![]() He emphasised how important it would be to translate the novel as accurately as possible. Reiner travelled to New York with his partner Andy Schienman to personally pitch his take on the novel to William Goldman. All of those things mixed together and I thought, you know, what I love about this is what I want to make a film about.’ This was the one that went, wow! This is a book that if I had the ability to write and I could write something, I would write this book because it was so connected to my sensibility in my head. ‘I read it when I was a young guy and again, I’d read every one of his books. ![]() ‘I loved this book when I read it,’ he said. So while Rob Reiner was not the first director to be attracted to The Princess Bride he was the only one able to pull together the financial support to get his film produced. ![]() The Princess Bride was back to square one. The writer and director met, agreed to work together – and then Badham was hired overnight to replace Martin Brest as director on MGM’s thriller Wargames. In 1982 Goldman was approached by director John Badham about developing a Princess Bride movie. ‘The directors who I wanted wouldn’t go to Moscow for a year and a half, and the directors who would go to Moscow for a year and a half I didn’t want,’ said Goldman. While Goldman did not turn down the offer out of hand, in the end he and the Russian producers could not agree on a director. Then I bought it back myself.’ Īt one point the Moscow Film Bureau had somehow gained a copy of Goldman’s screenplay and offered to produce the film in Russia. I worked with him for two weeks, rewrote it, sent it back to the studio head, who loved it and was fired. He sent me off to England to work with Richard Lester, who had just directed The Three Musketeers. If he liked the screenplay he would buy it and make the movie. We made an arrangement whereby I owned the screenplay and he owned the book, or something like that. ![]() ‘The head of 20th Century Fox at that time liked it but didn’t know if it was a movie. ‘This is the kind of thing that would happen,’ explained Goldman. Norman Jewison, Robert Redford and even French auteur François Truffaut attempted to direct The Princess Bride, yet they all failed to secure sufficient interest from studios or independent financiers. There had been interest in adapting Goldman’s novel pretty much immediately after it was published. It really is one of the most broadly enjoyable movies ever produced. Its fans have included both United States President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II. Despite all of the strengths of the original novel, in 1987 director Rob Reiner took The Princess Bride and somehow adapted a fantastic book into an even better film. It is eclipsed these days, however, by its motion picture adaptation. The book in itself is a literary classic, and wonderful to read. It cuts out the parts that Goldman considers boring or unnecessary, and features a running commentary on what has been cut, kept or shortened from Morgenstern’s original. Morgenstern, and Goldman’s presentation is as an abridgement of that original work. The Princess Bride is presented to the reader as an old classic novel written by the pseudonymous S. What makes Goldman’s novel so interesting is how it is structured. What do you want it to be about?”’ One of them said, “A princess,” and the other one said, “A bride.” I said, “That’ll be the title.”’ ‘I think they were 7 and 4 at the time, and I said, “I’ll write you a story. Its origins lay, as I suspect many children’s stories do, in stories Goldman told his own children. The book features pirates, monsters, swordsmen, death, resurrection, and true love overcoming all obstacles in the hunt for a happy ending. The Princess Bride tells the story of Princess Buttercup, her one true love Westley the farmboy, and the evil Prince Humperdinck who comes between them. His third, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) won him an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Goldman’s first produced screenplay, Masquerade, was released in 1965. It was his eighth novel, although despite beginning his career as an author he had already made significant head-roads into writing for American cinema. Goldman’s original take on the classical fairy tale was first published in 1973. ![]() ‘As a writer,’ said William Goldman, ‘the only book I really like is The Princess Bride.’ ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |