Special Report From Rhett Wickham: Honing the Range (Part Two)
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RW
Were there any surprises in the production. I dont mean shock surprises but the good
kind, the "Wow, how about that!?" sort.
FINN
You know we talked about this a lot in some other places, but we actually brought Rosanne
in during the last third of production, and it was really the writing on the character
that was broken. Again to give you an idea of the support we had from the studio, we had
had a screening in the end of January 2002 and we were supposed to finish up
SANFORD
We had a screening, and it was the end of 2002, and they were like getting ready to roll
off animators, they were already scheduling winding down production and Tom had been there
and Pam and Michael had been there and they liked it and thought "Good movie"
and they sat in the room and gave us our notes and in fact Tom said "This is a really
good movie. Youve done a good job, its a good movie. However this movie has to
be great. Its not great yet." Tom even said "I think there are maybe two
ideas-
FINN
Two BIG ideas
SANFORD
"Two big ideas that need to come out that will change this into a great movie."
And he gave a couple of examples using .. uhm,.. in "Toy Story" it was the idea
that Buzz
initially Buzz was a toy and knew he was a toy-
FINN
It was the plastic toy versus the wood toy - Well Im the wood toy! Well Im the
plastic toy! Well Im the old toy! Well Im the new toy!
SANFORD
And then very late in production "Well what if Buzz didnt know he was a toy?
What if he was a delusional guy who thought he was a Space Ranger?" Tom said
"Like that. Youve gotta have an idea
SANFORD/FINN (in unison)
That big! (laughter)
FINN
That good. (laughter)
SANFORD
And that good. They actually said "Go away for
FINN
"Well give you like a week to clear your schedule and discuss this with your
colleagues, other directors on other movies, other producers, other story people."
SANFORD
And they halted production.
FINN
"Just think about it and then well get together next week and discuss it."
They..uh
you know that was kinda hard to hear cuz we really thought we
were in the home stretch and what we were hearing was
in the nicest possible way
what they were saying youre not where you need to be if this movie is going to be as
good as it can be. And so..okay, lets go talk and go listen. And they gave us a
bungalow on the equestrian center lot for two days and we screened the movie for a bunch
of people who hadnt seen it and
uh
I guess it was mostly story people
and directors.
SANFORD
It was like..let me see if I can remember. It was Mark Dindal, Randy Fullmer, Don
Hahn
FINN
Don Hall, Steve Anderson
SANFORD
Was Steve Anderson there?
FINN
I dont know
SANFORD
I remember Steve being there. Maybe he was in Florida. I know Chris and Dean couldnt
make it. They were on our list but they couldnt make it because they were too
embroiled in LILO.
FINN
Chris Williams was there.
SANFORD
Chris Williams was there, Don Long was there
it was like the cream of the
story/director crop. We talked about a bunch of things that were really effective. One of
the ideas that came out of it right away was the idea that Pearls farm was like a
Wildlife Way Station, like she took in animals from other farms that couldnt make
it, and that was really important.
FINN
Uhm hum.
SANFORD
But the other thing was that they kept talking about the cows. And they said You
know I get Mrs. Caloway, I get Grace, but I dont get Maggie at all. And then
Don Hahn even said Do you need three cows? Could you just have the two? And we
said you gotta have Maggie! Maggie gets the idea. Maggie gets the idea to go for
the..go..you know to leave the farm, Maggie gets the idea to go after Slim. Maggie gets
this idea..Maggies the impetus. Caloways too fearful and Grace is too spacey.
FINN
The other thing is that three cows is a group, and this is really about groups versus
loners, and thats the sort of Western dynamic that we were turning on its ear. And
two is a duo. Two is a buddy movie and it had to be a group.
SANFORD
When we explained all these things that Maggie
all these story points that Maggie
served and how the other two characters couldnt do it they said Yeah, I see
that Caloway couldnt do it, and Grace couldnt do it and we said
Yeah, Maggie does all these things and they said Really? We dont
get that.
FINN
Were not getting it.
SANFORD
And were like Wow! Because we state it and overstate it. Weve got
a problem. So the next day we were getting ready to just spitball ideas and were
talking with Don Hahn and Alice. Don Hahn said "Have you given any thought to
recasting the character?" And we said "Wow, thats a big
idea." And what was funny was that I had screened the movie for my wife a couple of
times, and she never, to her credit, she always said the same thing about Maggie "I
dont like her." "Why?" "I dont know, I just dont
like her."
FINN
The original concept of the character was that she was the consensus builder, the Earth
mother, the rock.
SANFORD
She was the oldest cow on the farm. She was the mother cow that everybody came to. What
was funny was the we
Will and I had always talked independently about what kind of
character we wanted and Roasannes name always came up. "Wasnt Rosanne
great on her show?!" Wasnt Rosanne this, wasnt Rosanne that.
FINN
Who makes you laugh? People were saying when the cows are playing off other characters
theyre funny but theyre not funny when theyre on their own. So we talked
about who makes you laugh. You know we both loved Eddie Murphy, we both loved Rosanne, we
both loved Rodney Dangerfield. This holy trinity of comedians, and it never occurred to us
that there was the answer.
SANFORD
Its funny because I talked about this with my wife, and she said "Why
dont you just cast Rosanne?"
And I said "Oh, I dont know if we can do that " And then the next day when Don asked if we had ever thought about recasting I think I just blurted out HowboutRoseanne? And Will like brightened up and got really excited and..
FINN
It was like the clouds parted. Rosanne Barr as a cow
the jokes just write themselves.
SANFORD
You can hear her. You can hear her.