Breakfast of Champions

Genre: Comedy.

Studio: Universal Pictures (North America); Summit Entertainment (Int'l).
Production Company: Sugar Creek Productions.

Project Phase: Greenlighted.

Who's In It: Bruce Willis (Dwayne Hoover); Albert Finney (Kilgore Trout); Nick Nolte (Harry LeSabre); Barbara Hershey; Omar Epps; Vicki Lewis (Grace LeSabre); Glenn Headly; Will Patton.
Who's Making It: Alan Rudolph (Director, Screenwriter); Bruce Willis, David Willis, David Blocker (Producers); based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Premise: Kilgore Trout is a writer who discovers that Dwayne Hoover, a car salesman, is taking his every written word as the absolute truth, which pushes Hoover over the edge...

Release Date: Q1 1999.

Comments: Hopefully they'll have the good sense to let Vonnegut play Vonnegut in the cameo appearance he makes.

Rumors: Unknown.

Scoop Feedback:

[Page draft submitted by 'Widgett'.]

March 15, 1998... The budget for the project is reported to be around $9 million. Willis has stated that this is not a "Bruce Willis movie," but an ensemble film. Filming should take place in and around Twin Falls, Idaho and production kicked off February 28th. [Breakfast cereal provided by 'Widgett'.]

An exclusive on-location report has just been sent to CA...

"I'm part of a college dance troupe and we were on tour this last week and for the last two days we were in Twin Falls, Idaho which happens to be where Breakfast of Champions is being filmed. We were really lucky, the day we pulled in they happened to be shooting at the Perkins Restaurant right in front of the hotel we were at. I learned a bit about the movie while I was there, here is what I know:

"The plot of the movie is based (I don't know how accurate) on a novel of the same name by Kurt Vonnegut. In it Bruce Willis plays a midwestern car dealer by the name of Dwayne Hoover and he has a car lot called 'Dwayne Hoover's Exit 11 Motor Village'. I don't really know the story because it was by chance that I stumbled across the book in a book store. But apparently the car dealer is reading the books of a sci-fi author and not believing them to fiction and I'm not quite sure, but I think that Willis' character isn't mentally stable. That's all that I know about the story but here's what little bit of the filming I saw.

"First, when I was coming down stairs to go over to the movie I passed Nick Nolte (whom I assume will be playing the author) in the hallway. He was wearing some raggedy type clothes and his hair was messed up and he had a bath robe on over it. He went to a local store and they said when he first came in they thought he was a bum. Well, I sat outside the Perkins for a good two hours watching what was going on and talking to people. Earlier in the day, the Willis had been dressed like 70s and he has his hair slicked back. I also saw some seats for tables that looked 70s authentic. They also had a set cart full of old wallpapers, so I assume that part of the movie is in the 70s. The shoot went about 5 hrs. longer than it was supposed to according to one of the crew. Then the the next day they began shooting at a local car lot. They put up the sign that said the fictional name and they also put a sign on the side that said, 'You Can Trust Dwayne!'

"When I finally got a chance to see what was going on at the car lot. the crew was set up around a car in which the engine was smoking and Omar Epps (Higher Learning) was standing in front talking to the camera. Off to the side was none other than Bruce Willis in a nice beige/tan suit. That's pretty much all I saw. I know they will be shooting there for at least one month. I was told too that Willis bought a condemned section of town on which they will make a false face and then blow up."

[Data sent in by astromech droid 'r2deetoo '.]

October 1, 1998... A Nice interview with actress Vicki Lewis: "Earlier this summer I interviewed "NewsRadio's" Vicki Lewis. Here's the portion of the conversation where she discussed "Breakfast of Champions."

Q: How does the script for "Breakfast of Champions" compare to the book?

VL: Very close. It's almost verbatim, actually. Vonnegut was there and what a treat, huh?

Q: Who's your character?

VL: I'm Grace LeSabre, the anti-American dream machine who wants to go to Maui and sleep away...

Q: How sexual is the movie?

VL: My scenes were explicit, pretty racy. There's a couple of scenes like that. Glenn Headly has some racy moments. It's out there, you know? It's freaky. And it's the kind of thing you do and then go, "Oh boy, I don't need to see what I just did." At one point, the actor who's playing Harry LeSabre is wearing a dress and I say "Lift up your skirt" and you can just imagine where my head is, you know. He's a cross-dresser and it's all so out there.

Q: Who's directing it?

VL: Alan Rudolph.

Q: You're shooting in Idaho. Is it a rural setting?

VL: Yes, they went to this area of Idaho where it's just used car dealerships that's really, really depressing. I had four scenes and they did them all in one night. That's the only way they could work it out, so I flew from filming "Pushing Tin," which was shooting in Canada. There was a scheduling conflict, so Bruce Willis put me on his jet, and I thought "Oh, I'm going on Air Force One" and it wasn't. It was one of those little planes. I got to Idaho, shot literally around the clock, then flew back to Canada and shot the next day, so I didn't see much of anything.

Q: Who adapted the screenplay?

VL: Alan Rudolph. And Kurt Vonnegut was there.

Q: Did you get a chance to interact with Vonnegut?

VL: No, he doesn't speak much.

Q: He's an imposing guy.

VL: Yes he is (laughs.) And Alan, the whole time I worked with him, he didn't say much of anything. He told me his idea of the character, saying "I think she uses her body at all times. She's doing yoga, the Kama Sutra." I said "Great" and he was quiet for like, 12 hours! And everybody was saying "Alan Rudolph is such a great director" and I thought "He's not talking to me. He hates me!" Then I got back to Canada and there were flowers and this long letter waiting for me from him explaining everything he felt about what I'd done, which was moving, but during the process it was like "Um, he didn't say a word" which was funny, but I guess he was getting what he wanted. At least I found that out."

[Interview sent in by 'Crash']

November 22, 1998...The budget has recently been reported at $12 million in a recent article talking about the uniqueness of this project. There is no studio involved with this except to distribute. Willis owns the negative of the film because he put up the money himself and shares complete creative control with Rudolph. Arnold Rifkin, who's president of William Morris Agency (and Willis' agent) states that this is the first time a movie star has actually gone out and gotten a film financed completely on his own. Word has it that studios will want "...to be in the Bruce Willis art-house business so they can be in the Bruce Willis acting business." All of the actors involved reportedly worked for scale, "with several key players getting a percentage of the back-end profit as well." The way they got the fundage was to sell the foreign distribution rights first to Summit. Instead of 50% of the profit going to the studio for financing, the cast, director and producers of the film are getting the whole enchilada. [Originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times; reported by 'Widgett'.]



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