Homemade ‘The Princess Bride’ Fan Film Gathers Jennifer Garner, Diego Luna, Jack Black, And More For A Good Cause
If we know anything about Hollywood celebrities, it’s that they love to perform, which we’ve seen tovarying degrees of successin quarantine over the past few months. ButGhostbusters: Afterlifedirector Jason Reitman figured out how to put that love of performing to good use, recruiting some of the biggest celebrities in the world to shoot a secret homemade fan film ofThe Princess Bride, to be released on Quibi chapter by chapter for two weeks, starting this Monday. Revealed over atVanity Fair, the fan film will raise funds for theWorld Central Kitchencharity, which has been supporting thousands of restaurants by paying them to provide meals to the needy.
“The week that the stay-at-home order came through in California, I just woke up one of the first mornings, I think like most people did, feeling as though, All right, I need to be able to do something of value,“Reitman told Vanity Fair, which debuted the teaser forThe Princess Bride"Home Movie.” “I just thought, Can we remake an entire movie at home? And I had seen that a fan-madeStar Warshad been done. I just started reaching out to actors I knew, saying, ‘Is this something you’d want to do?’ And the response was kind of immediate and fast. It was like, ‘Oh—that sounds likefun.'”
Quibi founderJeffrey Katzenberglatched on the idea and offered to distribute the homemade project, which, despite its star-studded cast, has a distinctly scrappy, homemade quality, with the stars using household objects like hoses, cookware, blankets, and plastic lightsabers to recreate their scenes. Several celebrities switch off playing the same character too, with Haddish stepping into the role of Buttercup first before Jennifer Garner throws on a sheet to play the princess bride. The rest of the cast is an IMDB treasure trove, includingJ.K. Simmons, Hugh Jackman, Chris Pine, Annabelle Wallis, Joe Jonas, Sophie Turner, Lucas Hedges, Jenna Ortega, David Oyelowo Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Beanie Feldstein, Dave Bautista, Dennis Haysbert, Taika Waititi, David Spade, Jon Hamm, Stephen Merchant, Mackenzie Davis, Nicholas Braun, Robert Wuhl, Don Johnson, Ari Graynor, Thomas Lennon, Brandon Routh, Courtney Ford, Zoey Deutch, Zazie Beetz, Patton Oswalt, Rainn Wilson, Jason Segel, Keegan Michael Key,Retta, and even more names that are under wraps.
But perhaps most excitingly, Reitman got Reiner to perform the part of the grandfather, played in the film by the late Peter Falk. From the clips shown on Vanity Fair, it’s a fun project for a good cause that appeals to everyone’s nostalgia for the 1987 classic (and makes a good case for the charismatic Luna to play Inigo Montoya in a remake). Too bad it’s on Quibi.
