The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
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Short description
Walter Mitty works in the photo archive of Life magazine, a quiet man who escapes his ordinary routine through elaborate daydreams in which he is a hero and a romantic lead. When the magazine is set to move to an online-only format and cut staff, Walter faces the loss of the job he has held for years. The final print issue is meant to feature a photograph by the celebrated photographer Sean O'Connell, but the negative for that image cannot be found. Walter, who has long admired his colleague Cheryl from a distance, gathers his courage and sets out to track down the missing photograph and the man who took it, embarking on a real journey that takes him far beyond anything he had only imagined.
Ben Stiller directed and stars as Walter, working from a screenplay by Steven Conrad. The film is based on James Thurber's short story, which had previously been adapted in 1947. Kristen Wiig plays Cheryl, with Sean Penn as Sean O'Connell, Shirley MacLaine as Walter's mother Edna, Adam Scott as Ted Hendricks, and Kathryn Hahn as his sister Odessa. It was Stiller's fifth feature as director, following Reality Bites, The Cable Guy, Zoolander and Tropic Thunder, and it preceded Zoolander 2 and Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost.
Made for a budget of 90 million dollars, the film took about 188 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 7.3 from roughly 369,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from over 8,400 votes. A critics' rating of 6 out of 10 from 195 reviews places it below the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Actors Jim Carrey, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Mike Myers, and Sacha Baron Cohen were considered for the role of Mitty.
- Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, and Mark Waters were potential directors for the project.
- The song “Dirty Paws” by the Icelandic band Of Monsters and Men plays in the background of the film's first trailer.
- Producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr., whose father Samuel Goldwyn produced the 1947 film “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” conceived of a remake in 1994 with Jim Carrey in the lead role. Walt Disney Pictures was very interested in acquiring the remake rights, but Goldwyn chose New Line Cinema, which had a good relationship with Carrey after “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) and “The Mask” (1994). The studio purchased the rights in 1995 with the understanding that The Samuel Goldwyn Company would be involved in creative decisions. The first screenplay draft was written in 1997 by Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz. At the same time, Ron Howard entered negotiations to direct, and Brian Grazer wanted to produce through his Imagine Entertainment studio. Howard, Grazer, and Imagine Entertainment ultimately left the project to work on “Edtv” (1999), and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (2013) remained in development for a long time due to difficulties in adapting the storyline to a modern setting.
- In May 1999, New Line hired director Chuck Russell to rewrite the script, replacing Ron Howard. Filming was scheduled to begin in early 2000, but it was postponed. Around this time, Peter Tolan was working on a new version of the script. In May 2001, Goldwyn filed a lawsuit against New Line for breach of contract. Goldwyn claimed that the studio had extended their 1995 deal until May 2001, but then announced its intention to transfer the remake rights to another company and force Goldwyn to relinquish his creative input. Goldwyn won the lawsuit in November 2002. New Line returned the film rights to him, after which Goldwyn decided to partner with Paramount Pictures. In May 2003, DreamWorks head Steven Spielberg agreed to direct and bring DreamWorks into the financing of the film alongside Paramount (which acquired DreamWorks in 2006).
- In April 2010, Sacha Baron Cohen was cast in the lead role. By the end of that month, screenwriter Steve Conrad had joined the project, and in June 2010, Gore Verbinski was announced as the film's director. In April 2011, it was announced that Ben Stiller would take on the lead role, and in July 2011, it became known that he would also direct the film due to Verbinski's commitment to working on "The Lone Ranger" (2013).
- Despite the lack of a final budget, Paramount studio planned to begin filming on December 12, 2005, because the contract for the adaptation rights expired a week later, and the company would lose its rights to the remake if it did not begin filming before December 20. In October 2005, Owen Wilson, who was being considered for the lead role, left the project due to creative differences. It was also reported that in October, after screen tests with Wilson, Scarlett Johansson was considered for the lead female role, but a contract with the actress was never signed. In November 2005, Paramount studio executives Brad Grey and Gail Berman decided to abandon the project. Goldwyn turned to Twentieth Century Fox, and in May 2007, it was announced that Mike Myers would play the lead role. Jay Cohen was hired to write a new script specifically for Myers.
- One of the film's characters drives a VAZ-2121 "Niva" car.
- Above Walter Mitty's sofa hangs a photograph taken in Bratsk (Russia, Irkutsk Region) in 1967 by Elliott Erwitt.
- When the sailors tell the main character how to get to the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, the map shows the northwest of Iceland. In reality, Eyjafjallajökull is located in the south.
- The last print issue of LIFE magazine was published in 2000, while Facebook and Instagram were founded only in 2004 and 2010, respectively.
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