Casper
Short description
Casper is a friendly young ghost living in the decaying Whipstaff Manor with his three unruly uncles, whose pranks have driven away every attempt to occupy the house. When the manor's greedy new owner hires a specialist in the supernatural to clear the spirits out, he arrives with his teenage daughter, Kat. Father and daughter move in, and while the uncles make life difficult for the newcomers, Casper forms a bond with Kat. Both are lonely in different ways, and their friendship develops even though he is a ghost and she is not.
The film was directed by Brad Silberling, the first of the eight features he has directed to date, from a screenplay by Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver, with Colin Wilson producing. Malachi Pearson voices Casper, Christina Ricci plays Kat, Bill Pullman is Dr. Harvey and Cathy Moriarty and Eric Idle appear as Carrigan and Dibs, among a credited cast of 37 and a crew of 142. Released in May 1995 by Universal Pictures with Amblin Entertainment and The Harvey Entertainment Company, it cost about 50 million dollars and took roughly 288 million worldwide, a strong return.
On IMDb it holds 6.2 out of 10 from around 159,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.3 out of 10 from about 5,000 votes, while a critics' rating stands at 5.8 out of 10 from 110 reviews, so audiences have rated it slightly above the critical consensus.
What's left behind the scenes
- Alex Proyas was initially appointed as the director.
- Casper's last name is McFadden. It can be seen in the newspaper headline of an article about his father, which Cat is reading.
- This is the second film where Christina Ricci falls in love with Devon Sawa (who plays Casper in human form). Their characters had a romantic relationship in the film «Now and Then» (1995).
- The first feature film in the history of cinema with a main character who is entirely a product of computer graphics.
- In the scene with the mirror, the character played by Bill Pullman was supposed to transform into Steven Spielberg. Spielberg, involved in the project as a producer, even filmed the corresponding scene, but it was ultimately cut from the film (it was decided that the scene would slow down the overall pace and disrupt the film's rhythm). Spielberg was pleased with this, as he had always considered himself a terrible actor.
- During filming, Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci had to speak to tennis balls, which represented the ghosts, while the computer-generated ghosts were added to the footage later.
- In the scene where Casper pulls Kat, played by Christina Ricci, through the window to go to the lighthouse, a fishing line was attached to the actress's hand, giving the impression that she was being pulled by a ghost.
- The breakfast scene was animated first, which is why Casper and the other ghosts look “more tangible” than anywhere else in the film. The pancakes that Casper served were fully animated.
- Initially, Alex Proyas was supposed to direct the film. He wanted the mansion where Harvey (father and daughter) end up to look unusual. Production designer Ivo Leslie Dilly immediately stated that a haunted mansion shouldn't look like a typical Victorian building and suggested something in the style of Antoni Gaudí (a prominent representative of Catalan Modernism). As a result, the mansion in the film resembles the Casa Batlló residential complex in Barcelona, which Gaudí rebuilt between 1904 and 1906.
- After completing work on the film, a sequel was proposed, and Simon Wells even wrote a script for it, but the idea had to be abandoned because Bill Pullman and Christina Ricci were busy with other projects, and, in addition, Ricci no longer wanted to star in films for children. It was decided to focus on a cartoon series about Casper and an animated spin-off for Fox Kids.
- Early computer models of Casper more closely resembled his original appearance in the comics, but they were somehow lifeless and unattractive, particularly due to their oval eyes with blue circles around them. Steven Spielberg (who served as a producer on the project) decided to change Casper's appearance and give him eyes that would evoke sympathy from viewers (like the eyes of the alien from his 1982 film of the same name).
- It proved very difficult to find a suitable voice for Casper. Director Brad Silberling auditioned hundreds of children. Eventually, he chose Malachi Pearson, who had previously had no connection to filmmaking.
- Christina Ricci was 15 years old at the start of filming and had never seen the Casper cartoons before. She periodically had to remind director Brad Silberling that she was born in 1980, as Silberling constantly brought up the 1950s.
- At the 33rd minute of the film, Dr. Harvey fights Stretch, who fights with a golf club. While climbing the stairs, Stretch uses a folded umbrella for a few seconds, but after a change of shot, he is holding a golf club again.
- On the 63rd minute of the film, Kat sits in an armchair which then descends into her father Casper's underground laboratory, where the armchair remains afterwards. On the 65th minute, Dibs and Carrigan follow Kat’s trail in another armchair, however, it’s unclear where they could have gotten it, since it was clearly visible in the library that there was only one armchair there.
- On the 86th minute of the film, Kat's mother's ghost meets with Casper, and she tells him he is 12 years old. This is an error, as on the 61st minute of the film, Kat finds an old newspaper in the attic stating that the McFaddens' child (Casper's human surname) died of pneumonia at the age of 11.
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