Runaway Bride
Short description
Maggie Carpenter has left three men at the altar, and in her small Maryland town her habit of accepting proposals and then fleeing the ceremony has made her a local curiosity. When a New York journalist, Ike Graham, writes a column about her, he gets the details wrong, and the piece costs him his job. To restore his reputation, he travels to her hometown and sets out to report on the wedding she is now planning, convinced she will walk away again. Working on the story brings him closer to her than he expected.
Garry Marshall directed the film, which came between Dear God and The Other Sister as the tenth of the eighteen features he directed. Sara Parriott and Josann McGibbon wrote the screenplay, and Tom Rosenberg, Scott Kroopf and Ted Field produced. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, who had worked together in an earlier Marshall film, lead a credited cast of fifty-one, with Joan Cusack, Héctor Elizondo, Rita Wilson and Paul Dooley among the supporting players.
Released in July 1999, the film cost about 70 million dollars and took roughly 309 million worldwide, a strong return. Audiences are divided on it: on IMDb it holds 5.6 out of 10 from around 110,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.1 from a much smaller number. A critics' rating of 5.6 from 86 reviews is close to the IMDb figure, so professional and audience responses largely align.
What's left behind the scenes
- Work on the film continued for 10 years. At one time or another, Gina Davis, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Michael Douglas, Demi Moore, Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, Ben Affleck, and Tea Leoni were all considered for roles in the film. There was a period when Michael Hoffman was brought on as director. Elaine Mayrand and Leslie Dixon wrote screenplays that were never used.
- Richard Gere's character shares a name with the actor's father.
- In one scene, Richard Gere's character jams with local musicians. Gere didn't just play the guitar himself, but also wrote the melody performed in the film.
- The 'duck face' made by Julia Roberts made it into the film at the insistence of director Garry Marshall (1934-2016). He had previously seen Roberts making the face while entertaining his grandchildren.
- Julia Roberts consistently refused all offers to film sequels to her movies until 2004, when Steven Soderbergh's "Ocean's Twelve" was released. Initially, she even declined to appear in "Ocean's Twelve," which was a sequel to Soderbergh's "Ocean's Eleven" (2001). She only agreed to star in "Runaway Bride" (1999) on the condition that it would be a self-contained story, a single film with no continuations.
- In many scenes, Garry Marshall filmed twins and triplets, noting that there were so many of them among the babies in such a small town.
- Filming took place in Maryland from October 19, 1998, to January 26, 1999.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
