Waiting for Guffman is perhaps one of the more obscure shows you will ever watch, if you ever watch it. As it stands this movie is something that you might have to look around for despite having earned great reviews during its run. Sadly it ran on a pretty short budget and didn’t get a whole lot of play outside of its initial run. In some ways it seems to have reached for the stars only to trip over its own two feet on the way up. It did star a few noted actors that were and still are fairly big names, but that didn’t seem to help its popularity all that much.
Sometimes you do what you can and hope that people remember the movies you’ve made.
10. The only parts that were actually scripted were the parts in the musical.
Just about everything else was ad-libbed, making this perhaps one of the most unpredictable movies in terms of dialogue to ever be made.
9. 60 hours of footage had to be edited and it took about a year and a half to do it.
This is further proof that movies are never just cut and dry when it comes to the editing process. A lot of work goes into paring down all the footage that’s filmed for every movie.
8. Eugene Levy had a hard time holding in his laughter.
A lot of this had to do with the acting of the director/lead, who performed a lot of moves that made Levy bust up almost every time. Eugene had to eventually be put in the back of the group so that he couldn’t see his fellow actor so that they could get through rehearsals and takes.
7. The musical ran about 40 minutes in an earlier cut of the film.
That’s a very big musical number for a standard length film, it probably had to be cut down a lot just to get it in.
6. In the original script a tornado destroyed the theater before the cast ever got to perform.
This seems like it would have destroyed the purpose of the whole film, so it’s likely a good thing that it was changed.
5. The movie is kind of a reference to the play Waiting for Godot.
Guffman is an actual person but since he never shows it’s almost a direct reference to the famous play.
4. It received positive reviews.
Critics seemed to like the film and thought it was quirky and kind of pleasant.
3. It wasn’t exactly a box office hit.
The numbers weren’t as kind as the critics since it din’t even make back its budget, coming up short as it failed to reach the $4 million mark.
2. The musical pieces were written largely by a few of the cast members.
Operating on a budget that wasn’t all that great to begin with kind of meant that Guest and the other cast members had to take on other responsibilities.
1. Christopher Guest starred in and directed this movie.
This almost seems like an attempt by Guest to do his own thing and see what came of it. If that was the case then it was a valiant effort.
At least the correlation with Waiting for Godot was pretty solid.
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