In Better Off Dead. I mean, I realize for plot purposes he couldn’t, but what was the obstacle for the character? Two dollars wasn’t that much back then, and if he was that freaked, surely he could have come up with it somehow. Or better yet, tell him, “I’ll give you fifty dollars if you’ll stop destroying my dad’s windows.” It’s one thing to say “Well, he’s a puss,” but handing over two dollars would be the real course of least resistance, wouldn’t it?
I don’t know, but the older I get, the fewer people “get” when I say “Twoooooo Dollllllaaaaaarrrrs” at times like food delivery collections. Some of the twenty-somethings just look at me like I’m nuts.
I wonder if the scene with the paperboys rolling up on Lane (corrected spelling, apologies) in the mist was an homage to the Baseball Furies in The Warriors.
I wonder if the scene where Ricky meets his true love is an homage to Jaws meeting the mutant Heidi chick in Moonraker.
I wonder if Kim Darby’s performance is an homage to her performance as Miri in the ST:TOS episode of the same name.
I also wonder what John Cusack thought was so horrible about the finished product that he never spoke to Steve Holland again.
I found this tidbit from 2008, and without asking Cusack himself, it seems that he just didn’t like the movie.
[
I’ve heard that Cusack’s a real dickbarn, actually.
I want my two dollars!! 
Because Lane didn’t owe the paperboy $2. His parents did.
Layne: “Sorry Johnny, I don’t have a dime”
It’s pretty understandable. I mean, his little brother got his arm stuck in the microwave, so his mom had to take him to the hospital. Then his grandma dropped acid this morning, and she freaked out. She hijacked a busload of penguins. So it’s sort of a family crisis.
Johnny: “I didn’t ask for a dime.”
Reading that, it seems that “One Crazy Summer” began shooting before “Better Off Dead” had been completed. This screening was the first time Cusack had seen “Better Off Dead”? Or had he seen it, hated it, and at this screening just couldn’t stand to watch it again?
I have heard that, in the years since, Cusack has had little affection for “Better Off Dead” but if he hated it that early on it seems strange that he would agree to do “One Crazy Summer”. Sure, it was early in his career, but he was booking other work- and if he really felt that “Better Off Dead” was completely horrible I’d imagine that he’d think that being further associated with Holland would be too detrimental to his emerging career to be justified by “hey, it’s work- take whatever you can get!”
Is it possible that this screening, during the shooting of “One Crazy Summer” was the first Cusack saw of “Better Off Dead”?
It’s the first time he saw the finished product, but he was there with Holland most evenings after shooting, helping with the editing and, apparently, cracking up with Holland over the gags.
Which is why I, and a lot of others, find the whole episode strange.
On Cusack’s Inside the Actors Studio, they don’t mention that movie, even when they go through the list of major career turning points. 