The Addams Family Director Barry Sonnenfeld Recalls The First Screening: ‘There Was Not A Single Laugh’
Paramount Pictures By Vanessa Armstrong/Oct. 15, 2021 3:58 pm EST
Barry Sonnenfeld’s “The Addams Family” turns 30 this year, and it’s hard to imagine the irreverently macabre movie starring Raul Julia, Angelica Houston, and Christopher Lloyd as anything other than a hit.
But when it was in production, the movie was anything but a sure hit, and the success of “The Addams Family” is even more impressive when one realizes the challenges Sonnenfeld faced when the movie was filming. Halfway through shooting, the movie moved from the first director-friendly Orion Pictures to Paramount and then had to deal with a leadership change at the movie’s new studio. The experience wasn’t an easy one, and Sonnenfeld recounted the story in a recent interview marking the film’s 30th anniversary. Sonnenfeld told Variety:
“Half way through our shoot we were sold to Paramount. Dede Allen, our editor, put together a 10-minute show reel and we went to various studios. Frank Mancuso Jr. bought it and then shortly after he was fired. [Paramount President] Stanley Jaffe came in and looked at the same ten minutes of footage and announced that, ‘This movie is uncuttable and unreleasable.’”
Things didn’t get better from there.
The Addams Family Director Barry Sonnenfeld Recalls The First Screening: ‘There Was Not A Single Laugh’
Paramount Pictures
By Vanessa Armstrong/Oct. 15, 2021 3:58 pm EST
Barry Sonnenfeld’s “The Addams Family” turns 30 this year, and it’s hard to imagine the irreverently macabre movie starring Raul Julia, Angelica Houston, and Christopher Lloyd as anything other than a hit.
But when it was in production, the movie was anything but a sure hit, and the success of “The Addams Family” is even more impressive when one realizes the challenges Sonnenfeld faced when the movie was filming. Halfway through shooting, the movie moved from the first director-friendly Orion Pictures to Paramount and then had to deal with a leadership change at the movie’s new studio. The experience wasn’t an easy one, and Sonnenfeld recounted the story in a recent interview marking the film’s 30th anniversary. Sonnenfeld told Variety:
“Half way through our shoot we were sold to Paramount. Dede Allen, our editor, put together a 10-minute show reel and we went to various studios. Frank Mancuso Jr. bought it and then shortly after he was fired. [Paramount President] Stanley Jaffe came in and looked at the same ten minutes of footage and announced that, ‘This movie is uncuttable and unreleasable.’”
Things didn’t get better from there.
But when it was in production, the movie was anything but a sure hit, and the success of “The Addams Family” is even more impressive when one realizes the challenges Sonnenfeld faced when the movie was filming. Halfway through shooting, the movie moved from the first director-friendly Orion Pictures to Paramount and then had to deal with a leadership change at the movie’s new studio. The experience wasn’t an easy one, and Sonnenfeld recounted the story in a recent interview marking the film’s 30th anniversary. Sonnenfeld told Variety:
Things didn’t get better from there.
“Half way through our shoot we were sold to Paramount. Dede Allen, our editor, put together a 10-minute show reel and we went to various studios. Frank Mancuso Jr. bought it and then shortly after he was fired. [Paramount President] Stanley Jaffe came in and looked at the same ten minutes of footage and announced that, ‘This movie is uncuttable and unreleasable.’”
‘Uncuttable and Unreleaseable’
Things didn’t get any easier for Sonnenfeld throughout production and even up to the first screening of the film. “I showed my director’s cut to executives in the Paramount Theatre and there was not a single laugh,” he said.
Fortunately, Sonnefeld shared that the lack of laughs didn’t last for long:
Who’s laughing now, Stanley? “The Addams Family” became a runaway hit, and Sonnenfeld went on to direct other popular films like “Men in Black” and television series like “A Series of Unfortunate Events,” and “Schmigadoon!”
I was called into the office about 20 minutes [after the first screening], after they had discussed everything, and everyone was there except Stanley and they were hugging me and clapping. I said, “What are you doing? I was in that screening room. There was not a single laugh.” They told me that since Stanley wasn’t laughing, they couldn’t.
