![]() Robin can say Romy and Michele languished in development hell, but I’ve overseen plenty of projects that took eight to 12 years to get made. Disney tried bringing in someone else to make it funnier.ĭonald De Line: We went through a lot of rewrites, and Disney at that time was very hands-on. ![]() I wouldn’t say our interactions were contentious, but I got an impression that some of the executives didn’t quite “get” it. I was off Romy and Michele for most of ‘93. The studio didn’t think the script was funny, so they tried to fire me, and they were successful at one point. ![]() Robin Schiff: Lisa can get a laugh saying “Okay,” but it’s not necessarily gonna read as hilarious. If Touchstone seemed excited about the film near the onset, things quickly soured between the studio and Schiff. While the film’s central plot stayed the same-Romy and Michele pose as successful businesswomen to impress their classmates at a reunion-the script went through innumerable rewrites over the next several years. Women were always with men onscreen, never other women, so Robin’s pitch felt so fresh. It was all women-in-peril shit, like Sleeping with the Enemy or Basic Instinct. I know that sounds so self-serious, but it’s the truth. They’re the most important relationship in each other’s lives.Īlex Schwartz: I was one of two women in Touchstone’s creative group and there was not a lot of love for a feminist perspective. Robin Schiff, pitching Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion in 1992: Even though these girls are out looking for guys with good jobs, they’re always laughing and saying things to each other like, “God, Michele, you are the funniest person I know” and “I wish guys were as much fun as we are.” They really love each other. The fact that Romy and Michele used to be outsiders also had an emotional pull. And unlike the 20- or 30-year, you actually care what people think at your 10. I thought, “Okay, this could be something…”īarry Kemp, producer: Everyone can relate to the idea of going back to their reunion it’s a time to take stock. ![]() Robin Schiff: I brainstormed a joke where Romy and Michele realize their lives have amounted to nothing while filling out reunion questionnaires, and it made me laugh out loud. The comedy veteran clicked with Schiff immediately and offered to help refine her pitch for Touchstone, which distributed the more “adult” titles under the Walt Disney Studios banner. Barry Kemp-creator of Newhart and Coach, among other classic sitcoms-came on to produce the 1992 production of Ladies’ Room in San Francisco that caught Schwartz's attention. “They Tried to Fire Me, and They Were Successful”īefore deciding to frame her script around a high school reunion, Schiff toyed with a few other concepts (Romy and Michele Go to College, Romy and Michele Go to Japan, etc). Plus, I knew the characters so well that I really thought I could channel them. I wasn’t sure they could support a feature, but I said I’d think about it because I was mostly a TV writer and this was an opportunity. Robin Schiff: Alex thought a Romy and Michele movie could be a female Wayne’s World. I went to see the play up in San Francisco, and there were two supporting characters who would occasionally come in and do something hilarious. of feature development at Touchstone Pictures: Ladies’ Room got sent to me as a writing sample and I asked to meet with Robin, who I thought was hysterical. Now, one sees its DNA everywhere from Broad City’s central slackers to the gleefully over-the-top antics in Barb and Starr Go to Vista Del Mar.Īlex Schwartz, then-senior V.P. Based on two ancillary characters in a play by Robin Schiff, Romy and Michele trudged through half a decade of script overhauls, studio interference, disastrous test screenings, a director who threatened to take his name off of the film, and more before becoming one of the most influential comedies of its time. Released 25 years ago this week, it’s something of a miracle that the film even made it to theaters. Instead, it ended up being the first Romy and Michele: a sweetly daffy ode to female friendship, bedazzled heels, interpretative dance, and businesswoman specials. Starring Lisa Kudrow and Mira Sorvino as two ditzy best friends who concoct a lie to impress their classmates at a 10-year reunion, the film was pitched to its leads as an estrogen-fueled Beavis and Butt-Head. The ’90s in particular had this genre in spades, with buddy comedies like Wayne’s World and Dumb & Dumber among the era’s biggest moneymakers.īut when Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion came out in 1997, it went where few other major studio comedies had dared. Since Abbott and Costello first met Frankenstein, it’s been a grand cinematic tradition to place dim-witted duos in absurd scenarios, wind them up, and watch them go.
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