‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ star Judge Reinhold sees revived career after an ‘executive murder plot’
24.06.2024 - 21:59
/ nypost.com
Vanity Fair profile, an “executive murder plot” killed the movie and nearly took his career out with it.“Vice Versa” was a body-swap movie that starred Reinhold and Fred Savage playing the part of his son. It was released in 1988, and although the actor had appeared in a number of successful movies prior to this one, the movie did not perform at the box office.According to Reinhold, that was because of several things that went down behind the scenes.He explained that David Puttnam, a producer of “Chariots of Fire,” became the CEO of Columbia Pictures in 1986, and “he wanted to bring the price of lead actors down, but make the backend profits real.”Reinhold believed in his ideas, but “he wasn’t, unfortunately, around long enough to prove that formula” because of what he called an “executive murder plot” by higher-ups in the industry.He said that Puttnam “went public with his disdain for how high the salaries were and what he wanted to do, and he pissed a lot of people off.
By the time we were ready to be released … He didn’t know, but the guillotine had been set. People didn’t like him, so they wanted him out.”The actor called Puttnam “a really, really cool guy,” and said, “I swear to God, I trusted him.
He told me, ‘I want to use you as a template. Take a cut, and we’re going to make this work, and if the film is profitable, you’re going to benefit.’ And that’s the way it should be.
And so we’ll bring the price down up front.”Months before “Vice Versa” was released, the Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron-led movie “Like Father, Like Son” came out – a movie with a very similar plot to Reinhold’s movie. As he explained, that film actually went into production after “Vice Versa,” and when it was finally time to release his
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