(Note Language) Director Greg Mottola reveals that Jon Hamm wanted to make Fletch happen so badly, he opened up his wallet.
Mottola told the website Uproxx that the Mad Man Emmy winner dumped 60% of his salary from their new movie, Confess, Fletch, to secure financing for three extra days of filming for the new comedy.
The Superbad director noted the modestly budgeted movie is currently suffering from “zero marketing” in spite of a respectable 85% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The marketing budget was not the only place the movie’s producer, Miramax, came up short, Mottola says: They wouldn’t budge on a 27-day shoot.
They tried looking for a producing partner, Mottola said, but, “Everyone said, ‘I don’t know that this kind of comedy works in this day and age.’ They just had a kind of like, ‘Who’s Fletch? I don’t think anyone cares anymore [attitude].'”
“So, basically, what we did is Jon gave back 60% of his salary to the budget. I gave back some of my salary, not as much as Jon because he’s richer than me and I’ve got three kids,” the director joked.
“And we bought three more days of shooting … 30 days in Boston and one day in Rome. And we said, ‘F*** it, we’re insane, we’re dumb. We’re going to make this movie,'” Mottola said.
He added, “So, we finished it and Bill shopped it around to a lot of different people, studios and streamers … and nobody wanted it.” The director called that “depressing.”
Confess, Fletch, based on Gregory Mcdonald‘s 1976 novel of the same name, is in theaters and is available on demand.
Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.