When a photo negative for the Life cover shot by a famous photographer, played by Sean Penn, goes missing, Mitty sets out on a global quest to find the photojournalist and tap into the adventurous person he’s always meant to be. “But to be able to play a normal person was great.” He’s too bashful to talk to his office crush, played by Kristen Wiig, who is dramatically more subdued than the raucous lead she played in “Bridesmaids.” “I love all the comedic roles, especially the broader stuff at ‘SNL,’ ” Wiig says. In Stiller’s reinvention, written by screenwriter Steve Conrad, Mitty is a photo editor at an ailing Life magazine. The source material was a sparse James Thurber short story that appeared in the New Yorker in 1939. and starring Danny Kaye, was a musical comedy about a daydreaming book editor - a throwback to simpler times. The original, produced 67 years ago by Sam Goldwyn Sr. The tough part of it was to find a contemporary angle that would resonate.”
“What Ben has done is create something that’s an ode to the working man,” she says, adding, “People always knew it was going to be a challenge. It’s a comedy with a brain.” Production president Emma Watts also believes the film will connect with audiences. “It’s not your typical over-the-top comedy. “The earlier trailer was trying to make it clear that this is not ‘Zoolander,’ ” says Jim Gianopulos, chief executive of Fox Filmed Entertainment. When the film’s first teaser debuted this fall, it struck a kind of wry chord more reminiscent of a Wes Anderson film, not the kind of mass that packs families into multiplexes. On the other hand, if it resonates with moviegoers, it would raise his stock as a director. As the picture’s helmer and star, he will be blamed if it doesn’t work.
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY MOVIE
There’s no telling exactly who the target audience is, or how many will turn out over the holidays to make the movie the hit the studio and Stiller need it to be. And despite its adult themes, it’s not a straight drama. Now it’s just a question of whether audiences will agree.Īs for being a tough sell, “Mitty” is no “Night at the Museum”: It’s not a broad comedy. “I think his performance in ‘Mitty’ is extraordinary: sometimes funny and sometimes dramatic,” Roach explains. The film reveals an untapped vulnerability in Stiller both as director and actor. The story “didn’t have a traditional structure in terms of what people might expect from this kind of movie,” Stiller admits. The $90 million special-effects-laden dramedy is a marketing challenge that has made executives at 20th Century Fox jittery.ĭuring the course of production, the studio kept grilling Stiller about the tone of the material. “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” - the fifth movie Stiller has helmed, and the first in five years - might just be the vehicle that finally enables him to achieve the kind of status as a filmmaker he enjoys as one of Hollywood’s biggest comedy stars. It never got nasty, but it did get uncomfortable.” Despite that, Goldwyn says he’d work with Stiller again “in a second.” He would want four different versions of the wall. “When he doesn’t have that, he gets frustrated, whether it’s casting, locations or the color of a wall in a scene. “What Ben needs is time to think and make choices,” says John Goldwyn, who produced “Mitty” along with his father, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. Many who’ve worked with him say he can be onerous and intimidating. He has a reputation as a detailed perfectionist behind the camera. It’s a job description that fits well with Stiller’s controlling nature. The process is less vulnerable when you’re directing, because you’re supposedly in control.” “I love acting, but what I love is the freedom you have as a director to tell all different kinds of stories,” Stiller says, “where as an actor, to a certain extent you’re just limited to who you are and what you get cast in.
He envisions a future in which he acts less and directs more. At 47, Stiller is searching for his own Holy Grail: to be taken more seriously as a director.
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