Bedazzled
Short description
Elliot Richards is an IT worker with poor social skills and a long-running crush on his colleague Alison, who barely notices he exists. After he wishes aloud that he could have her, the Devil appears in the form of a seductive woman and offers him a deal: seven wishes in exchange for his soul. Elliot accepts and begins using the wishes to remake himself into the man he thinks Alison wants, from a towering basketball star to a wealthy and powerful figure to a sensitive, caring partner. Each time, the Devil finds a way to twist the terms of the wish so that the result is nothing like what Elliot had in mind.
Harold Ramis directed and co-wrote the film with Larry Gelbart and Peter Tolan, and produced it with Trevor Albert. It followed Analyze This in Ramis's filmography and came before Analyze That. Brendan Fraser plays Elliot, with Elizabeth Hurley as the Devil, Frances O'Connor as Alison, Miriam Shor as Carol, and Orlando Jones and Paul Adelstein in multiple roles. The 93-minute comedy fantasy romance was made for 48 million dollars and took in about 90 million worldwide, a modest return on its budget.
Audience response has been lukewarm but steady over the years: it holds a rating of 6.1 out of 10 on IMDb from around 119,000 votes, with the same score on TMDB from a much smaller base of roughly 2,200 votes. A critics' rating of 5.9 out of 10 from 116 reviews places professional opinion close to the audience verdict.
What's left behind the scenes
- In the guise of the teacher, the Devil writes a formula on the board – it’s Fermat’s Last Theorem, which was only solved in 1994. Before that, there was a joke among scientists that the theorem could only be solved by selling your soul.
- The original "Blinded by Desire" from 1967 was Brendan Fraser's favorite movie as a child.
- The Devil calls his dogs Dudley and Peter on the beach – this joke references the names of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, the screenwriters of the original 1967 film.
- In the guise of a teacher, the Devil writes a formula on the blackboard – it's Fermat's Last Theorem, which was only solved in 1995. Before that, there was a joke among scientists that the theorem could only be solved by selling your soul.
- In fact, the Devil fulfills another wish of Elliott’s, where he becomes a wild rock musician. But the filmmakers decided to abandon this moment because the character uses drugs, attempts suicide by overdosing on pills, has sex on stage, and uses profanity.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
