![]() In his Big review, Ebert floats a convincing theory. So what did Marshall get right that three other directors got wrong? ![]() (Not that audiences were encouraged to make the comparison as the New York Times noted, “Since ‘Big’ was the fourth movie in recent months to deal with body switching, and since none of the others did particularly well, Fox’s advertising campaign made no mention of the subject.”) It remains one of the most beloved movies of the ’80s, long past the point at which Like Father, Vice Versa, and 18 Again faded from our collective memory. (No one seemed to bother acknowledging the most direct influence: the mother-daughter body-switching comedy Freaky Friday, based on Mary Rogers’s YA novel, a hit for Disney back in 1976.) Whatever the case, the fourth film in the cycle wasn’t exactly keenly anticipated the New York Times’ big summer preview didn’t even mention Big, focusing instead on high-profile sequels like Crocodile Dundee II and Rambo III.Īnd yet Big became the third-biggest hit of the season, behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Coming to America, its $114 million domestic gross more than doubling the combined receipts of its three predecessors. Every time someone comes up with a circus script, there are suddenly 25 circus scripts in town.” Meanwhile, Vice Versa co-writer and co-producer Dick Clement claimed that film was somehow the freshest because it took its title and inspiration from a book written in 1888. “These films come in waves,” shrugged Like Father director Rod Daniel in Starlog magazine. “Sooner or later, they’re going to get this right,” shrugged Roger Ebert, while the Christian Science Monitor was the most succinct, declaring the body-switch “a plot gimmick that may be ready to retire.” All received mixed-to-negative reviews, and by the time the third arrived, critics were already crying uncle. ![]() Like Father Like Son, starring Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron, kicked off the cycle in October of 1987 Vice Versa, with Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage, followed in March of 1988 18 Again!, with George Burns and Charlie Schlatter, was in theaters less than a month later. In one of those occasional instances of Hollywood parallel thinking (or perhaps something more nefarious) that results in dueling deadly-asteroid movies or competing animated-bug tales, Big was the fourth film in less than a calendar year that concerned a teenage boy’s mind and soul inhabiting the body of a much older man. ![]() Most distressingly, Big smelled like a photocopy. Brooks was a multiple Oscar winner, but when you’re pushing a movie on the strength of its producer, you’re in trouble. When the coming-of-age comedy/drama hit theaters 30 years ago this week, it didn’t sound like much: star Tom Hanks had banked as many flops as hits (recent lowlights included Volunteers, The Man With One Red Shoe, and the barely released Every Time We Say Goodbye), director Penny Marshall only had one previous feature credit (the middling Jumpin’ Jack Flash), and screenwriters Gary Ross and Anne Spielberg were first-timers. Nobody expected much from Big, and in retrospect, it’s not hard to see why. Photo: Brian Hamill/20th Century Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
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