Rocky Balboa's Missing Adrian, Paramount's Logo and More Questions
Question: I just saw
Rocky Balboa and liked it, but do you have any idea why Adrian was written out of the cast of characters? Did Talia Shire not want to do it? - Daniel
FlickChick: In interviews,
Sylvester Stallone has said that in the first drafts of the
Rocky Balboa screenplay, Adrian was still alive but died later in the story. But at some point he decided that it was more dramatic to start out with Rocky sleepwalking through life because he's so devastated by having lost the love of his life.
The only quote attributed to
Talia Shire I've run across has a rather evasive ring to it; she never addresses whether or not anyone ever spoke to her about the possibility of being in the film, and she certainly doesn't say she turned the part down. But there are pictures online of Shire attending the Los Angeles premiere, which suggests to me that if she had been angry or disappointed, she's over it now.
Question: About two years ago, I read on TVGuide.com that
Ellen DeGeneres would be playing God, formerly played by Milton Berle, in the remake of
Oh, God! I thought that was brilliant, but I've heard nothing else since. Any news on this project? Did the deal fall through? - Yvette
FlickChick: There was indeed a flurry of talk that a remake of 1977's
Oh, God! (which actually starred
George Burns as God, not
Milton Berle) was in the works in which God would be a female talk-show host. Ellen DeGeneres was a natural fit, and she was attached to the project for a while. But some two years down the line, the remake is still no further along than "in development," and DeGeneres is no longer involved. Neither is
Billy Crystal, who was going to direct. Nor is
D.L. Hughley or
Bernie Mac, both of whom had been mentioned for the lead role of everyman Jerry Landers (at least that's what he was called when he was played by
John Denver), who suddenly finds himself chosen to spread the word of God. But
Sandra Bullock is now attached to play God, and
Rob Reiner - whose father, comic great
Carl Reiner, helmed the original - is listed as director. The upshot is that the project isn't dead, but it's also nowhere near going into production. Keep your fingers crossed.
Question: I just don't know what to believe in anymore. For years I thought the Paramount mountain was real. Maybe I was a fool for believing it, but I really wanted to believe a mountain can look so symmetrical and beautiful. But apparently it isn't? Only you can solve this, FlickChick! Oh, and while we're on the subject, what's with the 24 stars around it? - Fabian
FlickChick: A crisis of faith! I'll do my best to rise to the occasion. First, a little history:
The modern-day Paramount has its roots in three pioneering companies: Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, founded in 1912; Jesse L. Lasky's Lasky Feature Play Company, also founded in 1912; and William Wadsworth Hodkinson's Paramount Pictures, which came into existence in 1914 but was an extension of several earlier companies. Famous Players and Lasky Feature Play Company produced films, while Paramount distributed them. Hodkinson has, in fact, been called "the man who invented Hollywood" because he conceived of a national distribution system at a time when companies either released their movies state by state, through a network of regional film exchanges, or took them on the road, booking prints sequentionally in one venue after another. In 1914, Hodkinson struck distribution deals with both Lasky and Zukor, who turned around and merged their companies, then engineered a Paramount takeover and forced Hodkinson out in 1916.
It was Hodkinson who sketched the mountain that remains the Paramount logo. He grew up in Utah, and it's widely believed that he based the drawing on his memories of Mount Ben Lomond (here's a
recent painting) near Ogden.
As to the stars, nobody - except conspiracy theorists who believe the entire logo has something to do with the Illuminati - seems to have a clue why there's a ring of them around the mountain. But for the detail-obsessed, there used to be 24 stars, and now there are only 22.
Question: There's a quote by David Bowie at the beginning of
The Breakfast Club, and I can't figure out what song it's from. Can you tell me the name? - Jordan
FlickChick: The song is "Changes," from the 1972
David Bowie album "Hunky Dory."
The lyrics quoted at the beginning of
The Breakfast Club (1985) are:
And these children that you spit on/
As they try to change their worlds/
Are immune to your consultations/
They're quite aware of what they're going through.
