AIRPLANE! was released 43 years ago today. Still one of the most beloved comedies ever made decades later, the story of how it came to the screen is pretty unexpected…
A THREAD
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In the mid 1970s, David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker (ZAZ) were performing with the Kentucky Fried Theatre comedy group. To get inspiration for their skits they used to leave a VCR running overnight to record the late night TV commercials.
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One day when reviewing the tapes, they found they’d inadvertently recorded a 1957 airplane disaster movie called Zero Hour! Watching it back, ZAZ realised the film was unintentionally hilarious and started coming up with ideas for a comedy movie with a similar premise.
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ZAZ took the idea to Paramount and pitched it as “Animal House on a plane.” Paramount loved their script and greenlit it immediately. To avoid lawsuits, Paramount bought the rights to Zero Hour! for just $2500.
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In casting female lead Elaine Dickinson, ZAZ auditioned both Sigourney Weaver and Shelley Long. ZAZ cast Broadway actress Julie Hagerty who was starring in her first feature film.
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Robert Hays later said Julie Hagerty was the nicest person he ever met. Whenever she messed up a line she said "Sorry!" Once, Hays made a mistake and she said "Sorry!" Hays said it was his mistake, not hers and she said "Oh, sorry."
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Horror icons Vincent Price and Christopher Lee were both offered the part of Dr Rumack. They both turned it down and later regretted it. ZAZ then cast serious, dramatic actor Leslie Nielsen. The film completely reinvented his career as a comedic actor.
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ZAZ wanted actors with no-nonsense reputations in the supporting roles too which is why they cast Robert Stack (Rex Kramer), Lloyd Bridges (Steve McCroskey), and Peter Graves (Captain Oveur).
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Stack was famous for playing Eliot Ness in The Untouchables. He’d been ZAZ’s first choice since the first draft in 1974 and they asked him to deliver his speeches in the exact same earnest manner he did on the TV show as Ness.
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Legendary composer Elmer Bernstein had worked on The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape and composed the score for Airplane! ZAZ had issues with him as was too good. They wanted a B-Movie score and said "We didn't actually want, like, a really good score."
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With the film being such an obvious parody of the Airport movies, ZAZ tried to get Airport stars Helen Reddy and George Kennedy to appear as the nun and Captain Oveur. Universal threatened to sue though, so the idea was dropped.
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Producer Jon Davison said that after the film came out he received many letter from pilots saying they came very close to smashing their own planes into a terminal. They praised the film for its accuracy in depicting the moment.
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On a budget of $3.5m, Airplane! Took $171m at the box office and was the 4th-highest grossing film that year. It was the highest-grossing comedy ever until Ghostbusters came along 4 years later.
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Paramount never imagined the film would be such a big hit so hadn’t asked ZAZ to commit to a sequel. ZAZ turned down the chance of a follow-up, feeling they’d exhausted all airport gags. Paramount made a sequel anyway and, to this day, ZAZ have never seen it.
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