‘Grizzly II’: The star-studded horror sequel delayed for 37 years
The way Hollywood tends to work, especially when it comes to horror, is that the sequel to a hit movie will be made as quickly as possible to cash in, strike while the iron is at its hottest, and maximise the profits. Ironically, the 37-year wait between a history-making independent film and its successor only increased curiosity, with many of its cast members going on to achieve great things.
Delivering exactly what it said on the tin, 1976’s Grizzly was indeed a low-budget affair revolving around a bear with a taste for human flesh. The animal begins to turn the inhabitants of a national park into a staple part of its daily diet, leaving an intrepid ranger to try and stop the beast’s reign of terror once and for all.
It would hardly revolutionise cinema, but audiences couldn’t get enough. Cobbled together on a shoestring budget of $750,000, Grizzly took off at the box office to finish its theatrical run with an estimated $39 million in the coffers, which was more than enough to make it the highest-grossing independent feature of all time until John Carpenter’s seminal slasher Halloween arrived two years later.
Inevitably, there was a desire to get a sequel off the ground instantly, but it didn’t quite happen that way. Cameras on Grizzly II wouldn’t begin rolling until 1983, and even after principal photography had finished, the finished article wouldn’t premiere in front of a crowd until February 2020.
Under most circumstances, a cash-grab horror flick lost to the sands of time wouldn’t mean much, but Grizzly II was different. not only because it was the follow-up to the cinema’s biggest-ever indie hit but also because, through a modern lens, the ensemble was ridiculously stacked.
The female lead was played by Louise Fletcher, known for her Academy Award-winning performance as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Grizzly II was also one of the first roles for John Rhys-Davies after Raiders of the Lost Ark; it was the first American film for Timothy Spall, the first credited role of Charlie Sheen’s career, the third credited role for Laura Dern, and the feature debut of George Clooney.
Combined, that cast boasts four Oscars, a dozen Golden Globes, a Primetime Emmy, and four Baftas, who’ve appeared in some of the biggest, most popular, and most acclaimed pictures of the modern era. Of course, Grizzly II wouldn’t have had the foggiest it was packing so many success stories, but it was all thanks to one person that it ended up seeing the light of day.
Producer Suzanne C Nagy had been involved in Grizzly II since the very beginning, an arduous process that saw a producer flee the set after one day of shooting to leave the film without any money, a faulty mechanical bear making a mockery of the film’s prized asset, and multiple lawsuits being filed in an effort to prevent her from gaining creative control and finishing the damned thing.
Once she was finally granted the right to be placed in charge, Nagy acquired 17 minutes’ worth of clips to account for the missing footage, forged a semi-coherent story, and finally allowed Grizzly II to see the light of day. After all that, was it worth the wait, and was it any good? That’s not the point; it was finished, and that was the main thing.
