I saw Cannonball Run II on TV today and the number of stars in the movie is amazing.
Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Telly Savalas, Shirley MacLaine, Tony Danza, Ricardo Montalban, Frank Sinatra, among others are in this movie.
Why would they be in such a silly movie? And how can the filmmakers pay them?
A lot of them were good friends of Burt Reynolds. He did a lot of films around that time which seemed mostly to be a chance for his friends to get together and goof around.
Well, guest shots don’t require a lot of work and probably pay well enough for the actors and are cheap enough investment for the producers to make money.
We could have a 10 page thread where people listed stupid movies with big name actors which made loads of money. That’s showboz.
Sometimes, as some claim, they have no idea what the finished project is going to be. The film makers promise one thing, and deliver another and because of contracts, the actors can’t get out of it. I’m thinking of the notorious Caligula, with Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and Peter O’Toole.
Some of the actors claimed they had no idea what was going to happen. After all, Gore Vidal was writing it. But then Vidal dropped out and it went to hell from there. I’m not for certain, but I think O’Toole went so far as to try and sue the film makers. McDowell, at any rate, went on talk shows and condemned the movie, telling people not to see it. I think O’Toole did that as well.