The movie Whoopi Goldberg wants to delete from history: “Let me out of this thing”
Every actor has at least one truly awful movie under their belt, because, quite frankly, you can’t always predict when a movie is going to turn out to be a disaster, unless, of course, you’ve signed onto Theodore Rex, for which you don’t have to be a genius to recognise that a buddy cop movie starring a dinosaur is going straight into the cinematic trash heap.
However, for Whoopi Goldberg, she made the mistake of agreeing to appear in the film during the height of her fame in the 1990s, but when she soon realised what a terrible idea it was going to be, she got herself wrapped up in a lawsuit. Now, why she agreed to star in the movie at all is a mystery, and can perhaps be chalked up to the fact that she wanted a change from being a singing nun.
Regardless, once production started to approach, things started to take a turn for the worse, as producer Stefano Ferrari told Slash Film, “Everyone was excited and things were moving ahead until suddenly Richard [Abramson; producer] would call Whoopi and she stopped picking up. And if he ever got her on the phone, there was always an excuse.”
So, with Goldberg backing away, the producers panicked about having to find their leading star, as director Jonathan Betuel explained, “It got to the point where Stefano was still paying holding money on the vast amount of money that was set aside. And Whoopi’s people, they basically said: we know you paid this, Stefano, and we’ll give you your money back. But if you’re looking for anything more than that, then sue us. Not in so many words, but that was the crux of it.”
With a lead actor who doesn’t want to be in your film, going as far as bringing up a lawsuit, there’s not much to do other than panic, and for all intents and purposes, Theodore Rex was heading straight to catastrophe. On the other hand, Goldberg actually offered to assist the film if she could work behind the scenes rather than in front of the camera, telling Ferrari, “Listen, let me out of this thing and I will help with the project”.
It was no good, and Abramson stupidly turned down her offer: “In hindsight, I think not agreeing to this was probably the biggest mistake on T-Rex. Which does not mean the film would have been any better, but I’m talking about from a financial standpoint,” Ferrari added.
In the end, Abramson listened to Goldberg’s team and sued her, but the issue was quickly settled: she would star in the movie for $7million. Why you’d want a lead actor in your film who actively doesn’t want to be there beats me, but hey, Abramson got what he wanted, even if it meant paying a larger price tag for Goldberg to stick around.
He revealed, “She didn’t want to sit down with me, but eventually her lawyers talked her into it. So we met in a room, we each had one attorney there, but they weren’t allowed to speak, and I remember sitting down, and she starts out with a bang. She goes, ‘Just for the record: I hate your guts’.”
She very reluctantly starred in the movie, which went straight to video before earning several Razzie nominations, including ‘Worst Actress’. Clearly, if your heart’s not in it, you can hardly be surprised that the outcome was this terrible.
