WHAT WENT WRONG - Thelma & Louise

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

‘Thelma and Louise’ has one of the most iconic endings ever, but it almost didn’t make it to the screen. This week Chris and Lizzie explore Callie Khouri’s relentless dedication to her screenplay, Ridley Scott’s reluctance to direct it, and why neither Geena Davis nor Brad Pitt were even close to first choice for their roles. Find out which alternate ending earned boos from a test audience and how ‘Thelma and Louise’ beat the odds to become a financial success despite almost no marketing budget. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast, Full Stop, that just so happens to be about movies and how it is nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone arguably the greatest ending in cinema history. I'm Chris Wintervar, joined by Lizzie Bassett, who is going to be leading us on a debauched descent into Breaking Bad Wonderfulness. Lizzie, I cannot wait to go on this buddy comedy journey with you. What do you have in store for us today?

Well, Chris, I have certainly one of the greatest movies of the 90s, perhaps one of the greatest movies of all time. I have Thelma and Louise. It is the 35th anniversary of this movie this year. It was back in May. Oh, is it 91? It's 91. Oh, I don't know why I thought it was 92. I thought it was 90 for the longest time. We're both wrong. It's 19. We're dumb. This movie is so good. I can't wait to get into it with you because the story behind it is really just as exciting as the movie itself. Great. But first, Chris, don't we have a bit of an announcement, a little bit of homework, perhaps a book club? Oh, my gosh, we do. Our viewers love homework, as we've learned. Lizzie loves homework, too.

Yeah. So this October, we're going to do something really fun, what we hope it's fun. So there are a bunch of literary adaptations being released in theaters this October. And so we are going to launch our first ever box office book club. And it's going to be filled with some classic. like sense and sensibility and some maybe lowbrow bangers like Verity, which I'm very

excited about. More than halfway through that one and, wow. The Colleen Hoover book. So this is going to kick off this October. We're making this announcement a month in advance to give everybody time to read these books. But we are going to be doing Verity to continue Anne Hathaway Summer and kick off

box office book club. Other Mommy. Can't wait. Which is an adaptation of the book, Incidents Around the House. Sense and Sensibility to get our Austin on and then Wildwood, the Leica film, which is based on a book by Colin Malloy, perhaps best known as the frontman for the Decembris, which I'm very excited about it as well. So we have a children's YA book. We have a arguably smut novel with Verity. I'm just kidding. Have you started reading it yet? Because it doesn't even, it's something else. It's something else. And then we've got a

classic and we've got horror. So I'm really excited for the genre bending month of October. We were trying to think of something fun to do this fall with you guys before we kick. off our Oscars coverage at the top of next year. You know what it is? It's hot horror. There it is. And other mommy is not. Yeah. So I'm excited about that. All right. Well, that's our announcement. So those will be starting on October 9th. We'll be dropping our Verity review. Yes. Join us. We look forward to doing box office book club with you guys this October. Do your homework. I'm doing it. I'm actually reading. What a treat. Lizzie relearned how to read. I did. Well, let's get into it. We have a lot to talk about with Thelma and Louise. So, Chris, what was your experience with this movie prior to today?

And what was it like watching it for this podcast? This was a movie introduced to me by, I'm sure my dad at some point in middle school, high school, always really liked it. Have not seen it in a while, though. And so re-watching it, it's, as you mentioned, it's a fantastic movie. I watched for the first time the accidental tourist last night, which is very, very strange movie. I had never seen it before, but that's what Gina Davis won her Oscar for, Best Supporting Actress. I am thrilled she won it because I think she deserved it for Thelma and Louise. Yes. I think this movie, I mean, look, Susan Sarandon's fantastic in this movie.

She grounds the movie in a lot of ways, but Gina Davis steals this movie. I know. She's so funny when she shows up in the window of the cop car at the end when Susan Saran is there and she just gives the cop that funny smile and then all of a sudden the gun comes out. It's so good. The cut to the CCTV footage of her doing the robbery is just laugh out loud. It's amazing. She's so good in this movie.

She has such a wonderful arc. I think this movie is such a great intersection of performer, director, writer, cinematographer. I think not only are Davis and Sarandon pitch perfectly cast, I think Ridley Scott is exactly the right director for this material. I think he does a really great job with it. And I think Adrian Biddle, the cinematographer, whose long lens work can maybe feel claustrophobic in certain instances intentionally. So it actually compresses the American landscape in a really wonderful way

where it both feels isolating when they're out like monument rock and stuff like that. But then also very overwhelming when they're in these parking lots and they're surrounded by cars and people and whatnot. Just a couple of hot takes at the top.

Danny McRide saw Christopher McDonald's styling in this movie and said, that's how I want to look for the rest of my life. Christopher McDonald's very funny in this movie. He's great. When she calls and he says, Hey, Belmont! And she hangs up immediately.

They know. is one of my favorite jokes. I do love that it's basically entirely shot around the Great Vine north of Los Angeles. And they're just like, sure, it's Oklahoma, Arkansas, et cetera. And you're like, it's actually a lot of Utah. And Utah too, yeah, for the back half of the movie. I will agree, though. It was actually distracting watching it this time. Because I don't think I had seen it since living in California where I was like, well, that is not Arkansas. Like absolutely not. There's one part where you can see downtown L.A. over the motel if you look really carefully. But that's fine. There's a great, Don't worry, darling. I forgot references this movie. The wide overhead shot of the cars going into the desert.

A lot of movies I referenced that shot. But here's what I would say. I would argue this is Ridley Scott's third best movie. I think you could make an argument. It's the second best movie. And what I didn't realize is that this movie really is a kind of a high point in a relatively, not barren, but I would say less than stellar 20-year run. Yes. Right. So like he has the dualist, which is very well received than Alien in 1979, which is universally acclaimed. His best movie, I think, unequivocally. And then I know Blade Runner is now considered a classic. No, but it was a stinker.

It was a stinker at the time. And so basically between Alien and Thelma, you've got this kind of tough run, you know, legend, someone to watch over me, Black Rain, which I liked. But none of them are big hits. And then you've got Thelma and Louise. And then you've got 1492, which was a big time flopper. You've got essentially nothing until Gladiator. And then nothing until Gladiator. And so on the one hand, Scott's so interesting.

he's one of very few directors who I do think released a banger in six straight decades. I was trying to think of other directors who have done that. 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000, 2010, 2020. So six decades, he's got Alien, he's got Blade Runner, Delman Louise, Gladiator, The Martian, The Last Duel, right? I think that counts. I would count the last duel. Anyway, but on the same token, there's a lot of littered corpses.

Where is House of Gucci? No, House of Gucci's not there. But anyway, I was going through. was listening. I was like, I would maybe put Gladiator above Delmon Louise. I don't know, but it would certainly be top three for me. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's a tough call between those two per number two. Alien is number one for me always. But anyway, I'll stop talking. I love this movie. I think it's so good. It's great. I, like you, had seen this probably in high school. I didn't remember it well. I remember not wanting to watch this movie because of the title, because I thought, oh, it's like

a girly movie. I don't want to watch that. I didn't understand what it was at all. And I remember my mom being like, no, they're going to go. The cover makes you think it's going to be steal magnolias or something. That's exactly what I thought it was and I didn't want to watch it. And my mom was like, you don't understand. It's a murder. It's a chase. It's Harvey Keitel, Michael Madison. It's Bonnie and Clyde. But more fun. And I was like, fine, whatever. And I watched it. And then, of course, I loved it. And, you know, it was fun to see a very young Brad Pitt in this, which of course we will talk about. And he is great in this movie. You can tell that, you know, that's a movie star.

He's such a wee man in this movie. He's like, he hasn't filled out yet. You know, it's so funny to see him, especially across Gina Davis who kind of dwarfs him. Well, you can tell that he's tall because he's at least the same height as she is. But, yeah, he's very slender. I think he might be an inch shorter than her because I think he's wearing little cowboy boots in this one. Little cowboy boots are men's heels, and I love that for men. Let them have it.

I do. So are running shoes. My running shoes make me so tall. Yeah, I enjoyed it very much, but I didn't really watch it again until we watched it for this. And watching it again now, I'm with you. I was so struck by Gina Davis's performance in this movie. This is such a hard role to not be annoying. It could so easily have gone in a very, like,

maudlin, almost twee direction. I think, as we'll discuss, she was not the first choice for this. I think it was very smart to cast someone like her who is more physically imposing in this role because it actually helps because she is so beautiful and she is so sweet and funny and like kind of dim, for about half the movie. But when she wakes up, it's like, oh, yeah,

if that lady's coming at the side of my cop car with a gun, I am fucked. Like, she's great. She's fun, but she's scary. And I just think that, you know, the turns that she takes in this movie, obviously it is Louise, who is the one who fires the shot that kicks everything off.

And yet, it's Thelma, who really, I think in a lot of ways, has the decision to make over the course of this movie. Because she doesn't have to go with Louise. Well, she changes. She changes the most. She's the one who arcs the most, even though Louise is arguably the main character in terms of the entry point. I think Louise is more the entry point for the audience. Sure. But we're watching Thelma change across the movie more. I agree. Yeah, she deserved an Oscar for this. She did get a nomination, as did Susan Sarandon, but obviously neither of them won. But she was robbed. And I think, you know, as we talked about in Cutthroat Island, she was really in many ways robbed of, I think the career she should have had after this point in time. So just as for Gina, I love this movie. I love Harvey Keitel. I just love him. This is a fun role for him. He generally, you know, outside of, I guess this and the piano, there's you. usually something kind of sinister about Harvey Kitell. And this one flips the script on that. And also

on Michael Madsen, which I appreciated seeing him. I did like Michael Madsen in this movie quite a bit, too. Yeah, he's in a more romantic role, which is nice because, you know, he always plays such a tough guy. And he's very attractive. So I love that. You know, this is easily one of my favorite Hans Zimmer scores. Interesting. I had mixed feelings upon rewatching. Really? I loved it. I like the ending cue quite a bit in the finale. You can just say they drive off a cliff, Chris. I thought he doesn't know that at this point. That is their fault. The kind of like neo-noir electric guitar vibe, it felt a little dated to me at first in a way that I found, again, a little frustrating because other elements of the movie didn't. And I kept thinking of his score that he would do, I guess, maybe two years later for true romance.

Yes. For Ridley Scott's brother, which the You're So Cool cue with like the steel drums or I don't know what it is, Callistas or whatever. I find that so timeless. And I also kind of love the buoyancy of that cue. And I wish, there was a little more buoyancy in this soundtrack because I just felt like I wanted to enjoy the fun and games of what they were doing with a little less of the noir elements in the soundtrack, but that's just me.

You know what? I actually found myself really loving how much of a time capsule to score is, especially because at least for me, the style of this movie and the style of their clothes and everything is so nostalgic and so, like, if I could look like anybody ever,

it would maybe be Gina Davis by the end of Thelma and Louise. And so there is something about that that I actually found very comforting, and I liked it. I liked his little guitar riffs throughout this. Yeah. I mean, this is like a neo-western. It is. Pretty incredible.

All right, let's get into it. So here are the details, as always. Delma and Louise is, of course, directed by Ridley Scott. It was written by Callie Corey, shout out in Nashville, which I also watched to the bitter end. It stars Susan Sarandon, Gina Davis, Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Christopher McDonald, Brad Pitt, and more. Stephen Toblowski. Yes, Stephen Toblowski. Always love a Toblowski appearance. It was released in 1991, and the IMDB logline is. An Arkansas waitress and a housewife shoot a rapist and take off in a 66 Thunderbird. Yes. Yeah. That is it. Good logline. Yeah. All right. So our main sources for today are off the cliff by Becky Akeman and interviews with, of course, Ridley Scott, Susan Sarandon, Callie Coory, Gina Davis, and GQ Hollywood Reporter, Decider, many, many more. Plus a great making of article from Vanity Fair in 2013. as well as a 1991 Time Magazine cover article. All right, Chris, while it may be difficult for some young ins today to understand,

Thelma and Louise wasn't just extremely radical for its time. It was kind of unheard of. To get a sense of where Hollywood stood on women in general, let's take a brief look back at where all of this started. Well, they stood on that. They stood directly on top of them and said, You don't get up. So, but Chris, early Hollywood,

was not really a boys club in the same way that it would later become. We've talked about this, but many, many women had seats at the table. They actually outnumbered men as stars. They also wrote, directed, and edited, and produced films. You've got Dorothy Arsner, first woman admitted to the directors' guild. She directed Paramount's first talkie, the Wild Party. Also, some of the earliest pioneer screenwriters were women like Anita Luce and Francis Marion. And then during the real peak of the studio era, 1930s to 1950s, you've got Joan Crawford, Barbara Stanwyck,

Rosalind Russell and Russell, like these are the names that are the box office draws, not the men. Betty Davis. Betty Davis. How could I forget? She's going to haunt me from the grave. But behind the scenes, things had changed pretty massively when the money started rolling in. The men heading up the studios didn't think women could handle helming major productions and also didn't want to give them any money. So from the mid-30s until the 60s, there were actually only two female directors really working in Hollywood. That is Dorothy Arsner and Ida Lupino. And it did not actually get better when the studio system collapsed. In fact, it got worse. In the 60s, movies like Bonnie and Clyde,

the graduate, easy writer, these all gave rise to the auture era. Basically, all of the auteur's were men. As the New York Times, Judy Clemiss Rood wrote in 1974, quote, at a time when feminism seems to be in full flower, there is a dearth of good roles for women in American films. And when women do get parts at all, they are usually cast as prostitutes, empty-headed blondes, sex kittens, or neurotic housewives. This is, of course, in pretty stark contrast to the kinds of roles that, for example, Joan Crawford had been playing in the 30s and 40s. Yeah, the women's pictures, I don't mean that in a reductive way, but run of films, this was a very robust, you know what I mean? They were moneymakers. Mildred Pierce, a gaslight. I mean, like, some of these classics are

very much led by women. Yeah, even just like, even the more outlandish movies, like notorious, you know, for example. Like, those are cool roles. Oh, totally. I like everything in Rosalind Russell's career was, you know, those kind of roles were completely dried up by the 70s. And by the way, from that same New York Times piece, the author wrote that male speaking roles outnumbered women's 12 to 1 at that point. 12 angry men. 12 angry men, one very angry lady. One stenographer.

And by the way, there was only one actress who was considered truly bankable in the 70s. Who was it? Bobra. Oh, Babs. Babs. Okay. Babs raked in the cash. Babs is great.

Babs is great. But between the late 60s and 70s, also only one woman was directing studio-backed films. we've covered her big-time flopper that put her in directors jail. Who was it? Elaine May. Elaine May. That's right. Yeah. By the 80s, there were now two women with real sway in Hollywood. Still Barbara can't take her crown. And now Jane Fonda. Oh, yeah.

They both had created their own production companies. They were pushing for more female artistic, financial and political say in filmmaking. And also, both are raking in the cash. Barbara Streisand has a star is born. She has Yentel. Fonda had coming home. So as the 80s are rolling on, women are starting to, try to reenter the workforce at a different rate than they had in previous decades. One area, though, that women are still, I think, were at least still very influential. Editing. Editing.

Yeah. In the New Hollywood era. Well, you know why. Pat Nosswald has a... It's because men... Yeah, Pat Nosswald's joke. It's because men just want to spew it all out there. And then the...

Oh, I'm shooting so much film. Okay, you can go away now. Yeah. It's the women's job to organize it into a story. Yeah. They kept them there in the dark editing room. And among these women who were excited to end... the workforce in Hollywood was a 29-year-old woman named Callie Corey.

Now, Corey was born in 1957 in Texas. She grew up in Paducah, Kentucky. Her mother, Virginia, was an artist. She led the Paducah Art Guild. Her father, Eli, was a first-generation American, and he was... I was going to say it. That's a Lebanese last year. I was curious.

He was the chief of surgery at the local hospital and the head of the regional medical association. So he was a big deal. And she really adored her parents. They had a great relationship. Her father was extremely. extremely driven, and he very, very much instilled that in Callie. He really pushed her to believe that true satisfaction in life would come from success, from high achievement. But in 1974, when Callie was

16 years old, her parents traveled out of town to attend a wedding in Louisville. In the middle of the night, Dr. Corey turned to his wife and said, there's something really wrong, call an ambulance, and he died shortly thereafter from a cerebral aneurysm at only 47 years old. This really shattered Cali, understandably. She spent the rest of her adolescence in a period of deep depression. She initially enrolled in college to study landscape architecture, but she switched to theater, hoping it would kind of help her escape her own personal life, and instead it really made her feel worse. She also saw zero good opportunities to write or direct, and so she figured, all right, I'll try acting, only to discover that the roles were quite slim pickings and were all too shallow

or too sexualized. So she gave up. She dropped out of college. She moved to Nashville to see if there's anything she could sink her teeth into there. She did pick up work at a local theater, and she waited tables at clubs, but she learned pretty quickly, most of the clientele at those clubs consisted of guys who would grab her ass as she delivered drinks.

But she did, at one of those After Hours clubs, meet a young country singer named Pam Tillis, and this is the friendship that would eventually inspire Thelma and Louise. And Pam Tillis went on to become a very successful country singer, but she apparently, according to Callie Corey, was very similar to Thelma in a lot of ways. Very sweet, very funny. After four years working in Nashville's Nightlife scene, Callie decided to head to L.A. to give acting the old drop out of college try again. So she got a job waiting tables at the improv, which of course was the comedy club for stand-up comedians, everybody, Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams. And while working in L.A., she got a taste of the industry's underbelly. One night, when Larry David was walking her to her car after work, they were actually held up at gunpoint. And then just one night before, she and good old Pam Tillis had been jumped from behind after.

a party. So a double whammy, not even Larry David can save you. Larry David's not who you want with you. Larry David's reaction to getting held up would be so fun. Why ain't she taking her money? What's going on? They did take her money. She also couldn't help notice how few female comics there were and also even fewer female screenwriters. According to Jim Vellelli, her comic friend, quote, those early years in her 20s being smarter than so many of the guys she was hanging around and knowing it, I know she got hurt. She took a big hunk of hurt and turned it into Thelma and Louise. I think she became a great writer because she lived some life. So she quit again and started over again, taking a receptionist gig at a company that made music videos and commercials. And this is where she met

a producer named Amanda Temple. They became very close friends and producing partners. They worked on music videos for Motley Crew and foreigner. But she still kept hearing her father's words ringing in her ears that the key to her happiness would be success. And she didn't really feel like what she was doing at this point was success. It was the mid-80s and Callie would later describe this period as, quote, a skanky time. It would have been less objectionable if I had had any creative, anything, but I was just a facilitator. She also got a front row seat at this company in terms of seeing how women were treated on sets. Amanda Temple told Vanity Fair in 2013 about a casting session when, quote, a particular director, a huge movie director today who will go nameless, said,

I want more girls with bigger tits, Callie, and less clothes. Callie doesn't suffer fools, and there were a lot of foolish people around in those days. Callie and I used to say, you get what you settle for, and sometimes she would say, I'll show them one day. It might have been Michael Bay. Might have been. I feel like it has to have been Michael Bay. It seems like the only one that makes sense because he was doing music videos at that time. And in 2012, he's doing Transformers 7 or whatever, you know.

Yeah. And also, we know what he likes. Big tits. And explosion. Sorry, excuse me. How could I forget? Exploding dudes. Yes.

So one night in spring of 1988, Callie was driving home in the early hours after a brutal shoot, and all of a sudden, she said, quote, out of nowhere, I thought two women go on a crime spree. That one sentence, I felt the character arcs, I saw the whole movie. So she really infused Louise with her own kind of jaded sense of humor. She bases the character of Thelma around Pam, as we said, by the way, Callie said of Pam, she's one of the funniest people in the world and scattered. She'd borrow a pair of shoes and return one. And she finished writing Thelma and Louise six months later.

And Chris, the industry response was silence. So, Chris, can you explain what the Bechdel test is? Basically, it's a test to see if the women in your film have any interior agency slash interests outside of the men in your film. Basically, do two female characters speak to each other about something that is not related to the male characters in the movie. Bingo, that's it. Yeah. That is the only qualifier for something to pass the Bechdel test, which seems like the bare minimum, right?

You'd think. But between 1985 and 1989, just over a third of movies passed the Bechdel test. A third of movies with major female characters, because part of the issue is there's just so few female characters, like you said, with good speaking roles to begin with. I believe it is a third of movies, period, because this does not have to be a lead character. It just simply has to have two women in it. They talk to each other about something other than a man. That's it. It's a very low bar. In every one of my scripts, I put in a scene of two women talking about the bond market just as a cutaway. So it passes the backtail text.

But even if the films did pass, which as we said, somewhere around a third of them at that point did, most movies at that point were still directed and written by men. So right away, this script is facing three major problems. Number one, the leads are women. They are specifically working class women. they're speaking very critically about men. Also, the interesting understanding at the time was that women will go to a guy's film, but guys will not go to a women's film. Number two, Callie hadn't written anything that had been produced at this point,

and she had almost no connections in the film industry. So she's a totally untested. That would be a hurdle no matter your gender. Exactly. But certainly a bigger one if you're not a dude. Sure. Meaning you don't have the boys club to leverage. Yes.

And then number three, what's maybe the toughest sell about this movie? Think about the end. Oh, the characters die at the end of the movie? Yes. Yeah, I mean, they basically decide, like, we want to go out on our terms rather than be taken in to custody by the patriarchy that we've been spurning at the end of it. I mean, look, the movie very smartly sets up all these men with guns at the end.

You know, the men are, I know Madsen gets a bit of a redeeming moment and Keitel's not a bad guy ultimately. But basically, it's just pointing out that this whole thing's rotten to the core, really. It's rigged. It's rigged. It's rigged. We've got no shot. Exactly. Let's go out on our terms. And Callie Corey was not about to change that. No. She was like, you can't. This is the ending. I'm not changing it. And, you know, some people were quick to point out, it could be read that it suggests that if women refuse to play by the rules of the patriarchy, the result is death.

Which, like, yes. That's kind of her point. It's like it may not be a literal death, but it is a death of some kind. That's right. It might be like an emotional death or a creative death or a professional death, you know, but if you don't play by these rules, you will be squashed in some way, is what the movie seems to me to be saying. Yeah. Susan Sarandon would later say it's the least compromising ending.

You built this whole film to have these people not settle anymore and then you'd toss them back into the system. It's also just like so poetic and emotional. Yeah, it's great. It's so good. But of course, Hollywood Studios would see it as a major commercial risk. It denies audiences their happy ending. So basically this was going to be an absolute slog to get this script off the ground.

But one person who really loved it was Callie's music video producing partner and Michael Bay's worst enemy, Amanda Temple. She encouraged Callie to start shopping it around. She agreed to help Callie produce it. And the plan, in their eyes, was pretty simple. They're like, we're just going to make it a low-budget indie, and we're going to find some fool to give us $5 million, according to Callie Corey. So Callie and Amanda took turns hand-delivering pages to the studios and producers.

And Chris, no one was interested. The feedback was always the same. They would say, why do I want to watch a movie about violent women? And then why do I want to watch those violent women drive themselves off a cliff? I don't. Some soft leads suggested that maybe,

what if, hear me out here, what if they just drive over a ditch and land safely on the other side? Then we might be interested. That's a worst idea I've ever heard. It's so bad. I hope whoever said that is deeply embarrassed. But Kelly would not budge.

You take the ending as is or not at all. She said to Slate and, 2022, it's like they're going to spend the rest of their lives not being believed, being put in tiny boxes. They know what's going to happen. It's the same thing. We all know the story. There was not going to be any justice for them, and they knew it and we knew it, just like we know there's no justice for Tom Robinson and to kill a mockingbird. They're always going to find a way to just make it hurt even worse. But Amanda and Callie knew they had something special. However, every door was slamming in their face, so they started to wonder, what are we missing here? Maybe we need to go to someone and ask for some

advice. So Amanda reached out to Mimi Polk Gittlin, who was a friend of a friend, and she was running Ridley Scott's production company, Scott Free. And they just reached out to Mimi and Amanda said, you're connected. Will you tell us if we're mad? I mean, shit, why are people not getting this? And some time went by, but after about six weeks, they got a call. And they didn't just get an opinion. They got a bit more than they bargained for because Mimi said, I love it. And so does Ridley Scott. Now, you mentioned this, Chris, but by the late 80s, Ridley was in kind of a big slump. Arguably the biggest slump of his career. Blade Runner had flopped, so had legend, someone to watch over me as well.

Not to mention, as we discussed on aliens, Fox just completely overlooked him for the sequel to Alien. He needed a win as a director. And as far as he was concerned, even though he did love this script, he didn't think that this was the thing that was going to give him that win. He said, quote, it was very much not my thing. I tend to do action-driven things. I love, period. This was about women talking about guys and what assholes guys can be.

So he's like, I love it. I think it's great. I want to produce it. No interest in directing it. Actually, think of his generation. He is one of the few male major directors in Hollywood to direct a number of very, very good female-driven movies. Yes, he is. Candidly, many of which, what I like about it is, it's incidental that the female is elite, right?

Like, Alien, obviously, then G.I. Jane, Thelma, and Louise have a bit more of a feminist angle, you could say, but then Hannibal, Prometheus, Alien Covenant, House of Gucci. You know, really Scott. Like, I don't think Spielberg quite has that. Scorsese definitely doesn't have that. You know what I mean? Coppola doesn't have that. He's kind of an outlier in this way.

The thing about Ridley Scott that we're going to learn over the course of this episode that's so fun is that he is essentially an accidental feminist. He's like, he does it because he likes the story. And he doesn't really discriminate about a good story. And if that good story means that you have a woman as the protagonist, he doesn't care. Yeah. It probably helps that he's not American in a way. Maybe, although I have strong feelings about the way that Brits treat women. Spoiler, it's not better. It's just different.

Oh, I guess I just meant, like, from the sort of box office conventions that studios are bringing to this, where they're just saying, like, oh, women can't open a movie. You know what I mean? Like that sort of thing. I wonder if that might help. Right. They had Blockbuster Queen Jane Austen on their side, so they should know. Mm-hmm. All right, but he said, you know what? I would produce this. And Callie and Amanda immediately thought, why? They were very confused about what? why Ridley Scott wanted to be attached to this movie. They were very concerned about the possibility of him wanting to direct this movie. Why do you think that might be? Is there anyone else with the

last name Scott that maybe they had seen his movies and thought, no. His brother? Yes. Tony Scott? Yeah. Well, Tony Scott was in, let's see, he'd done Top Gun, Days of Thunder by this point in time. Well, he'd also done Beverly Hills Cop too, which had come out the year before and Callie was apparently Oh my God. I forgot he directed that. He did. And Callie Corey was horrified by that in particular. She said, quote, if this script ever makes it to the big screen, it would be a miracle if they haven't changed the title to tits and bullets. Good title, though. But, you know, I think the Scott brothers are very different in their sensibilities. They're extremely different. And what was happening is they were totally conflating Ridley Scott with Tony Scott.

Sure. And at this time, Tony was more successful for this little bit of a run, I feel like, at least financially at the box office. Oh, yeah. Than Ridley. Yes. And now someone must have explained to them that the two brothers have, as you pointed out, very different styles. And once they went back and familiarized themselves more with Ridley's game, they realized he had a lot more to offer. But they were still concerned about how well he could really understand this story that was rooted in a female experience. Plus, Callie Corey had very strong opinions about basically everything, including who would fill out the cast. She wanted Holly Hunter, Estelma, Francis McDormand as Louise. Not going to object to that. Sure. And she had someone in mind already to direct. Chris, who would she have chosen? Is it a female director? Yeah. Well, it's her.

She wanted to direct it. Oh, she wanted to direct it. Okay, got it. Yeah. Thought you were to say like Penny Marshall or something like that. No, although that would have been interesting. No, she really wanted to direct it, which again, like, that's a tough, tough sell. This is your first script.

You haven't produced anything. You haven't directed anything. So weeks passed, and Callie and Amanda were getting more and more nervous that their wishes would not be honored if the wrong studio or the wrong. wrong director got a hold of it. So Mimi Polk was like, listen, we are still very interested. I will get you a literary agent. So she set her up with Diane Cairns. And Callie went into this meeting with the literary agent. And she said, the ending will not change. I want the opportunity to direct. And when a studio signs on, you will pay me half a million dollars for the screenplay. And Diane was like,

okay. Like maybe we can get two out of those three. That's exactly what she said. She said, quote, at a time when most women had been conditioned to be more reserved, she had no problem plowing right in there. But yes, she managed expectations. She told Callie, listen, you're going to have to compromise most likely on the directing cause. There's only really two women the year prior had made top 50 movies, Penny Marshall, who you mentioned, and Amy Heckerling. Oh, yeah. Women just really weren't directing, let alone a woman with no credits to her name. Yeah, it was like Penelope Spiros would be a couple years out after this with Wayne's World and Rachel Tallale with Tink Girl in 95. Yeah, there's not a ton of big budget.

No. Diane Cairns later explained what the odds were like for Calley's movie. She said, just to write it and get it made astronomical. To get it made well, impossible. To go through what this movie went through once in a lifetime, 10 lifetimes. But she was like, I'll try. And she started shopping the script around. Meanwhile, Amanda really urged Callie to take the opportunity with Mimi Polk and Ridley Scott. She had taken the project as far as it could go. And she knew that like it or not, they needed the weight of Scott Free behind the movie. And she actually agreed to step down as a producer on the film in order for Scott and Polk to take it on. This reminds me of

what's the name of the guy and that thing you do who lives in the back of his truck and the trailer, who's like their first agent. Oh, yeah, I can't remember. Yeah, but yes. He bird dogs them and then takes them to the bigger. That's what Amanda Temple did, which is very sweet. So Callie agreed. And Amanda told her, Callie, it's now going to be a Ridley Scott movie, which is a completely different animal than what we envisioned. It's going to get a lot of attention. It's going to be a movie that everyone is talking about. Now it was Ridley Scott's turn to find the director, which still wasn't him. He was like, I don't get the whole lady POV. Also, he is British, and that actually felt to him like he should not direct this because this is so much about the plate of American women,

which like, yes, that makes sense. But he knew who was perfect for the job. Chris, which director did Ridley want to put up for this movie? Tony Scott? His brother? Yes, Tony Scott. That's great. I love him. He's like, with all my deep connections in Hollywood, I'm going to pick up the phone and dial my brother. That's right. Ridley said of his brother, he was very good with women. He could make them really sexy because they had that kind of rapport with them. And he was hot then. So it would have been made easily. Okay. He's right about the last part. He is right about the last part. It would have gotten the movie made. Yes. He's misunderstanding the point of the movie with the first part, but that's okay. My brother's going to make you a woman so hot. And he also,

He also said, you know, Tony was very, very popular with people. People loved my brother, more than me. And when asked why, he said, I don't know. He was more outgoing and sweeter. I'm not so sweet. That's an understatement. And that seems consistent with his directing style. There are some very funny stories from Russell Crow about working with Ridley Scott, you know, on Gladiator that you can find, you know. But yeah, he's gruff. He's always got a cigar in his mouth. He's a little task's turn, not very talkative. But like incredible artist, amazing visual eye. I love Ridley Scott so much. know that there's, you know, long swaths of mess in his career. I don't care. He's just a workhorse. He's like in his 80s and he's putting on a movie a year. It's insane. He's to calm down. Tony Scott seemed like the natural choice for Ridley Scott. But of course, for Callie Corey, this was her worst nightmare. And I want to note, we are not shitting on Tony Scott's films. I love many of his movies that he directed. But I will say I do understand Corey's concerns about him for this particular movie. Yeah. As we mentioned, like true romance would be just a bit after this.

That's right. That hadn't come out yet. I really like true romance, but I think it works because of Christian Slater's POV. You know what I mean more? And I do think Patricia Arquette's somewhat underserved in that movie, even though I really like that movie. Yeah, but if you're looking at what he had made to this point, I get where she's coming from. We should also note that unfortunately Tony Scott did die by suicide in 2012, which was awful. We lost him way too early.

He was an extremely talented director, but not right for this. However, for now they put a pin in the director conversation and they turned their attention to casting. So when Gina Davis received an early copy of Selma and Louise, she at that point had just won an Oscar for the accidental tourist. And according to Becky Aikman's off the cliff, around this time, there were really only three or four meaty three-dimensional roles for women in any given year. And Gina was like, I'm not waiting around for when to come to me. I want this one. Gina said these were two completely filled out characters who were absolutely equal, who had so many colors and moments,

and they had to transform themselves in four days into killing themselves, and it had to make sense. So she was super determined. She cold called Callie Corey. She went over to her house to be like, can we go over the script? But everybody thought Gina Davis was not really a strong candidate for an action film, which is, I guess, one way to view this movie. But, Chris, knowing what we know about Gina from Cutthroat Island and from what she'd done before this, why do you think people were not so hot on her for this?

First of all, I want to express, this movie is, I think, both a quantum leap forward for her as a performer. Yeah. And just in terms of how good the role is from the access. Tourist. It's funny that she wins best supporting actress for the accidental tourists. It is a very unusual, novelistic, you know, late 80s movie. It is a William Hurt vehicle. I think you would describe everyone on the cast as neuroa-typical or neurodivergent by today's standards. It's very twee. I really like elements of it. But candidly, her characters, even though it's a very good performance, it's pretty two-dimensional. And she's, I don't know, it's like, stiff is the wrong

word because I think that's the style of performance that she's doing, but she's very tall. She's extremely thin. And I think that, like, she'd been really pushed into the quirk. Of her looks and her eyes. Well, think about Beetlejuice. And Beetlejuice, for example. I mean, she's arguably playing more straight in Beetlejuice than she is in the accidental tourists in some ways. But I think that, like, I mean, she is rail thin in the accidental tourist.

And I could see somebody thinking, oh, well, this woman's, like, you bring her in as the kind of quirky love interest. Quarky love interest, the melancholic comedic relief in your movie, driving an action film. I would imagine it's not dissimilar to how people felt about. Bruce Willis coming off of moonlighting going into Die Hard. Totally. But Gina had her agent David Eidenberg call Ridley and rally for her, but Ridley was like, sorry, too light, because two other leading ladies had already snapped up the roles. Any guesses who these were, I'll tell you right now, they were big stars much bigger than Gina Davis, arguably at the time.

Both blonde, one very blonde, one sort of dark blonde. Um, late eight, early 90s. I don't know, who, who, who? Jody Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, I should have guessed Fife. I never would I guess Foster. I don't know why. I didn't think a foster is blonde at the time, but I should have gotten Fyfer. She's, I would argue, dirty blonde in Silence of the Lambs. Fyfer's great. You know, we just watched Margo has money troubles, and I got to say, I thought Fyfer was the best part of that show. I love the show a lot. I thought she was so good. She's a really good actress. I agree. She is. I love Fifefer. God, she looks good. I don't understand how she looks like that. I would love to look like that now, and I'm 37. She's doing whatever Tony Goldwyn's doing. Yeah, they're sitting in the same basement attached to the same

blood bags. Good for them. Now, this did not stop. David Eidenberg from calling Ridley Scott's office every single week to be like, have you heard about Gina Davis? What about Gina Davis? Gina Davis would like to be in this movie, but Ridley didn't give a shit because he was like, whatever, I have to figure out between Jody Foster and Michelle Pfeiffer, who's going to play Thelma and who's going to play Louise. Because they both wanted to play Thelma. As you pointed out, this is the character who changes more over the course of the movie. They actually handled it pretty diplomatically. They apparently got on the phone with each other and worked it out. Who do you think wanted to play who? In the end. Yeah, who did they pick? I think they

got it right. I will say that. God, I could see Pfeiffer going either way. I'm going to say Jody Foster. Fuck. I don't know why this is killing me. Jody Foster Louise, Michelle Fiverthelma. Nope, flip it. Jody Foster Thelma, Michelle Pfeiffer, Louise. I think that's right. There's a hardness to Michelle Pfeiffer that Jody Foster doesn't have. And I think... Oh, see, I'm thinking about Cleary Starling. I'm like, no, I think Jody Foster can do it. She's very sweet. I think actually Clarice Starling is a good indicator of Thelma, to be honest, because she is sort of wide-eyed, but she's determined. I could see it. I don't know. I think that's right. I know. I could see it both ways. That's why it was a hard choice. I think they would have been great in this, by the way. This would

have been good casting. Well, also the Francis McDormon, Holly Hunter version, which we like don't exactly see in raising Arizona, but kind of, you know, would also have been fantastic. Yes. Now, Ridley and Mimi, obviously, they're stoked. These are two of the most bankable women in Hollywood. Huge. Yeah. This pairing is going to sell tickets, but Callie Corey, not happy. She did not want bombshells as her leads. She had written Thelma and Louise to look like everyday working class women. I think Foster fits that. I agree. Personally. I agree. I think Michelle Pfeiffer doesn't. I understand the concern with Pfeiffer. Yes. And there was another problem, which is that even with two of the biggest stars in Hollywood attached, nobody wanted to fund this. So when the odd studio did

express some interest, they almost all backed off when they found out about Kelly Coory's $500,000 price tag for the script. Eventually, In July of 1989, script did find its way into a pile that Becky Pollack, daughter of Sydney Pollock, was reading for her employer, Pathay Entertainment, headed by Alan Ladd, Jr. That's right. I forgot he'd hopped to Pathay. Yes. Laddie, back again. He loved it. Becky loved it.

And he would come on as a co-producer and financier alongside Ridley and Mimi. And this was great for Callicori because Becky Pollack ended up being a huge ally. She was very insistent that they keep the ending the way that it was. So this is great news. They have their female leads set. The producers are set. They still don't have a director.

But luckily for Callie, Tony Scott had said, no thank you, telling Ridley he wasn't sure he understood the characters because, you know, he had, quote, problems with women. And we did a lot of digging to try and figure out what he meant by this. It seems he may have meant he didn't understand women well enough, but it also could have been a reference to his personal life, which was. not going well at the time, thanks to an affair on the set of Beverly Hills Cop 2 and a divorce. Anyway, it was not going to be Tony. But it also wasn't just Tony who had a problem with this. As Ridley told

GQ in 2025, nearly every director he approached had the same issues with the movie. He said, quote, one of the four directors he asked said, listen, dude, it's two bitches in a car. I said, why are they bitches? Because they have a voice. Another said, oh, it's small. To which I said, no, it's epic. And I started talking about how the proscenium, the landscape, was the third big character in the movie, and that the film is an odyssey. I didn't realize that while I was interviewing these guys, I was talking myself into it. So he finally decided to sit down and talk to an actual woman,

Callie, to be specific. And she walked Ridley through what was driving the script, the cat calls, the harassment, the casual disrespect. And apparently all of this came as quite a surprise to Ridley Scott, as though it were his first time hearing about what many women go through on a daily basis. And he, for his part, encouraged Callie to add in more humor, take the edge off in a couple of places

because they did have to sell tickets, and they didn't want to shut out 50% of the potential audience. And she agreed. It sounds like at this point they actually really got along well and the notes were good. So the summer of 89 came and went and they still didn't have a director. Ridley considered Chris Mangus, Kevin Reynolds, Waterworld, Tim Hunter, but none of them felt like they could capture the humor. He also talked to Jonathan Kaplan, who had just done the accused. He said no because he didn't want to be typecast as a director who covers sexual assaults.

However, there was one variety of director that it seems Ridley Scott did not consider. A lady. Women. Yes. He would, to his credit, later admit that maybe he should have looked at Catherine Piccolo, which it's like, yes. She actually, she had done Near Dark, you know, at this point, but she makes a lot of sense. Yes.

Near Dark makes a lot of sense. Whether it had been a man or a woman heading into this, that is also a neo-Western genre road trip movie with interesting commentary on gender. I know. Oh, Ridley. According to Sue Williams, who worked with Ridley, she said, quote, Ridley is very fair-minded as far as women making it in the workplace, but at the same time, he's got the attitude of, I'll get my buddy to do it. He's three quarters of the way toward feminism.

By fall of 1989, he had finally locked someone in. It was Richard Donner, who we have talked about on both the Omen and Superman. Interesting. I could see it. And he had done goonies, I guess, a few years before this. But there was a problem. He came as a package deal. He wanted his wife, Lauren Schuller, Donner to share producing, and Ridley and Mimi said, no. They were producing together at this point. I think they had their own production shingle. They were doing TV. They'd been working with Ambulin. So yeah. At this point, Michelle Pfeiffer and Jody Foster were like, we can't keep waiting around for this. So they went off to do Silence of the Lambs and Love Field. And now they're back to square one. They have no leads. They have no director. But of course,

by then, word about this movie had spread across Hollywood. Every actress wanted to be part of this movie. Andy McDowell, Kim Basinger, Meg Ryan, Sybil Shepard, all interested. Alan Ladd Jr. apparently liked the idea of Cher, but Ridley Scott didn't think she was funny enough. Ridley, come on, incorrect. Well, what's interesting is, I would say Gina Davis's styling and performance in the accidental tourists evokes share a little bit.

And so, I could see a share world. A hundred percent I could see a share world. Sharon Madonna. No, get Madonna out of there. I know, but it just would have been funny. It never would have been made because Cher would have probably slapped Madonna at some point and they would have had to cancel the movie. So, two major movie stars, these

are both fully blondes, pitched themselves to Path A as a packaged deal, skipping the usual agency route and setting up the meeting themselves. Chris, any guesses for these two? They would shortly after this movie, only a year after, star together, in a film that we have not yet covered. Big movie stars, both blonde. They would star in a movie together in a year?

1992. I don't know, Lizzie. I'm blanking. Merrill Streep and Goldie Hawn. I almost said Merrill Streep and I was not going to say Goldie Hawn. But what did they star in together in 1992? Death becomes her. Oh, that's right.

Yes. It's a great movie. They were actually looking for their movie together, which they find with Death Becomes Her. Oh. And I feel like it was Street proving she can do comedy, too. You know, she's so funny in that movie. I love that movie. Ridley, though, was not sold.

He felt that Goldie Haum was too old. She was around 43 or 44 at the time. God, she looked young to me. She looks amazing. And Meryl Streep, he also wasn't sure that she could play a working class woman, which I'm also like, did you watch Silkwood? Silkwood? Yeah. What came to mind?

But whatever. But also like Kramer versus Kramer and some other stuff, too. Kramer versus Kramer, she's very, like, elegant. I know. That may be actually what he was thinking more of when he thought maybe not. Oh, okay. Very blonde, very beautiful nose. We love Meryl.

So he said no. And he was also finding reasons why literally every other director in town was wrong for the job, probably because at this point he wanted to do it. He told Vanity Fair, quote, I was in a way a very good choice to do it. I'd never had trouble letting women tell me what to do. All the years I'd run my company, found that women were the best men for the job.

Scott Free L.A. was run by a woman. Scott Free London was run by a woman. I could sit around and analyze the foolishness of men, since men are fundamentally the children in any relationship. Thank you, Ridley. So he said, fine, I'm directing this movie. And at this point, I think everyone was like, finally, Jesus Christ, now let's get our leads together.

So both Callie and Ridley worried that too much star power might get in the way of what this movie was really about. So they went back through some of the less obvious casting choices. And, of course, right in front of them was a month's long stream of missed calls from Gina Davis's agent. So Ridley met with Gina, and she came so prepared and desperate for the role of Louise. Oh. She wanted to play Louise because she felt like it would move her into more mature, grounded acting territory. Yeah, I mean, Delma feels more like a half step from some of her other work as opposed to...

It's the better part, but yeah. Even though I think it's, again, a quantum leap, you know, but yes, I can understand if she wants to go against type. And Ridley was like, great, you'll play Thelma. He felt that with her height and her goofy glamour, she was better suited for that role. I do agree with him. And for Louise, he wanted someone who was tougher and less glossy. So he turned to New York casting director Lou Di Giam. No, sorry, sir, who had worked on films like The Godfather and the French Connection.

And Lou is who put forth Susan Sarandon. Ridley really liked that her sort of cynicism would contrast against Gina's kind of wide open expressiveness. But Susan was one of the few actresses. in Hollywood who hadn't even heard of the script. She'd been living in New York. She was pretty jaded after being overlooked for an Oscar for Bull Durham, which she felt had really personally destroyed her. And when Ridley Scott sent her the script, she didn't really get it. She didn't really see it as a feminist film. She did see the power of the ending. She said, quote, actually I said to Ridley, I hope we're not going to shoot this. And then you test it and then we end up in club med. If I'm going to

play that part, I want to make sure I know where it's going. And he said, I can tell you that you will definitely die. I'm not sure about Thelma. You may push her out of the car at the last minute. And so she's like, as long as I die, fine. But she had a couple bones to pick. She hated the proposal scene, which at this point was like very romantic. She also was not comfortable accepting the role of someone who shot a man. It didn't matter if he was a rapist. She said, quote, it's a huge thing to take another life. I'm not interested in doing a revenge film. I'm not interested in being Charles Bronson or Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, the timing of the shoot was convenient. It would take place in the summer of 1990, which meant that her kids could come along without missing school, and she needed a gig, so she was in.

Ridley's happy. Callie's happy. The studio is not happy. They felt like these two were not big enough names. Now, Scott did manage to win over Allad Ladd, Jr. By reminding him, I was right about Sigourney, wasn't I? Because, of course, he had had to push for her. And she was a much, just to be fair to Davis and Sarandon, Weaver was a true no name at the time of

Bailey. Yes, these two are not no names. These two are not no names at all. No. So pretty much immediately, Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis, got started on very serious driving and shooting lessons, according to Susan Sarandon, while the rest of the male roles were being filled out. Now, for the role of Hal Slocum, Ridley really wanted a tough guy like James Kahn, and they actually tried to get James Kahn,

and then they realized we don't want to work with James Kahn, so they landed on Harvey Kytel. For Darrell, both Dan Aykroyd and Bill Pullman were considered, but Gina Davis had in mind her ex-boyfriend, And Chris McDonald, who she had left upon meeting and getting engaged to Jeff Goldblum, but they were still on good terms. Although wires got crossed, and apparently the casting director invited McDonald to read for Harlan, the rapist. Oh, I mean, he could have done it. I know, but he showed up.

He was like, I'll take what I can get at this point. Ridley Scott was like, absolutely not. I am not having her ex play the person who assaults her. So he gave him the part of Daryl, which was what she intended from the beginning. Right. Interestingly, they had a couple of musicians read for Jimmy, including Dwight Yocum and Huey Lewis. Huey Lewis makes sense.

Yeah, Dwight Yocom could too. Dwight Yocom's a very good actor, although I think we know him best as being scary from like Slingblade, but he is good. That's what I was thinking, yeah. He can be sweet too, though. Ridley had actually originally wanted Michael Madsen to play Harlan, but Madsen said no,

because he didn't want to get type cast. He wanted to play something different, and so they offered him Jimmy. Now, the last major role to cast was, of course, J.D. And every 20-something guy in Hollywood was trying to get this part. River Phoenix, I'm sure, was maybe considered. You know, I didn't see him, but everybody else. So, Dermit Mulroney auditioned, but he made a critical error,

which was that he brought his wife, Catherine Keener along, and she massively outshone him and was actually cast as Hal's wife, which was later cut in the edit, but she was in this. Mark Ruffalo read, as did Dylan McDermott. Brad Pitt auditioned, but Ridley Scott felt that he looked too young. He was around 26. It was a real slog. Everybody was too broody.

Nobody was hot enough. Apparently, for one audition, a 28-year-old actor came in with heavy eyelids and sideburns. He overacted intensely. He was hunching, fidgeting, gnawing on a toothpick. Everybody in the room was like, God, this guy is terrible. Get him out of here.

It was George Clooney. Yeah. So after sitting through a bunch of duds, Ridley settled on Billy Baldwin. Okay. Yeah. It's fine. And the shoot was set for June 11th of 1990.

Now, apparently Ridley and art director Norris Spencer drove across the country through Nashville, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma to try and scout locations. And halfway across Texas, Ridley said, what the fuck are we doing here? It all looks the same to me. We can do this in the valley and I can go home every night. I can find the Grand Canyon in Utah, to which I say, Ridley, it doesn't look the same. There are none of these hills in Oklahoma. This makes no sense. I know. I mean, I don't care, but yes. It is definitely a British man's interpretation of the. American South, like Delta area, basically. It's just so funny because Arkansas has a very particular landscape that looks like nothing in this movie. Forrested, for example. Yep, forested, hilly, but not particularly mountainous. The sheer number of shots that take place in the middle of the day with the sun out where it is pouring rain are very funny. Like,

just like, run the rain machine. Run the rain machine. Because it's not raining in California. Yeah. They also initially had wanted to shoot at the sun out. the Grand Canyon, but that was off the table because the Park Service's PR lead was like, no, you're not going to have a movie about women driving off the cliff in this. They actually tried to use First Amendment rights to say they didn't need government sign off to film this in a national park to which the government said, the fuck you say. And then they gave up because Ridley Scott was like, I don't even want the Grand Canyon. It's too big. So they settled on Canyonlands National Park on the Colorado River in Utah. So with just two days to go before production was scheduled to start,

fell apart because William Baldwin jumped ship for backdraft. Backdraft. Yeah. And since Pathet hadn't locked in his contract, he was able to walk. So the casting team sent a distress call to every agency in town. Ridley had Gina Davis come back to read with the four strongest contenders. Robert Downey Jr. was one of them. I think he was probably very good, but Ridley Scott did feel that he was just too short compared to Gina Davis's six feet tall for it to really work. And finally, they got down to the fourth name on the list, and it was Brad Pitt. Is that why they had him grow out as stubble in this movie? Because he looked too young. I think so, because he really felt like he looked too young. In the audition, he said to Brad Pitt, I want to see a real sociopath. And

Pitt later admitted, I was fresh out of Missouri. I had to go home and look up what the definition of sociopath actually was. He does do the accent. I found his accent was very natural in this movie. Yeah, because he's from Missouri. He's a Missouri boy. But Kytel, on the other hand, I was like, just don't have him do an accent. I know. I found his accent. I found his accent. accent so distracting in this movie. Yeah, you are not from Arkansaser. No. But, of course, the chemistry with Gina was undeniable. She became very flustered in that audition, and she actually pushed Ridley to, quote, hire the blonde one, which is, of course, Brad Pitt. Well, it's fun because it's a reversal of expectations in that he's arguably more attractive, right? He becomes the sex object in a really fun

way. He's very, very hot in this movie. So hot, so charming. And I love how kind of weasily he lets himself be in this, too. It's super weasily. Hot weasel. But they do. do a good job. He hides the ball, and also he doesn't feel physically intimidating, which I think is important. Yes. I worry that Billy Baldwin, right? With the Michael Madsen scenes, they're always a little charged with him and Susan Sarandon because he's a big guy. Yeah, because he's a little scary. But JD doesn't seem scary. It seems like Gina can take him. And that's how you know her guard's going to get down. And it's such a fun contrast. It's great. I like that. On June 11, 1990, the shoot kicked off. It was scheduled to last 12 weeks, and it began with the scene where Gina Davis rolls out her suitcase. Now, she had spent a year pursuing this role. She had taken dialect coaching. She had had all of her lines written out phonetically to be able to nail the accent. And Susan Sarandon didn't do jack shit. And she's

like, I don't need to. On day two, they filmed the Western bar scene. This is the scene before the assault. It was shot at the Silver Bullet in Long Beach, which you can still go to, although it's now known as the Cowboy Country Saloon. And fun fact, the dance that they're doing in that scene is called The Tush Push, and it was choreographed by Patsy Swayze. Patrick's Swayze's mom. Wow. Yes. Funny the Tush Push is now most known as a football play run by the Philadelphia Eagles amidst many other teams. Interesting. I bet you anything that started as a line dance, but I don't know that for sure. Oh, no, no, definitely, this is years later. I'm saying the football thing is very

modern. Got it. The use of that name. I don't care about football, but thank you. Now, to loosen the performances, Ridley gave each actress earphones that was blasting music so they could kind of shout their lines across the table. I really like the effect that that has on this scene. It actually feels like a much more believable bar scene. We studied this scene in my sound class in film school and one of my teachers worked on this movie in the sound department and they talked about that and using something like a thumper, for example, which does like a low frequency beat for everybody to move their heads to you that they can then cut in post. It's really good. So often you see situations where everybody is, you know, talking quietly across the table to

each other and there's just random dancing in the background. Or they're on a plane and they're like, hello, where are you going today? No way. Hi! Also, both women, persuaded the prop guy to swap in real tequila. They wanted to have a little bit of sense memory. So they're doing all these takes. They think they're taking all these shots and they're like getting rip roaring and having a great time. And afterwards they asked the prop guy. They're like, how much did you do you think we drank? And he's like a third of a shot. They were like, oh, okay. Now, the assault scene with Timothy Carhart was understandably very difficult to shoot. And Susan Sarandon really pushed back on her firing the gun and killing him afterwards. She still felt this was very unnecessary. But Ridley Scott

stayed true to Callie's script and he was like, I'm sorry this has to stay in, so they kept it. There's no movie without it, unfortunately. You know, you do need it. I know. I don't know what her argument was without that. You have to do it. The first week wrapped on schedule and on budget without any major hiccups, as did week two and three. So one month in, Ridley Scott was feeling pretty great. The sex scene between J.D. and Gina was a huge success. And apparently Ridley Scott spent most of this spring Brad Pitt's abs with Evian and oiling him down. Sure. And all three were very proud of what they. had made, which they felt was a sex scene from the female POV. And I agree. I think it's really great.

Yeah, it's well done. Also, you know what I think it actually accomplishes really well? Sex is fun. Yes. Which is what Thelma is experiencing for the first time. Exactly. I like that they're not so preoccupied with making it sexy or sexual in like a pornographic way. It's just like, this is a good time. Yeah. Let's have a good time. Let's enjoy each other. And also, you know, of the two of them, the one who is far more exposed in that scene is Brad Pitt. Oh, totally. Yeah. Next, it was time to film the proposal scene. And Callie Corey was very often on set. She felt very strongly about this. She had written it as a really tender moment for Louise. It had roses, champagne, like a love song, and in a sort of mock exchange of I-dos. And Susan Sarandon was like, I do not do that.

She said the scene was going to let all the air out of the film, that it would ease the tension so much, they wouldn't be able to recover from it. She was also like, why am I driving off of a cliff if I've just had this moment of hope, basically? And Michael Madsen agreed. He was like, I just just don't think that Jimmy is this kind of guy, and he didn't think that Louise had anything to do with a guy like that. And Ridley Scott was like, I see your point. He was open to cutting it, but then they couldn't do that because they needed something to intercut with Thelma and J.D.'s scene. So the three of them together reworked that whole sequence on set. And I really love where it landed. CaliCori did not. She didn't think Louise would ever be with someone volatile who would flip a table, and Jimmy was meant to be

one of the more sympathetic characters. And this really outlines the major dynamic problem between Callie Kory and Ridley Scott, which is that she wanted her script to be honored to the letter. And I get it. She'd poured so much of herself into this. This is the first thing she's ever written and gotten produced. But definitely she had a lot of difficulty relinquishing control when it came to what was being filmed on set.

According to Ridley, quote, every scene was a bloody debate. Meanwhile, he was also debating with Susan Sarandon, who was very fiercely protective of her character's integrity and also of Gina Davis. She was particularly pissed when she heard that Ridley Scott had asked Gina to do a topless shoot, with Thelma throwing her top off the back of the car, feeling free and liberated and wild. And the ever-agreable Gina had turned to Susan for her opinion. And Susan said, oh, for heaven's sake, can you think of any reason why you should? Gina Davis was like, no. Susan said it was exploitation, marched over to Ridley Scott, and made it very clear Gina Davis would not be taking her shirt off. The two did develop a lifelong

friendship and bond that continues to this day. It's very sweet. But for the most part, it sounds like both women felt very respected on set and had a very good time. Ridley Scott, grumpy as he may be, did a pretty good job at letting the female perspectives on set be heard. He also kept things on time and on budget. They spent about $115,000 on five vintage Thunderbirds, each were tricked out, some were kept intact, others were rigged for camera mounts. He actually operated the camera from a side mount for at least one of the first car speeding scenes. But they also caused problems. One of them apparently caught fire, and of course, some were eventually driven off a cliff. But Susan Sarandon had a different bone to pick. She really wanted one of the cars, but Ridley Scott gave them all to his

sons. She was pissed. She did really love driving in this movie, though. She said it was really fun, especially in the desert. What I learned is that you do your best acting when you're really just trying to drive a car and not thinking about anything else, just hitting your marks. I was driving pretty fast by the time we finished the movie. There are one or two shots where you, it's a couple of dudes in wigs that you can kind of pick out that are pretty funny. For sure. Now, in early August, the crew arrived in Moab, Utah, and by now it was stinking hot, plus the town of Moab, not known for its exciting party scene, and they were pulling 15-hour days.

In addition, they had the hardest scenes ahead of them when Thelma and Louise locked the state trooper in the trunk of his car, blow up the truck, and drive off the cliff. Ridley's vision was set and the storyboards were locked in, but again, Susan, Callie, Gina, and now Allad Ladd Jr. had opinions of their own about the remaining scenes. I'm sure Ridley Scott is loving this. So first up, the... Why don't make movies and women? You do, sir. Most of your movies have them. So first up, the police radio shooting scene. Now, Ridley worried that men were not going to see this movie unless it had action and comedy in it.

So he was always looking for scenes to lighten things up. I understand where he's coming from. I like a lot of these sequences. So he thought it would be fun to have... have the women terrorize a family man cop. I agree. I think the sequence is very funny. Now, Callie Corey had actually written the scenes that an older Mexican man in a truck ended up rescuing the cop. But Ridley Scott was actually being driven to the set from his rental house one day when he happened to see the guy that you see in the movie. Yes. With dreads, smoking a jay, neon outfit, peddling a bicycle. So Scott was like, stop the car. He got out and hired the guy because he loved the randomness of it, felt that it was the perfect addition to the scene.

Well, it's fun because it's unexpected. I thought it was so funny. I loved it. Well, especially because, like, we've seen the Mexican-American guy with a truck with, like, the chickens in the back who comes across. You know, like, we've seen that scene a hundred times. Like, this version where it blows the smoke into the hole, we have not seen. It's very funny. Yeah, I love it.

I'm Team Ridley on this. Again, Callicuri was not happy. But he pressed ahead. He was getting pretty fed up with her constant two cents, and he started limiting her set visits, feeling that he had given her the time of day before the shoot, but now it was his set. She really did not see it that way. She said, quote, there were a lot of people who wanted to be the final authority on this movie, and I make that really difficult for people.

I don't think you can look at Ridley and say this is definitely his movie if I'm in the picture or Susan or anybody else. It's so much mine. Again, I get it, but at the point when you have handed this off to a director, you do need to back off to a certain degree. That's just my opinion. I'm not saying don't voice your opinions, but I don't know. I mean, what do you think?

you've been a director and a writer. I ultimately do believe that there needs to be one decision-making authority. Right. I do believe, obviously, like you said, solicit the opinions and whatnot. But if it's getting disruptive enough that you're losing time on set, I can understand the need or desire to restrict access because at a certain point. And actually, I think what really does very well, especially in this movie, is it seems like he actually has said, look, I'm going to leave a lot of your performances to you, Gina Davis and Susan Sarandon. I'm going to be more focused on bringing this to life visually in certain ways. I'm going to be focused on, you know, how can I make sure it remains accessible to certain parts of the audience? I actually think there's a pretty good

delegation of powers already on this movie. I agree. And also, like, he didn't change that much. When you look at the couple of things that he changed. Exactly. That's my point. Yeah. Now, while tensions were simmering a little bit on set, things had boiled over quite a bit more back at the studio, specifically in Pathay's marketing department, which had no clue how they were going to sell this. It was apparently all anyone could talk about. Foster, who worked in market research, told Becky Akeman and off the cliff, quote, your traditional young male moviegoer was not going to watch a couple of women in their mid to late 30s kick ass and shake up, and a huge amount of the movie takes place in a car with two ladies talking.

But of course, the biggest issue by far was the ending. Ridley Scott had it in his contract that he got to shoot that ending, and both he and Alan Ladd Jr. were committed to it, but the marketing department knew that it was a major risk financially, and so they all agreed that they needed a backup. They cycled through a bunch of alternate endings, including Thelma and Louise getting 15 years in prison or the death penalty or maybe an escape to Mexico or maybe Louise does just push Thelma out of the car at the last minute. None of those work. Yeah.

I think the only version that I could even see, and I don't think it works as well, but like the only version that you could say maybe could work could be something where Kytel helps them abscond to Mexico. But then what sucks is you've undermined the message of the movie because you've then handed the power back to the male character, you know, in the end. and they have to be, quote, rescued. Exactly. And so you can't do it.

No. And so they're kind of all noodling these ideas. Meanwhile, Ridley had one major scene to tackle, which was, of course, blowing up the tanker truck. The marketing team really wanted this because they wanted to be able to sell it as an action movie. It's the most Looney Tunes moment in the entire movie. It is very funny, but it's like...

And you know what? I enjoy it, but yes, it is. Sure. He directed Marco St. John, who played the trucker to be as crude and repellent as possible. Callie Corey, of course, really hated this because he came across as a caricature. He does. I agree with her on this, but at this point, she didn't have any real power on set. Susan Sarandon, though, did. And she objected to some of the things that they had Louise saying in this scene and also doing. They had her jumping up and down afterwards. Like it was a victory beat. So she is the one who added, how would you feel if someone did that to your mother, your sister, or your wife and part of that dialogue? And on August 20th, when they had basically landed on the version of events that they were going to film, they had one $79,000 tanker to blow up. And of course, timing was everything. Now,

St. John had turned down a stunt double, and he was standing about 50 yards away from the truck. Yeah, it's him. It's a great shot. It is a great shot. Ridley Scott said, all right. So I'm going to say, ready, steady, go, and the blast is going to happen on go. And St. John's like, okay. And so he stands there and Ridley Scott goes, ready, boom, and blew the truck up. So they did Alan Rickman on Diehard with the fall. Yes. So his reaction is very real and very surprised. The marketing team watched the Dailies. And they're They were, of course, thrilled. Just do that 100 times for the trailer. Quick, someone bring in Michael Bay. Now, around this time, Ridley Scott also decided that he needed to go back and reshoot the rape scene. He felt that it was not violent enough, what they had captured, and he wanted to justify

the remainder of the movie. It was a difficult decision. Both Gina Davis and Timothy Carhart had a really hard time with it. She apparently walked off set because she was so upset. He felt really terrible. Carhart did. He called her and apologized. I will say, though, I appreciate that he did this.

and didn't shy away from how uncomfortable and violent that assault was. I think it was necessary. I agree. Now, the last week of August rolled around, the car chase scene was complete, and it was time to shoot the final sequence. And Al-A-Lad Jr. checks him with Ridley Scott, and he's like, all right, what's the alt-ending that you've chosen? And Ridley's like, we never thought of one.

And that was that. They didn't film anything else. Good. They could only roll cameras at Dead Horse Point State Park with very strict conditions. They could only do it when rafting trips weren't passing through for obvious reasons because you don't want to smush the whitewater rafters. And they had to clear the wreckage of the cars away afterwards. And the schedule was really tight because of this. They had four days to shoot the final sequence.

Also, cast and crew had other commitments, other movies lined up. If they ran over, it was going to cost more than $600,000. And they had around 30 shots to squeeze into that four-day window. Also, nobody was really sure that the car stunt was going to work, even though Ridley's Scott had directed several car commercials. He didn't know if it was going to behave the way that it needed to, which of course is launching upwards in that very heroic moment versus just kind of teeter tottering face first into the canyon.

And they hadn't tested it and they only had three vehicles available for the launch. So they stripped them down to make them as light as possible. They removed the engines. And what they actually did was they used a cable and pulley system pulled by a speeding Jeep, which I assume was going in the opposite direction that would send the car forward and kind of slingshot it into the air. Off a ramp. Right, off a ramp. So they spend a whole day working on this.

They spent hours setting everything up. They let it rip. And Chris, the car just goes, yeah, barely clears the edge, tips at an awkward angle. Like the tank in Raiders of the Lost Star just like tipping over the clip falling. And crashed down like a boulder. It was obviously a major fail.

So they had to try again the next day. They set the whole thing up. They wait for the perfect light around 4 p.m. And this time they got it. And they didn't even have to launch the third car. And Susan said, that was for me? And he said, no, it's for my sons. He also shot a few extra bits that could be plugged in for an alternate ending,

including a few more angles of the car as it falls, the state troopers gathering at the canyon's edge, and Harvey Keitel's character picking up the Polaroid, Dalma and Louise, took at the start before staring out over the canyon. And then, of course, the last thing that they filmed was the two of them holding hands when Louise presses down. And with that, production wrapped. Do you know if the kiss was scripted?

It was not. That was an addition by Susan Saran. What I was wondering. Good for you, Susan. It's a great moment. It's amazing. Now, in September of 1990, Ridley moved to London to begin post-production, and he cut Thelman-Louise with British editor Tom Noble, who had just won an Oscar for Witness. I love Witness, and of course worked with Hans Zimmer on the score. But back in Los Angeles, the studio was still like, we don't know what to do about this thing. Mimi Polk was pushing for a freeze frame of the car mid-air, but Tom Noble felt that that was too close

to the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which, of course... That's fair. That's true. It's fair. The movie had already been compared to. So in Noble's edit, the car actually crashes all the way into the canyon, and you see Harvey Kytel run to the edge and grab the Polarite. And Mimi Polk did not like this. But in October of 1990, Thelma and Louise had its first test screening at the Cineplex,

Odeon Cinema in Illinois, one of Lattie's favorite places to test Middle America. And things started out pretty well. The audience was gasping and cheering at all the right moments. And then came the final scene. And the room fell silent. Because Ridley Scott had gone rogue. He had snuck in an alternate ending for the test screening, a brief last shot lasting a few seconds of the two women still driving the car,

surviving the fall, as a metaphorical survival, or so he intended. No, Ridley, no. That is, okay, like, this is very artsy, but come on. Like, we're literal. We are literal Americans. We cannot, we're like, oh, they're alive? What? Alan Ladd Jr. literally stood up and yelled, what the fuck is that?

Yeah, I would too, honestly. Now, the audience's excellent score was just 11%, which was well below the 25% average. And the producers are like, something's really wrong. We don't know what to do. Alan Ladd Jr. is like, we have another preview in San Francisco in a couple of days. Cut that shit out of the end of the movie, leave everything else as is, and see what happens. And, of course, he was right. The must-see rating doubled to 49%.

audiences wanted exactly what Calli Corey had fought for the whole time. But meanwhile, Pathé was coming apart. John Carlo Peretti, the Italian financier who controlled the company, was under massive financial pressure. He had defaulted on a bunch of loans, and Credit Liones had accused him of financial wrongdoing. We've covered him before. Don't they merge with MGM at this point? Doesn't PATH get absorbed by MGM or something with Credit Liones? Basically. So long story short, Pthéthé is a total financial disaster at this point, and he pulled all of the money that was earmarked to promote movies like Thelma and Louise. It did come out that, yeah, he had bilked credit Leon Eza out of like $1.4 billion. He was eventually found guilty of perjury, tampering misuse of corporate

funds and fraud. Whoopsies. And he hadn't paid the processing lab. So according to Mimi, the negative was held hostage. We couldn't even get access to the film to color time it, which meant that they had to postpone the release date from March of 91 to the last weekend of May. and apparently Alan Ladd Jr. had to write personal checks to keep some things afloat. So at this point, they really needed word of mouth because they didn't have any ad money. They also couldn't pay editor Tom Noble at that point. He had to bail. And so Mimi Polk stepped in and managed the final cut. And she is the one who restored the freeze frame ending of the car in midair. So Thelma and Louise finally premiered on May 24th, 1991 at the start of a very crowded summer. I'm going to say that's the disadvantage of going May is your entry. summer season, and if you don't have a marketing budget, you're going to get crowded out. Right. But it went up against Terminator 2 Judgment Day, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves,

city slickers, and more. And despite all of that, despite no ad dollars behind it, Thelma and Louise, was a financial success. But its label as a so-called man-hating revenge fantasy led to massive amounts of debates and think pieces. It even inspired a University of Texas anthology of scholarly essays and a University of California collection of monographs. In 1991, Times Richard Shickle rounded up the varying hot takes in a five-page cover story. Mary Lucy, a lesbian activist in Los Angeles, said Thelma and Louise as, quote, the first movie I've ever seen which told the downright truth. Joe Leo, a social commentator, called it, quote,

a peon to transformative violence, an explicit fascist theme. Kathy Bell, a Houston environmental communication specialist who was once married to, quote, a redneck control freak, found the courage to dump him after a liberating weekend trip with a girlfriend, said, quote, it was like seeing my life played before my eyes. New York Daily News columnist Richard Johnson said it justifies armed robbery, manslaughter, and chronic drunken driving as exercises in consciousness raising and is degrading to men with pathetic stereotypes of testosterone-crazed behavior. Now, seems that most of the women felt pretty favorably about it, although not all of it. Sheila Benson, a Los Angeles Times film critic,

did call it a betrayal of feminism. But I do think it's interesting that all the men are like, this movie is wholly irresponsible. Which Kelly Corey was like, this is so stupid. She pointed out, you know, go watch a Martin Scorsese movie and get back to me. Like, this is so much less violent than most of the stuff that's out there. But Thelma and Louise kept growing in popularity all summer and ended up making $45 million at the box office on around a $16 million budget. It did great. Very good. It earned six Oscar nominations, including for Scott as director, Adrian Biddle, who you mentioned for cinematography, Noble for editing, and Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis, of course, both for Best Actress. But it was Callie Corey, who won.

for Best Original Screenplay. Yeah. I'm glad both were nominated for Best Actress. Do you know who won Best Actress that year? It is Jody Foster for Silence of the Lambs. Oh, interesting. The one thing I was going to mention was I wonder if strategically it would have been better, and I know it would be unfair in a sense, but to put Gina Davis into Best Supporting Actress and then put Sarandon into Best Actress so they're not competing against one another, but that would kind of be gaming the system because they really are both best lead actress.

It's a two-hander. I mean, Supporting Actress category that year was way less stuff. It's Kate Nelligan, Prince of Tybes, Juliette Lewis, Cape Fear, Jessica Tandy, fried green tomatoes, Mercedes, Mercedes, Mercedes, Ruele, Rale, Fischer King, and Diane, Rambling Rose. So, yeah. Yeah, I just wonder. And also, because I feel like they crowd each other out a little bit in lead actress. I mean, either way. But anyway, it's just an interesting thought. I'm not mad about Jody Foster winning that. I do think she deserves it for Clarice. But Gina Davis, also wonderful.

Callie Corey, shortly after, won a seat on the Writers Guild of America board, and she advocated for writers to be allowed to visit the sets of their movies. She was mostly pleased with how Thelma and Louise turned out about 75 to 80% happy by her own estimate. But the success around the film pulled her away from other projects and she had a hard time getting us passionate about anything else the same way. She worked as a script doctor for a bit. She wrote something to talk about. She tried to direct, but Lessa Halstrom got the job instead. And of course, she would go on to Mary T-Bone Burnett. If you don't know who he is, look him up. And Callie, of course, created the TV show Nashville in 2012, which I absolutely love.

enough to see the cast live in concert. And because we are talking about Nashville, I do have to say how heartbroken we were to hear about Hayden Panetteer's passing. She is so, so good on that show. She is the best part of that show. And she turned in truly iconic performances, obviously on Nashville, but also on heroes, many, many other shows and movies. She was taken way, way too soon. So rest in peace, Hayden and our condolences to her family. In 2016, Susan Sarandon and Gina Davis reunited in Cannes for the film's 25th anniversary and asked whether Thelma and Louise could be commissioned by a major studio today

Sarandum responded, maybe as an animation. She said, quote, I don't think the studios have had an epiphany about women in film because after Thelma and Louise, it didn't happen. And that movie made a lot of fucking money. She's right. It did. And that wraps up our coverage of Thelma and Louise.

So, Chris, what went right? Well, thank you, Lizzie. A wonderful story for a wonderful movie. I'm going to choose Gina Davis. I have not seen every movie she's been in, but of everything I've seen, I think she is pitch perfect in this movie. And I think Sarandon is phenomenal, but I agree. I think Thelma is the role that is such a tightrope walk. And I really believe her every step of the way. She is such a chameleon in this movie in a sense. I love the wallflower to John Dillinger sort of arc that she goes through.

And I think that's also a testament to the writing. But she, He's a phenomenally talented actor who brings both the drama and the comedy. She has some of the funniest moments in the movie. And then at the end, when she suggests, what if we keep going. Yeah. It's also one of the most heartbreaking moments of the movie, maybe the most. And so, again, after watching The Accidental Tourist and we just cut through an island, and I think she's so good.

Yeah. All hail Gina Davis, Summer. All hail, Gina Davis, Summer. All hail, Salma, and Louise. Yes. Well, I'm going to give it to two people because I can't just choose one. And that is Ridley Scott and Callie Corey. Yeah. I understand that they were at odds during certain parts of this. I understand that neither was particularly happy with the other in terms of, you know, the push and pull. However, they created something wonderful. She stuck to her guns with this script and it obviously paid off. She chose to make something completely unmarketable, basically, because she knew that people would want to see it and she was right. And Ridley Scott read it and knew that that was the case too and honored really almost all of her wishes. And it sounds like Ridley Scott does do a good job of listening to the

the people that he works with, as grumpy as he may be, and we know he's grumpy. But I really appreciate him. I appreciate the movies that he makes. And to your point, he has made some of the best movies with female protagonists because it's not about them being women. And I understand that this one is, you know, in terms of the subject matter, but he has a way of treating women as people in the movies that he makes. And I really appreciate that. And I love, I love Ridley Scott. I love him. And I love Cali-Corey. So that's my what went right. I think to the point that she made about it's 75 to 80% of what I wanted it to be. I think any of us who are lucky enough to work in movies or have the opportunity to direct or write,

what we always have to remember, too, is the possibility that actually 75% of what we wanted it to be actually may be the best version of the movie that was ever possible. Because 75% of what you wanted it to be plus 75% of what Ridley Scott wanted it to be. Plus, you know what I'm saying? 75% it actually becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Yes. I think this movie is an example of a movie that takes the best. best of what everyone has to offer and they all elevate each other really well. I agree. Chris,

if people would like to support this podcast, how can they do that? When you're going to drive off a cliff with your friend, you should listen to what went wrong as you're doing it. If you're interested in supporting this show, first of all, you're listening, you're supporting it. We really appreciate it. Number two, you can leave a rating and review on whatever podcaster you're listening to us on. That really helps us with visibility. Number three, hit follow or subscribe on whatever podcatcher you are enjoying this show on. So our episodes drop every Monday. and occasionally Friday for you guys to listen to. Number four, we are now offering bonus episodes and an ad-free RSS feed on Spotify,

Apple, and Patreon. For $5 a month, no matter which platform you sign up through, you get at least one bonus episode a month, typically two. These are usually reviews that are covering new movies, conversations between me and Lizzie. You also get an ad-free RSS feed, so every episode will hit your feed with no ads. However, if you are on Apple, it takes a few extra hours to load, so it may not show up until the afternoon of the Monday that the episode drops. Again, we can't do anything about that, but if you'd like to send some hate mail to Tim Cook and the folks at Apple, Oh, feel free.

Feel free. If you want to go the extra mile, if you want to jump over the proverbial financial cliff with us, you can sign up on Patreon for our full stop tier, $50 a month, gets you a Thelma and Louise shout out just like one of these. All right, David, hit me with some of those sweet Hans Zimmer guitar licks, and everybody, gather around real close so I can give you a smooch before we drive off the cliff together. Adrian Peng Korea Alex Barrett Angeline Renee Cook Ben Shindleman Blaise Ambrose

Brian Donahue Brittany Morris Brooke Cameron Smith C Grace B Chris Leal 3 David Friskillante

Darren and Dale Conklin M Zodia Evan Downey Felicia G film it yourself Don't make me do it for you Frankenstein Galen and Miguel

The Broken Glass Kids The Casting Crew win a trip to Browntown. Half Greyhound. Lizzie Bassett is pretty damn fabulous too. Well, thank you. James McAvoy. Jason Frankel, J.J. Rapido, John D. Wilshire, Jory Hilipiper, Jeter Salto Del Giorgio, Carina Ceynardin, Amy Elvischlor McKeough, Loney, Lowe, Lousie, Lousie, Lousie, Lousie, Loussin, Mark Bertha, Matthew Jacobson, Michael McGrath, Nate, Ashley, Nate the knife, Pete Ree-Petersson, Rosemary Southward, Rural Jir, Sadie, Just Sadie, Soman Chianani, Steve Winterbauer, Suzanne Johnson, and the Provost family. The O's, well, now they still sound like

O's. Thank y'all. All right, thanks for jumping off the cliff with me, Chris. And fun fact, I'm actually about to go get in the car with my best friend and go on a weekend road trip. So let's hope it goes better than this one. You're going to call David and you're going to say, Pinos. Click. All right, Chris, what do we have coming up next? Oh, I'm sweet but a psycho, a little bit psycho.

Ava Max, we are doing Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which I am extremely excited to talk about. Me too. All right. Bye. Bye. What went wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer. Post-production and music by David Bowman. This episode was researched and written by Laura Woods.

and edited by Karen Krebsaw.