WTF Happened to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?

they say sex sells in Hollywood right but what about drugs after all once the production code was lifted successful counter-culture drug movies like Easy Rider gave way to the ndr tour movement in American Cinema in the 1960s and 70s where Hollywood Renegades like Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese picked up the mantle and went on to make all-time classics like Scarface and Goodfellas decades later in the interim there has been no shortage of critical and Commercial drug movie successes be they blow sicario traffic The Wolf of Wall Street you name it so then what the [ __ ] happened to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas seriously how does such an authentic movie from the altered mind state of Gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson one directed by the venerated filmmaker Terry Gillum and featuring Unforgettable performances by Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro how does a movie like that stumble at the box office and be considered a disappointing flop more to the point how does a movie like Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas overcome its Financial failures at the time find like-minded audience of tripped out counter-culture Rebels and become a bona fide cult classic 25 years later well we're about to find out when we break this sucker down and figure out through the movie's Rocky production history what the [ __ ] happened to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [Music] speaking of Scorsese believe it or not he was one of the first Hollywood directors that attempted to translate Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas to The Silver Screen Scorsese was interested in directing a script written by famed author Larry mcmurdy in 1976 who adapted Hunter S Thompson's 1971 Source novel at the time Oliver Stone and artist Ralph bakshi were also interested in directing the film but like Scorsese both Stone and bakshi had trouble finding producers interested in making it bakshi even wanted to turn the novel into an animated film after languishing for roughly 15 years Rhino films began working on a big screen adaptation of Thompson's novel as early as 1992. around that time both the head of production at Rhino films and producer Stephen Nemeth wanted unproven director Lee tamahori to helm the project however tamahori was unavailable until the end of 1997. Johnny Depp who had already been cast as duke lobbied for Bruce Robinson to direct the film based on the strength of his acclaimed 1987 feature with nail and I Robinson was quote unavailable by choice unquote following the offer indicating his lack of interest in the controversial subject matter ironically Robinson did direct Depp in The Rum Diary in 2011 in which the actor also portrays a version of Hunter S Thompson with the rights to Thompson's novel set to lapse Rhino films asked the author for an extension but he declined in a panic Rhino hastily green lit Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and slated Alex Cox director of Bowman to direct the film within a few days according to Nemeth Cox was chosen because he would quote do it for a price could do it quickly and could get this movie going in four months now here's where things get interesting Rhino films hired Terry Gillum to work on the film with Cox still on board to direct as a result Thompson extended Rhino films the rights to his novel but only agreed to do it if Gillum directed the movie not Cox according to Thompson they just kept asking for more time I got kind of agitated about it because I thought they were trying to put off doing it so I began to charge them more I wanted to see the movie done once it got started still favoring Cox as the Director Rhino films was afraid that Gillum wouldn't work out and did not offer him a firm contract as a result when Rhino threatened to make the movie with Cox at the helm without dep and Del Toro in the lead roles the actors became upset and used their clout to voice their displeasures to producer Lila nabulsi this ultimately prompted Universal to enter The Fray and agree to distribute the film Depp and Gillum were paid five hundred thousand dollars a piece to remain on board despite Gillum still not having a legit deal as the Director while all of this may sound tedious the craziest part is that once filming began Depp and Gillum vindictively had Rhino films locked out of the set for the entire production the rebellious nature only seemed to fuel the Revolutionary nature of Thompson's novel to his credit Gillum had been courted to direct Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as early as 1989. three years before Rhino films became involved according to Gillum via wide angle close-up I'd had two occasions before where a script was sent to me once was about the end of 1989 and I thought wow it would be really good to usher in the 90s with a film based on that book but I got involved in fisher king at that time and the scripts I'd read none really quite did the job they start well because the book starts well but in the second part the same problem always happens and in a sense it happens in the book as well in continuing his criticisms of the scripts he received for the film Gillum continues by saying the book itself just kind of Peters out it's always to me been one of the problems with the book it's got a very weak ending the earlier scripts just became boorish in the second half because the guys were just crashing around the place there's no substance to what they're doing and because it has to be a reaction to something there have to be all of these reflective elements that weren't in there I think that's probably the thing that people have shied away from in their adaptations Cox and his collaborator Todd Davies wrote one of the early script drafts during pre-production Cox had a falling out with nabulsi over creative differences nevulsi gave Rhino films an ultimatum and forced the company to choose between her and Cox however Thompson hated the Cox Davies script and inherently trusted naborsi as a producer navalsi was Thompson's former girlfriend and someone he knew since 1977 and who had been trying to make the film for over a decade after choosing the bullsey Rhino films fired Cox and gave him sixty thousand dollars in writer fees for his troubles yet due to an ugly contentious legal Fiasco with the writer's Guild of America also known as the wga Gillum and his co-writers could not remove Cox and Davey's names from the final credits of the movie to receive credit for himself and grissoni Gillum torched his wga card in public at a book signing on May 22nd 1998 the same day that the film was released in North American theaters to fight the power Gillum ended his standing with the Union now back to gillum's rewriting process which he did at his home with the help of screenwriter Tony grazoni in May 1997 when asked about the writing process by wide angle close-up Gillum candidly responded by saying Tony garsoni had written for television and he wrote A John Emil movie Queen of Hearts we'd been working on a couple of projects together for some time when I decided to do Fear and Loathing I called him up and asked him and what was interesting was he knows Alex Cox and when he had heard that Alex was going to direct he actually called Alex up and asked if he could co-write it with him Alex was working with Todd Davies so it never happened so Tony got a second chance to write it as a way to inject the manic energy of Thompson's novel into the screenplay Gillum and grissoni wasted very little time writing their adaptation Gillum continues by adding we wrote it in eight days and then we read it and didn't like it so we rewrote it in two days a lot more work happened through the course of rehearsals and everything we were constantly writing rewriting bits changing but the basic idea was to work very fast I think we made the right choice because if you take too long at it you just get depressed because there's so much in the book you're leaving out one scene that Gillum was intent on not leaving out was Duke and Gonzo's ugly confrontation with the North Star Cafe waitress played by Ellen Barkin at the end of the film according to the New Yorker Gillum claimed this is two guys who have gone beyond the pale this is unforgivable that scene it's ugly my Approach rather than to throw it out was to make that scene the low point when the studio originally wanted Gillum to give the movie a modern spin by setting it in the 1990s the director dug in and remained steadfast in his beliefs that it needed to be set in 1971 like the novel according to the AP gillum's response to the request was I looked at the film and said no that's apologizing I don't want to apologize for this thing it is what it is it's an artifact if it's an accurate representation of the book which I thought was an accurate representation of a particular time and place and people as alluded to the writing process to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas continued well after the casting process took place it's worth noting that back in the 70s when Scorsese was interested in making the film he wanted Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando to play the roles of Raul Duke and Dr Gonzo which would have been all kinds of badass but alas once Nicholson and Brando were deemed too old to play the parts SNL alums Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were considered for the roles however once Belushi died in a tragic drug overdose of all things that idea expired as well according to naborsi Via the DVD commentary for the film John Malkovich was later in the running to play Duke but he too eventually passed his prime before production took off in the end once Thompson met Johnny Depp he instantly met a kindred spirit and lifelong soulmate and genuinely felt that nobody else could credibly portray himself on screen One Step was cast as duke the actor began a rigorous preparation process to put himself in Thompson's shoes and portray the character as authentically as possible according to Johnny Get Your Gun Dennis Brinkley that became so invested in the role that in the spring of 1997 he moved in with Thompson at his owl Farm in Colorado and lived in his basement for four months Depp and Thompson became incredibly close during that period in which Depp studied Thompson like a hawk and learned all of his speech patterns rhythms vocal inflections physical mannerisms and personal affectations aside from the personal peccadillos Depp also gained access to Thompson's original manuscript of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well as detailed notes relics and mementos that further shed insight into how to portray Duke on screen Depp told Ellie magazine he saved it all not only is the book true but there's more and it was worse during his four-month stay in Thompson's basement the two men bonded in all types of weird ways that helped helped inform Depp's performance for instance Depp allowed Thompson to shave his head in the kitchen using the spotlight from a Miner's hard hat the two also swapped cars with depth tooling around California in the same 1971 red convertible Chevrolet Caprice aka the great red shark that appears in the movie in fact almost all of the flashy 70s style regalia depth Sports in the film actually belonged to Thompson interestingly enough Depp's Ed Wood co-star Bill Murray who famously played Duke in Where the Buffalo Roam in 1980 called Depp prior to filming and told the actor be careful or you'll find yourself 10 years from now still doing them make sure your next role is some drastically different guy not for nothing Depp went on to play Dean Caruso in The Ninth Gate next which could not be more different than Duke as for the role of Duke's lawyer Dr Gonzo the character is based on Thompson's longtime friend Oscar Zeta Acosta who reportedly vanished in 1974 when Benicio del Toro was cast in the role he also underwent extensive preparation to transform his appearance according to the guardian Del Toro gained more than 45 pounds in nine weeks prior to filming by eating as many as 16 donuts every day what a life Del Toro also spent time vigorously researching acosta's life prior to filming principal photography on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas began on August 3rd 1997. according to Gillum via the Globe and Mail production did not have a firm budget when filming commenced however the final figures are estimated at about 18.5 million Gillum felt that he never had full support from the studio claiming quote certain people didn't I'm not going to name names but it was a strange film like one leg was shorter than the other there was all sorts of Chaos filming took place on location throughout Las Vegas and surrounding areas in Nevada as well as California and Arizona given the controversial subject matter Gillum ran into a slew of production problems relating to casino access according to Gail production was only allowed to film inside casinos from 2 to 6 a.m and was only provided six gaming tables to use for extras to crowd around worse yet the casinos insisted that the extras gamble while present in the casinos according to Gillum via wide-angle close-up yeah that was the problem cooperating with our vision wouldn't gain the hotels much we ended up with a couple of old hotels who for whatever reason were at least accommodating enough to let us shoot there we were only able to shoot inside the Riviera and inside the binions the Riviera was actually very accommodating and as far as exteriors the Palace Hotel we converted into a bazooka circus we had to wheel in this 20-foot High clown head which is a huge open mouth as our entrance he continued by adding then they got six Lanes of cars in the entrance ways for cars to come in and disgorge the clients and we were allowed to use two lanes at any one time so we were dancing around a casino that was functioning and so that was all very difficult stuff and each thing we had to get done in a night we were not allowed to come back anywhere the Bazooka circus Casino where Duke and Gonzo stay in the film was modeled after the real Circus Circus casino in Las Vegas which is referenced in the book when Circus Circus refused Gillum the authority to film there and removed all mention of its name from the movie The Director made sure to poke fun at the gaming parlor by recreating the clown mascot on the exterior with a rainbow Mallet instead of a pinwheel and Merry-Go-Round Bar in the interior that circulates in the opposite direction as the real Circus Circus as for the giant bazooko gorilla statue adorning the front of the casino in the film it now lives in Johnny Depp's front yard after the actor kept the prop as a memento according to the American cinematographer exterior shots of the bazooko casino were filmed outside the Stardust Casino Interiors were partially filmed at the now defunct Boardwalk casino in Las Vegas as well as on Warner Brothers soundstage in Los Angeles one of the biggest challenges during the production was creating the look feel and Vibe of 1970s Las Vegas as well as The Surreal drugged out hallucinatory Tableau that defined Thompson's work Gillum hired cinematographer Nicola pecorini to help him establish the distinct visual quality part of the process until them using rear projection footage from the 1978 TV show Vegas which increased the already otherworldly tone and extra Notch according to pecorini indeed a deliberate effort was made by Gillum to reflect the zany Gonzo energy of the novel by practicing Gonzo Guerrilla style filmmaking on the fly to capture the essence of the 1970 Zeitgeist Thompson was speaking to according to pecorini the film's trippy visual aesthetic was a inspired by Robert yarber's paintings which are quote very hallucinatory the paintings use all kinds of neon colors and the light sources don't necessarily make sense Gillum expands on this decision adding that they use the yarber paintings quote while mixing our palette of deeply disturbing fluorescent colors to achieve the saturated look of the hypnotic neon colors the final film has Gillum initially wanted to use a wide angle anamorphic lens however when it proved too costly he and pecorini compromised by combining an aeroflex 535 an Airy bl4s and an arie35 III with a set of Zeiss standard primes and kodak's 250d vision 5246 film stock from the onset it was always gillum's intention to make the audience feel as if they were experiencing a vicarious drug trip while watching this movie according to Fear and Loathing loaded Gillum said we start out at full speed and it's woo this drug kicks in and you're on speed whoa you get the buzz it's crazy it's outrageous the carpet's moving and everybody's laughing and having a great time but then ever so slightly The Walls Start closing in and it's like you're never gonna get out of this place it's an ugly Nightmare and there's no Escape one of the movie's most memorable scenes comes when Duke and Gonzo arrive in Vegas and begin hallucinating a gory reptilian orgy in the bar lounge the production originally planned for 25 full-scale animatronics to use in the scene but they were only provided with seven or eight to atone for this the crew utilized motion control methods to make it appear as if the entire room was invaded by these horny slavering lizards they even redressed the same lizards multiple times and had them pass the camera to achieve this effect furthermore gillim and pecorini devised specific drug phases to recreate cinematically to make each substance feel slightly different for instance when Duke Huffs ether pecorino describes using a hazy loose depth of field where everything becomes non-defined to simulate the effects of the fictional narcotic adrenochrome which Thompson made up for the book pecorini made a visual effect that made quote everything get narrow and claustrophobic move closer with with lens when simulating the symptoms of mescaline the idea was to have colors melt into each other by using flares with no sources and playing with color temperatures as for the amyl nitrate Duke and Gonzo snort for the film pecorini noted that the perception of light gets very uneven light levels increase and decrease during the shots finally for the feeling of LSD pecorini was sure to film everything extremely wide and create disorienting hallucinations via morphs shapes colors and sound when it came to filming the desert scenes in the mint 400 motorcycle race in Vegas pecorini sought to create an endless Vista by erasing the horizon line which he thought would emphasize quote a certain kind of unreality outside of the character's car because everything that matters to him is within the red shark speaking of the desert scene Gillum makes a cameo as a reporter wearing a hat holding a microphone as the racers take off the sequence was meant to take place at dawn but according to Gillum on the Criterion Collection DVD commentary they had set up a shot and timed it perfectly with the Rising Sun but when Depp went to start the car nothing happened after realizing nobody had filled the tank with gas the shot had to be rescheduled for a different part of the day this is why if you look closer the scene is much too bright to be Dawn another visual inconsistency comes toward the beginning when Duke and Gonzo pick up The Hitchhiker played by Toby Maguire whose hair changes drastically in the scene according to Gillum they had to reshoot the sequence months later and were unable to convince Maguire to shave his head and wear the wig to do so would have cost fifteen thousand dollars as stipulated by McGuire's contract and since the budget was already spiraling out of control the production could not afford it Ironically in the end they spent much more than fifteen thousand dollars to use a bald cap and makeup effects and then digitally remove The Hitchhiker's hairline from the final film Maguire also wears a t-shirt with a picture of Ralph Stedman Thompson's longtime time artistic collaborator who did the original illustrations for the novel an additional visual sight gag includes the iconic Gonzo Fist symbol which can be seen drawn with shaving cream in the hotel bathroom when Dr Gonzo has a bath the Gonzo fist is also seen crushing a peyote button on a political poster in Gonzo's office which is a real poster from the time Thompson ran on the freak power party ticket in Colorado in the 1970s other random factoids include Ellen Barkin wearing a prosthetic ass for her role as the waitress and Del Toro improvising licking the cocaine from his suitcase after he spills it in the car meanwhile Gary Busey who plays the sheriff improvised the hilarious give me a kiss line while working one day on the movie the gesture reportedly mortified Thompson and producers but killum thought it was funny and kept it in the final film after 56 days of shooting principal photography on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas officially wrapped on October 22nd 1997 with exactly seven months until the film was slated for theatrical release Gillum had no choice but to subject the film to test screenings something that the director loathed Gillum admitted to L quote I always get very tense in those test screenings because I'm ready to fight I know the pressure from the studio is somebody didn't like it change it far more interested in making sure Thompson enjoyed the movie than the test audiences Gillum was proud when Thompson reacted viscerally to his first time seeing the finished film according to Neon magazine Thompson did enjoy the film saying quote Yeah I liked it it's not my show but I appreciated it depth did a hell of a job his narration is what really held the film together I think if you hadn't had that it would have just been a series of wild scenes Thompson did take umbar however with the scene in which Duke callously tosses change at the dwarf waiter claiming it was untoward and inaccurate to his character alas despite the prevailing wisdom that Drugs sell just as effectively as sex in Hollywood Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas proved to be too much of a hallucinatory nightmare to resonate at the box office the movie opened in theaters on May 22nd 1998 earning a paltry 10.6 million dollars in worldwide ticket sales barely enough to justify half of its 18.5 million dollar budget gillum's intention to give audiences a vivid and vicarious drugged out Thrill Ride turned out to be too hardcore and alienated both critics and moviegoers at the same time only years later in retrospect did the film begin to grow popularity and eventually become a bona fide cult classic recognized for its high replay value and imminently quotable moments and that's kind of what the [ __ ] happened to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Terry Gillum boarded the project at the Zero Hour hastily penned a script in roughly one week and went through a grueling legal battle to retain a screenplay credit which resulted in him burning his wga card and resigning from the union if that wasn't trying enough Gillum had Rhino films barred from the set before experiencing a host of problems during principal photography not least of which was the uncooperative casinos that denied filming access and yet the harried production managed to imbue Gillum with the manic energy necessary to capture the essence of Thompson's novel perfectly in the end while the movie proved to be too far out for audiences in the late 90s like the source novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has only become more appreciated over time Gillum is proud of it dependell Toro are proud of it and most importantly Hunter S Thompson approved of the film before his death who cares if this drug story didn't sell in Hollywood at the time hard-hitting substances influence the masses eventually [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

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Id: nBFzSwAEj0c

Length: 24min 40sec (1480 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2023