It going as spoiler light as I can (spoilers start shortly) follows a fairly predictable three act approach, ending roughly where most of us expected it to end. It's now been 15 years since the film was released, so here's a look back at 7 things you probably didn't know about Sweet Home Alabama! But I was terrified I was going to be fired before we even started. Sweet Home Alabama is a 2002 American romantic comedy film directed by Andy Tennant. And thats just what the movie-going audience was looking for back in 2002. When Jake shows up in the scene, Melanie is at her most vulnerable and they kiss. I think I had seen the movie before then and thought it was great, but I didn't get the feeling that anyone else did. Reese Witherspoon has been a part of a number of iconic movies over the years, including a short foray into rom-coms in the early '00s.The actress worked alongside Mark Ruffalo in Just Like . It was funny on paper and then when we shot it, when Josh says Melanie Carmichael is dead and you cut to Mary Kay with that reaction that her daughter is dead it was just like, Who thought this was funny? Apparently, I did., Tennant continued, When we showed it to a test audience the whole room was just like, What the fk! The audience loved the movie up until that shot. So there were some intense moments. D Carry me C home to see my G kin. Lucas: She rung my bell a couple of times. And they were both like, "Put it back.". The romantic comedy originally ended with a fake-out that Reese Witherspoons character was dead. She is cornered there by Kate's assistant, sent to gather information on Melanie's background. It is , however, a good. paul pion cantor net worth. It has come and gone ever since and I'm now way further beyond that where I don't give it much credence either way. [6][7][8][9], None of the three writers of the song were from Alabama; Ronnie Van Zant and Gary Rossington were both born in Jacksonville, Florida, while Ed King was from Glendale, California. We would have lunch every year or so. 30 Melanie and Jake have a _________ at the end of the movie. If youd like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website: Follow Film Stories on Twitterhere, and on Facebookhere. Learn to play Lynyrd Skynyrd with easy chords for beginners. "Sweet Home Alabama." "Sweet Home Alabama" premiered on September 27, 2002 20 years ago today. YOU'VE REACHED YOUR MONTHLY ARTICLE LIMIT. And my agent said, "We spoke to them and they thought you were great and they are going to bring you back." It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974, becoming the . I'm in many ways a lot like him. Imagine if the credits had rolled at just that point. And I was like, "I've known her since she was 15. This was first film to shoot in New York City after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. And she said, "I made this movie nobody is going to see. (Witherspoon's rep told Insider she was unavailable to be interviewed for this story. He moved to New York City in the mid-1990s and began acting onstage while getting bit parts in movies like "American Psycho" and "You Can Count on Me." I don't know if anybody else wanted me, and I mean Disney (which released the movie by its then theatrical distribution arm, Buena Vista Pictures) and everyone from the power positions. So we kept in touch. "[4] Andrew Sarris, critic for the New York Observer, said that the movie "Would be an unendurable viewing experience for this ultra-provincial New Yorker if 26-year-old Reese Witherspoon were not on hand to inject her pure fantasy character, Melanie Carmichael, with a massive infusion of old-fashioned Hollywood magic. 3:58. Lucas: I was scared of being famous. Another part of "Sweet Home Alabama" was also controversial in its reference to George Wallace, the governor of Alabama and supporter of racial segregation: In Birmingham, they love the governor (boo boo boo) Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Fred Ward, Patrick Dempsey, Josh Lucas, Ethan Embry, Candice Bergen, Rhona Mitra, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Courtney Gains, Visible crew/equipment: As Melanie is walking across the battlefield looking for her father she steps across 'dead bodies'. It was also covered by The Jacquie Young Band, Alabama, Wild Junkers, Chihiro Onitsuka and other artists. These numbers may not look so striking now, but they were, in the context of 17 years ago, really quite something. You can see tucked into the top of her left boot the battery pack for her microphone and the wires going up her skirt. 12. I was not someone who yearned to be famous and there was a point where I did see a shift. I really broke my accent years ago. For Reese, her accent came very quickly. I might have been the lowest-paid actor in the entire movie. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features Press Copyright Contact us Creators . UK DVD and Blu-ray release dates confirmed: up to mid-2023, Passion Of The Christ 2 set to be on eve of production, James Cameron reveals The Abyss and True Lies getting 4K disc releases this year. Padahal, Bobby Ray merupakan sosok yang selalu mendukung impian-impian Melanie sejak kecil. You can unsubscribe at any time. It reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974, becoming the band's highest-charting single. The film takes its title from the 1974 Lynyrd Skynyrd song of the same name. And I was like, "I cut six frames out of his close up." They were developing it for Charlize to star. We went to Aliceville and we just talked to people who would invite us onto their porch for some sweet tea. qatar to toronto flight status. [3], Roger Ebert, critic for the Chicago Sun Times, awarded it three-out-of-four stars, commenting, "It is a fantasy, a sweet, light-hearted fairy tale with Reese Witherspoon at its center. Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Josh and I continue to lobby Reese, but she's busy. It was always let's just find someone good. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER, FIRST TAKE, Worry, Darling: September Box Office Plummets to Worst Levels in 25 Years, The Munsters Review: Rob Zombie Loves These Misfit Monsters but Fails to Make Them Funny. The film cost some $30m, and would gross $127m in the US alone, off the back of a massive $35m opening in September of that year. The mildly entertaining romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama features an equally take-it-or-leave-it soundtrack that mixes country, rock, and pop and excerpts of George Fenton's score. Actors know what works for them and I needed him to loosen up a little bit. In the present day, Melanie is a successful New York fashion designer who has adopted the surname "Carmichael" to hide her poor Southern roots. This left the door open for Reese Witherspoon, who was cast the same weekend that Legally Blonde hit the box office. What do they say? Written by C. Jay Cox, it stars Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas and Patrick Dempsey. Lucas: Reese was very unsure of me and had no reason not to be. Jake and Melanie do this as a practical joke. "[14], Music historians examining the juxtaposition of invoking Richard Nixon and Watergate after Wallace and Birmingham note that one reading of the lyrics is an "attack against the liberals who were so outraged at Nixon's conduct" while others interpret it regionally: "the band was speaking for the entire South, saying to northerners, we're not judging you as ordinary citizens for the failures of your leaders in Watergate; don't judge all of us as individuals for the racial problems of southern society."[15]. [11] In addition to the original appearance on Second Helping, the song has appeared on numerous Lynyrd Skynyrd compilations and live albums. Earl Smooter: You can't ride two horses with one ass, sugarbean. Everyone is in shock. How come it took this long? Melanie doesn't know this. Lucas has built an impressive career that includes movies like "Hulk," "Glory Road," and "Ford v Ferrari." Director Andy Tennant directed TV shows in the 1980s ("The Wonder Years," "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," "The Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr"), then moved to feature films in the mid-1990s ("It Takes Two," "Fools Rush In," "Ever After: A Cinderella Story"). THEN AND NOW: The cast of 'Sweet Home Alabama' 20 years later. [13] Van Zant said: "Wallace and I have very little in common. "Sweet Home Alabama" follows Melanie as she travels to her Alabama hometown to finalize her divorce from her childhood sweetheart, Jake (Lucas), so she can marry Andrew (Patrick Dempsey), the son of the New York City mayor (Candice Bergen). Buena Vista Pictures; Alyssa Powell/Insider, TIMOTHY WHITE/TOUCHSTONE/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK. The Reese Witherspoon-headlined romcom Sweet Home Alabama nearly took a bit of a dark turn. It is still roaming town because it somehow survived the attempt to blow it up and it either never had cancer or has gone into remission. At the end of the movie (spoiler alert), Melanies wedding to Andrew is disrupted when its revealed she never signed her divorce papers. Answer: baby girl. We were the first movie to shoot there on the location since "Breakfast at Tiffany's.". The Carmichael Plantation, which Melanie tells the reporter is her childhood home, is the Oak Hill Berry Museum, a historic landmark in Georgia which is near the campus of Berry College in Rome, Georgia. So I had to throw him off the dock and from that moment on he hated me. Like Melanie and Jake in "Sweet Home Alabama," Sasha (Ali Wong) and Marcus (Randall Park) are childhood best friends, growing up next door to each other in . So, its hard for me to get it back. As Melanie is walking across the battlefield looking for her father she steps across 'dead bodies'. You can see tucked into the top of her left boot the battery pack for her microphone and the wires going up her skirt. You can also see this in the pictures at the end of the movie. Bobby Ray backs up her pretense that she is a relative and the family mansion is her childhood home. But even in Witherspoon's most optimistic moments, she probably didn't imagine that teaming up with filmmaker Andy Tennant, who just a year earlier helmed a movie that performed so poorly he was thrown in "director jail," and starring opposite an unknown leading man by the name of Josh Lucas would lead to enormous success. In 1975, Van Zant said: "The lyrics about the governor of Alabama were misunderstood. Tennant: When we tested the movie, people really didn't like the slap so we cut around it. Question: In the scene where Jake is driving Andrew to find Melanie, he tells the story about the cat. Andrew Hennings , Sweet Home Alabama. At the time, it had the highest September opening weekend, surpassing Rush Hour. 7. But at the same time, we were also making a comedy. Nonetheless, Clayton was persuaded to take the job, to "let the music be [her] protest. she would say to me. Witherspoon landed the lead role ahead of Charlize Theron, who was also considered, and the movie which co-stars Josh Lucas and Patrick Dempsey then plays out as something of a fairy tale. Ed Araquel/Netflix. She would be great." All rights reserved. Spoiler warning: the ending of Sweet Home Alabama is directly discussed towards the end of this article. It was a Civil War reenactment going on eight or 10 miles away. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in a hole, but just how deep is it? It's silly but it was really fun to make." And I was like, "What!?! The historic homes shown at Melanie's return to Pigeon Creek were shot in Eufaula, Alabama. Josh has that kind of charisma and star power that's rare. It was also the first film ever allowed to film in Tiffanys since Breakfast at Tiffanys in 1961. So at the premiere, I took my mom and had some of my friends and there was a party afterwards. A mid-credits sequence shows that they have a baby daughter, Melanie continues to thrive as a designer, and Jake opens a "Deep South Glass" franchise in New York. Why don't we do a love triangle where the love choices are between a great guy and the right guy? Mel's co-worker from the beginning of the movie, who comments on her accent He claimed that the song was originally intended as the unabashed defense of Alabama, and even Wallace, that the song appears to be: {{blockquote|I can understand where the "boo boo boo" would be misunderstood. "sweet home alabama" written by ronnie van zant, gary robert rossington, edward c. king. The general public didn't notice the words 'Boo! Lucas was convinced he wasn't connecting with Witherspoon and was going to get fired. If the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree, what is Melanie's daughter like? "[13], Further complicating the racial politics of the song is the fact that Merry Clayton and Clydie King, two well-known black studio singers, are heard on the track as backing vocalists. Unheard of. Sweet Home Alabama was the first film allowed to shoot in New York City after the September 11, 2001 attacks. Free or royalty-free photos and images. The film although predictable is full of funny moments and a lot of heart. "When we showed it to a test audience the whole room was just like, 'What the fuck!'" he said. Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback. ", Tennant: There was never a named actor attached to play Jake. When Melanie's mom says stuff like, "Go get them Yankees," and we play it for laughs, I don't know. I had remembered it being a decent rom com with some heart, but as I watched it, I realized that it followed the exact same pattern of a Hallmark Christmas movie: 1. Apparently, the clincher was the moment when the parents were looking at their dead daughter didnt get any laughs. The film ultimately ends with Witherspoons character staying with her ex-husband, and the pair of them get married again. We shot it at the actual Tiffany's in New York City. He tells everyone "Melanie Carmichael is dead." George Watters II. Earl Smooter: You can't ride two horses with one ass, sugarbean. I still like the plaque that hangs here in my office that says I'm an honorary member of the Alabama State Militiasigned personally by George C. Sure, the man had his flaws. I've done two movies with her, I did "Ever After" and this. Tennant: I was given the script; it wasn't very good. She ends up marrying him instead of her fiance. She calls off the wedding and heads down to the beach to plant lightning rods to create glass sculptures, where she confesses to Jake that she still loves him. Show 1 more answer. Even though theyd known each other for a while prior to working together, Reese didnt remember who he was! I agree with TheWrap's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and provide my consent to receive marketing communications from them. Being from Illinois and I live in New York, I was fascinated by the history and I was always surprised by how generous, kind, and friendly the people in the South were.