02FEB2000: Actor LEONARDO DiCAPRIO on the Hollywood premiere of his new film “The Seaside” by which he stars with Virginie Ledoyen. Paul Smith / Featureflash.
The one film that just about drowned Leonardo DiCaprio, ‘harm’ Ewan McGregor, and was nearly led by Will Smith.
Credit score: Shutterstock, Featureflash Photograph Company
It was meant to be a paradise, however making one explicit film became a nightmare for Leonardo DiCaprio and all concerned. Environmental protests, near-death accidents, and a decade-long fallout with Ewan McGregor all threatened to sink the movie earlier than it even hit cinemas. At one level, twentieth Century Fox even pushed for Will Smith to play the main function. Now, 25 years later, is it time to rewatch Danny Boyle’s troubled thriller yet another time?
From backpacker bible to Hollywood battleground
When The Seaside hit bookshelves in 1996, Alex Garland’s novel turned an prompt Gen-X cult basic. It was a biting have a look at Western travellers chasing utopia whereas ruining it within the course of. Boyle, contemporary off Trainspotting, snapped up the rights, however from the second cameras rolled, bother adopted.
Boyle had promised Trainspotting star Ewan McGregor the lead function. However in a Hollywood energy play, McGregor was ditched in favour of Leonardo DiCaprio, contemporary from Titanic. That call torpedoed Boyle and McGregor’s friendship for a decade. “It wasn’t simply shedding the function,” McGregor later mentioned. “It was how it was dealt with.” Boyle ultimately admitted, “Ewan deserved higher.”
A paradise spoiled – actually
Capturing on the Thai island of Ko Phi Phi Le became an environmental scandal. The movie crew bulldozed dunes, ripped out native crops, and even planted faux palm bushes to make the seaside look extra like a paradise. Locals and environmentalists had been livid, staging protests the place some wore DiCaprio masks with vampire fangs, branding the actor a ‘bloodsucker of nature.’
Fox Studios promised to revive the seaside, however the harm was completed – not simply to the placement, however to Boyle’s repute. Lawsuits rumbled on for years, and in 2018, Thai authorities shut down Maya Bay for 4 years on account of over-tourism, a lot of it pushed by The Seaside’s fame.
Close to misses and catastrophe strikes
Filming was as treacherous because the film’s plot. DiCaprio was stung by a swarm of jellyfish. He and Virginie Ledoyen narrowly escaped being electrocuted when a crane gentle crashed into their water tank. Boyle himself bought stranded up a mountain, solely to be advised by police to “f*** off” when he known as for assist. And in probably the most terrifying second, DiCaprio and Tilda Swinton had been thrown from a ship in tough seas, left stranded in harmful waters.
Dumbed down?
Followers of the guide had been fuming over Boyle’s modifications. The darkish psychological fringe of Garland’s novel was sanded down. DiCaprio’s Richard, initially a twisted anti-hero, was softened right into a ‘typical Hollywood protagonist’. The guide’s unrequited lust turned a full-blown romance, as a result of, as Boyle put it, “It’s a film, for Christ’s sake! He’s bought to get it on with the French woman.”
One suggestion from twentieth Century Fox? Will Smith as the lead. Boyle instantly shut it down: ‘Will Smith strolling onto that seaside? Let’s be critical.’
Did The Seaside sink or swim?
Critics weren’t form. The New York Instances known as it “not a horrible film, simply an insubstantial one.” DiCaprio even bagged a Worst Actor Razzie nomination. However regardless of the backlash, The Seaside revamped $140 million. Hardly a catastrophe.
Wanting again, Boyle admitted he by no means actually related with the story: ‘I don’t like these individuals and I don’t approve of what they’re doing.‘ The movie won’t be a misplaced treasure, however as a time capsule of a technology chasing a dream that was doomed from the begin? Perhaps it deserves one other go to.
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