Gawker
So, this one time, actress Cynthia Nixon supposedly said a character would die in the Sex And The City movie, and since then everyone has been champing at the bit to find out which one. But the Times just profiled the head writer for the show and movie, and he mocked the idea of killing off a character. Although, in a way, he is killing someone, Carrie and Mr. Big's parents to be precise, by writing them out of Carrie and Mr. Big's wedding, because, he says, having parents at weddings is so cliché. The relevant quotes about the death and about the wedding:
Death:
It is either the seriousness [SATC writer Michael Patrick] King displayed in the final seasons of “Sex and the City” or a general sense of bleakness among his fans that has led some to speculate that he might have a taste for a particularly morose strain of melodrama. “You don’t know how many people came up to me when I was making the movie and said, ‘So is somebody going to die?’ ” he said. “Yup. Happy summer. Thanks for your $10. Enjoy your Diet Coke. Someone’s going to die. Like that’s what I’m going to do.”
Wedding:
While the film revolves around Carrie and Big’s wedding, Mr. King was insistent that no mother or father of the bride be shown. “My idea always was that these women were purely creations of New York,” he said. “The prototype of the series is that these are four grown-ups who make a family of one another.”
Also driving Mr. King’s decision was his fear of falling into cliché. “Who was going to play Carrie’s mother? Connie Stevens? It’s such a traditional sitcom limb. It’s the Thanksgiving episode, and there are Wilford Brimley and Elaine Stritch. I never wanted to do anything like that.”
Mr. King: Please rest assured that if you killed off one or, better yet, more than one of the Sex And The City characters, many peoples' Diet Cokes would taste even sweeter and they would no longer feel their $10 was totally wasted.
[Times]
Comments
Right. And casting Elaine Stritch in your comedy would be such a serious misstep.
I would watch this movie if all four main characters died, and the entire movie was spent graphically depicting their torture and death. Like "Passion of the Christ." (It should also be in Aramaic so we don't have to listen to Carrie's voiceovers.)
i will match the dollar amount of this movies profit if king just says the magic words.
"tranny-swallowing earthquake will open up to the fires of hell (whatsup sunnydale) and engulf all of these women, dragging them down kicking and screaming in barf/shit coloured ensembles. and also; jennifer hudson."
Also, I'd always just assumed that Cynthia Nixon might have been talking about her character's Alzheimer's-stricken mother-in-law. Who was precisely the type of well-known character actress/comedienne cameo he's pretending he's so above using.
Really really hoping one of the four girls turns out to be a man. Implausible? Maybe. Do I care? Not at all.
@BeRightBack: Elaine Stritch is a stitch. She's excellent as Mama Donaghy... but and I will not elaborate on this, I once spent a long evening locked in a brutal negotiation with Ms. Stritch where she was wearing nothing but a slip and a see-thru brassiere. I eventually won the negotiation and she repaid my inconvenience by hooking me up with a case of english muffins.
I shit you not.
@beirut: I don't know about the rest, but "whatsup sunnydale" made me smile.
"...driving Mr. King's decision was his fear of falling into cliché...
Sex and the City is Western civilization's only popular entertainment to have relied more on stock characters and ritualistic plot than Punch and Judy.
I'm having a hard time understanding why King is afraid of "cliché."
Seems to me you feed burlesque a few Emmy awards and all of it sudden it develops a phobia of fancy French words.
@Hamud Ibn Hamud: Outside, especially older characters, would shift the demographic of viewers to something the advertisers wouldn't like?
@Hamud Ibn Hamud: Strong all weekend long - but the last line of this comment is over-the-top perfect, so thanks.
Proving I don't have a phobia about heaping praise when praise deserves heaping.
If they don't die, does that mean there could a sequel?
@miss_msry: Yep: [www.hollywood.com]
Wouldn't the parents be around 106 by now?
Although I kind of like to think that Grandma Big would be played by the "rappin' granny" from The Wedding Singer.
Showing parents at their daughter's wedding is cliché, but showing a grown woman indulge in her obsession of shows and all things fashion and superficial isn't? Fo' serious?
Although it hasn't even come out yet and I have no intention of seeing it, I find myself caring(*) WAY too much about this movie.
(*and by caring I mean feeling strong negative emotions).
And I agree with TedSez. Parents would be a billion years old, and rappin' granny would be the movie's redeeming feature.
@bria: SNL did a parody skit (with Christina Aguilera as Samantha, who at the end outs herself as a tranny). Unfortunately, it seems to have disapperaed from YouTube. I have found this:
+ Watch video
Wait - did he really say "Thank you for your $10?" Is this only opening in the suburbs?
Steve's mother dies. Hilarity ensues.
Never mind whether or not someone dies in the SATC movie: when are we going to find out who killed Skipper, who mysteriously disappeared without comment between seasons two and three?
@ginger rant: and remember when carrie used to speak directly to the camera and they used to interview random new yorkers about each episode's main question during season 1?
SATC makes me want to die. Does that count? No?
"champing" at the bit?
@HeyWhoTookMyStapler: Doh!! it was supposed to be "obsession with shoes" not "shows".
Maybe that old crusty ballet dancer that Carrie did in the last season bit it. It also killed the last season of the show too.
I try not to take television too seriously, but I have to say I'm pretty offended by the idea that in order to be a fully-formed, "adult" you have to shed your parents. I think the first mature thing I did in my life was to realize that the constant exclusion my sisters and I inflicted upon my mother hurt her feelings incredibly, and that we should invite her to watch Talk Soup with us, even if it meant uncomfortable explanations of The Shocker, and lots and lots of nagging-via-condemnation-of-things-we-think-are-funny.
And as a New Yorker, I simply refuse to accept that if my city birthed, raised, and "purely created" an adult, that it would in any way resemble any of the characters on that show. The European tourists in a midtown Starbucks, with their sixth-day table-grabbing skills, are purer creations of New York than anything I've seen/heard of portrayed on that show.
@spanktastic: *throws down glove* Mikhail Baryshnikov is a one of my personal demi-gods, and I cannot allow his old crusty honor to go undefended. I would so go back to 1977 for him.
+ Watch video
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?