The Addams Family could’ve been an easy project to bring to the screen.
It was a box office highlight in a year that had precious few of them.
But it nearly didnt get to cinemas at all.
In particular, with producer Scott Rudin, who was head of production at the studio at the time.
What could possibly go wrong?
Er, quite a lot.
The problem everyone faced though was thatThe Addams Familywas unknown to an audience under roughly 40 at the time.
Conversely, the not dissimilarThe Munsterscontinued to enjoy repeats and bring in a new collection of younger viewers.
Outside America in particular,The Addams Familyhad not sustained the same level of interest.
And It Begins…
Things, however, changed.
The studio brought Rudin on board, now free of his Fox duties.
It looked likeThe Addams Familywas finally happening.
Next, it was director time.
It was reportedly quite a list.
The job, though, ended up going to Barry Sonnenfeld.
The film, however, would nearly break him.
As he toldEmpiremagazine back in 1991, Sonnenfeld admitted I lost 13 pounds in the first 10 weeks alone.
There seemed to be a theme here).
It was three weeks into directing the film that things went very wrong.
Before I knew what was happening, I got very dizzy and tried to sit down and wham!
Sonnenfeld regained consciousness, weeping as he did.
Producer Scott Rudin, just weeks into production, had a director who was teetering on the edge.
Production resumed quickly, and nobody got the half day off they thought they were getting.
Sonnenfeld, in a 2012Vultureinterview, would call it a sciatic time.
Tattersall was rushed to hospital, and would not complete the movie.
It cant have helped his stress levels.
So that was further rearranging that needed to be done.
And then another health issue struck.
The film was being shot in Los Angeles, but Sonnenfelds home was in New York.
It would be fair to say that makingThe Addams Familywas stressful.
But amazingly, it was going to get worse.
But Orion backed too many bad, expensive movies, and was running out of cash.
With production still ongoing, it needed money fast.
It decided to sellTheAddams Familyto another studio while it was filming.
Not that the filmmakers knew this.
Orion was in dire straits by then though.
Its not as ifThe Addams Familywas going wildly over budget.
Orion was out of options.
Originally, the Mamushka music sequence, one of the highlights of the film, was a lot longer.
However, asEntertainment Weeklyreported back in 1991, that scene was butchered by a test screening.
Why was it cut?
Perhaps the blame lies with a couple hundred Valley Boys who considered The Mamushka a real showstopper.
Their negative reaction to a preview of the movie evidently helped shape its final form,EWreported.
But back to Orion.
One day, Scott Rudin was reporting into one studio.
As it turned out, Paramount would get a bargain.
The studio finally gave the project some security, and filming would wrap in April 1991.
The major hassles were over.
But there was still a slight sting in the tail.
But even then, there were problems.
One of them, oddly enough, was only resolved last year.
Thats because ongoing rights problems gave the film unforeseen issues come the DVD era.
MGM titles are distributed in some territories by Fox.
Are you still following this?
However, weve jumped a lawsuit, one that landed quickly afterThe Addams Familyarrived in cinemas.
Some of them certainly did on this one…
