Ivan Reitman is the master of special effects comedy. His Ghostbusters wrote the book that inspired films like Men in Black. Even giving Arnold Schwarzenegger a pregnant belly was something. My Super Ex-Girlfriend seems like a film made for Reitman’s sensibilities. A superheroine (Uma Thurman) dates a lovable loser (Luke Wilson) but becomes crazy and obsessive, using her powers to destroy his life.
“What was wonderful about Ghostbusters, no one had ever quite seen it before and that was a wonderful tool to have,” Reitman said. “In fact, on this movie, I probably underplay it more than anything else. I think this really is a comedy, the emphasis being on comedy or romantic comedy that happens to have as one of its characters, somebody with special powers, and the way to show that of course, I need special effects.”
Thurman’s G-Girl can fly, shoot heat rays and use her super strength to throw anything around. Reitman had to keep the effects from overwhelming the comedy. “I tried to balance it where I try to put the emphasis on both the comedy and sort of the real life aspects of this movie. I think these are all real people in a real world. It’s not Metropolis or Gotham. It’s New York. I tried to make the characters, as I usually do in my movies, sort of fully dimensional, full blooded sort of people that we understand and like to watch. And play the comedy out of that. For me it was a new way to do a romantic comedy which is a genre that’s very tough to find something fresh in.”
Even when G-Girl throws a shark through her ex-boyfriend’s window, Reitman says the idea is funnier than the shark effect. “It’s more in the idea that a girl gets so angry that she flies out to the middle of the Atlantic, pulls out a deep sea creature and throws it through the window of somebody’s condo. For me, comedy and effects are most powerful when you see things that shouldn’t be there. It’s contextual. So to see a shark in the water means nothing. To see a shark in an apartment really does a lot. It’s on land, it’s in the big city, it’s not where it should be. It’s still vicious and it turns out to be a terrific scene. There were the other things are sort of more, to see a fire in a tall building, we’ve seen fires before. Yeah, it’s kind of cool, the fire looks real. And she puts it out in a kind of original way. That scene works for what the screenplay needs are, but in terms of a visual effect, it’s not as effective as the shark sequence.”
A self-professed comic book geek, Reitman used the film to explore his own analytical questions about superheroes. “So the super costume is underneath your regular clothes. So if you’re actually going to have sex with someone and they were taking your clothes off, what would happen? It started from there as a series of things. I tried to derive comedy from that.”
By now, Thurman is a pro at action and special effects. “She’s highly skilled and she is a force of nature. I couldn’t think of a more perfect person to play the lead in this movie. I think that her film baggage alone makes her very appropriate and just the wonderful way she looks. Most importantly, she has a goofy quality within her that she’s not demonstrated in movies very much. Very little of, that I think get to play out in a more full range here. She certainly was very willing to try anything and was not afraid and is very athletic, thank God. As is, by the way, Anna Faris is very athletic, thank God. They were much better at it than Luke was. Yeah, and I think she had some acrobatic background as well.”
Wilson had never done green screen work before, but he took a beating like the best of them. “He was fearless, in other words, we threw him back into stuff. Like when she uses her super breath on him, she throws him into a table and up against this bookcase and that was really him and it was a real stunt. It was tough. He could have gotten pretty banged up. He got banged up a little bit and he did it a bunch of times without any problems. I mean , he played football so he knows how to throw his body around.”
Both Thurman and Wilson were Reitman’s first choice, but he did not audition them together. “It’s good luck that they clicked really well. You never absolutely know. I remember the first read through, I could just tell it was going to be spectacular with them together. I had a feeling it would be good and I’m really happy to see how well it did work.”
My Super Ex-Girlfriend is Reitman’s first film in five years, though it was not the failure of Evolution that scared him from behind the camera. “I think I was a little distracted producing other movies and setting up this company and finding the right thing. Now my challenge is to sort of work on a more regular basis again because I had such a good time making this movie.”
One of Reitman’s producing projects, Old School, still has a sequel in development with director Todd Philips. “He and Scott Armstrong are working on the screenplay to Old School 2 now.” Even though the three leads are huge actors now, Reitman thinks they’ll be worth their new price tags. “It’ll certainly be more expensive. I think they all want to do it. The issue is whether Dreamworks can afford it.
I think they all want to do it so I’m sure we’ll be able to find some formula to make it work.”
Looking at Reitman’s filmography, he has only directed 12 major films in the last 25 years. “I think too choosy. I think [I look for] just something original and something that I think I could do something different with. And that’s finally what happened with this movie, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I just read it and I thought, ‘Well, I think I know what to do here.’ And it was great fun to do.”
My Super Ex-Girlfriend opens Friday.
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Ivan-Reitman-Talks-Uma-And-Old-School-2-2998.html
