How serendipity led Bill Murray towards one of his biggest-ever bombs: “I never saw her again”
There are an infinite number of reasons that can convince an actor to sign on for a project, and befitting his reputation as one of the industry’s pre-eminent oddballs, it’s entirely on-brand for Bill Murray to be led towards a movie by a visit to a Mexican bar he’d made one night decades previously.
On paper, how exactly that encourages a star to choose their next film makes absolutely no sense, but this is Murray. After all, he famously agreed to voice the title character in Garfield because he thought the Coen brothers were involved, only to discover that wasn’t the case.
Not that it dissuaded him from returning for the sequel, though, but his mind was no doubt made up by the huge pile of cash that was on offer. He’s also a notoriously difficult man to reach, so that one night on the town when he drank rum and partied the night away came in handy because the person he spent it with made such an impression he couldn’t turn them down.
The Academy Award-nominated star has been in plenty of acclaimed, award-winning, and classic features covering drama and comedy, but even he couldn’t resist the lure of the young adult literary craze that swamped cinema in the aftermath of Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games making billions.
Murray hopped onto that train with City of Ember, based on the novel by Jeanne DuPrau. Like almost every other property of its ilk, the four-book series was being eyed as a potential franchise until director Gil Kenan’s fantasy landed with an embarrassing thud at the box office, where it earned less than $18 million.
Displaying his commitment to the material, when Movies asked Murray how he got involved, the only response he could muster was, “I can’t remember, but someone sent me the script.” Fortunately, the screenplay in question was written by a name he recognised, remembered and wanted to reconnect with.
“Caroline Thompson’s a writer that I met a long time ago when I first went to California, and my agent sent me around to meet other writers,” he explained. “We went out to a bar that was a diner during the day on Lincoln Avenue. At night, it became a Mexican horn bar. And it was like a full orchestra with, like, six horns. And the temperature was about 130 degrees, and all people did was drink rum straight and dance.”
Murray “never saw her again” after that, and they never got the chance to work together, but Thompson would go on to pen the scripts for Edward Scissorhands, The Addams Family, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. When he saw her name on the City of Ember screenplay, his memory was jogged, and his interest was piqued.
He decided to call her up, they talked it over, and she spoke glowingly of director Gil Kenan, who’d also coincidentally end up helming Murray’s Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire 16 years after City of Ember. The fantasy adventure may have bombed hard, but at least he was able to reacquaint himself with Thompson.
