Making a movie is tough work that involves a massive team of people and a whole lot of money. Sure, some flicks are able to come to life with a minimal budget and crew, but movies like Clerks are few and far between. Studios take a huge risk with movies, and sometimes, these risks do not pay off.
During the 90s, Arrive Alive was an upcoming comedy flick that had a lot of potential, but the movie wound up being shut down while filming. Since then, it has yet to see the light of day.
So, what happened on the set of this film that caused it to be shut down for good? Let’s take a closer look and see.
Arrive Alive Was A Comedy Starring Willem Defoe And Joan Cusack
A number of things can go wrong when making a movie come to life, but the project itself is usually able to be made after putting in the work. Sometimes, however, movies wind up being shut down during production and they never see the light of day. This was precisely what happened with the film Arrive Alive, which was being made back in 1990.
The movie that no one got to see was a comedy film starring Willem Dafoe and Joan Cusack. Considering where their careers have gone, it is odd to see that this was the pairing that the studio was rolling with for the film, but clearly, they saw something there and decided to make them the leads in the movie. Penned by Michael O’Donoghue and Mitch Glazer, the film was set to be directed by Jeremiah Chechik who had previously done Christmas Vacation.
Interestingly, the writing duo behind Arrive Alive had both lent their help to the hit comedy, Scrooged, and they also worked on Saturday Night Live. In other words, there was plenty of talent on board this project, but as we will soon see, things would start to unravel in a hurry, making for one of the most bizarre cancellations in movie history.
The Movie Was Unfunny And Production Shut Down
Now, when working on a comedy movie, the most important thing is for the movie to be funny. This is obviously what makes a movie memorable and keeps people coming back for more, but this core element wound up being the thing that ultimately sank Arrive Alive before it came anywhere close to being finished.
As the story goes, filming was underway back in 1990, but the folks working on the movie soon realized that the movie was simply not funny. The response to the comedic element of the film was nowhere close to being where it should have been, and it became clear in an instant that there was something terribly wrong with the movie.
One clear disconnect here was Willem Dafoe being in the lead role. The writers of the film soon realized that some serious changes needed to be made to the script in order to get the type of comedic reaction that they were looking for. This, however, caused huge problems with Willem Dafoe, who was not interested in shifting his comedic style to fit the new parameters of the script.
The change in comedic style caused Willem Dafoe to walk away from the project altogether. Suddenly, Arrive Alive, which had plenty of talent on board, was looking like a catastrophe for the studio. After the search for a replacement yielded poor results, Paramount finally decided to close things down on the project.
The Script Is Still Floating Around
In an interview, writer Dan Glazer touched on what happened, saying, “We ended up with Willem Dafoe. Willem is lovely and fantastic, but he is not the great comic actor of our time. Still, to this day, it's one of the few movies I've ever heard of that was shut down after eighteen days of shooting.”
Don Levy of Paramount would say, “The creative elements to the film didn't gel as planned.”
As far as the movie ever happening down the line, writer Dan Glazer has maintained that he would still love to make the movie, saying, “The status of it is... I love it to death. I can't tell you what it means to me that you like it. Michael and I were really proud of it. We loved Scrooged, but this was the purest version... this was our first collaboration as writers. We'd done a show called Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video together, but as a feature this was the first we'd ever done. I still go back and look at the script. If you know any brave moguls, send them my way. I would love to see it out in the world.”
Arrive Alive was shut down while filming, but if the writing team behind it has any say, it will still come to life more than 30 years after the fact.