads the scores and says, “You got a 50.” And everyone just froze. And then the head of marketing walked up to me, I think her name was Terri Press, and she said, “You idiots, you killed the dog!” And I said “What do you mean?”
“You killed his dog.”
And I go “Yeah, but it looked so fake. Who cares?” and she said, “NO! You killed the dog...” And Ferrel and I were like “Ohhh, of course.”
So we went and did reshoots and Baxter came back (to life). We just did a lame (scene where) you see Baxter come out of the river. And we went and retested (the movie), it went right to a 75. Like 25 points up. Yeah, 50 to a 75. It was crazy.
Never kill the dog
