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Who do you blame more for how badly Cool World turned out, Frank Mancuso Jr. or Kim Basinger?

posted 4 years ago by TMC-4 (19411)
3 replies | jump to latest

Frank Mancuso Jr. hired several yes men to heavily rewrite Cool World behind Ralph Bakshi's back because at the time, he was getting bored with producing horror movies. On the other hand, it was Kim Basinger who is likely the reason why Cool World got so watered down (Ralph Bakshi had intended Cool World to be an R-rated, erotic horror movie) and even more tonally inconsistent, since she wanted (midway through production mind you) it to be something that she could personally show to sick hospital children. She's also the reason why there's that "big lipped alligator moment"-like scene of her while in the real world singing in front of Frank Sinatra Jr. Keep in mind that this was right after Kim had done that movie The Marrying Man, and she was still in the mindset that she could legitimately make it as a singer.

http://reviews-to-view.tumblr.com/post/42711796193/terrys-reviews-cool-world

https://web.archive.org/web/20151106021642/https://www.amc.com/movie/1992/Cool+World

[–] momur (107) 4 years ago

Frank Mancuso, Jr. is definitely more to blame than Kim Basinger. There's no question about it. The guy rewrote the script without Bakshi's knowledge or approval and threatened to sue him if he didn't still direct the now-completely-bastardised movie. If he'd been open and honest with Bakshi from the start regarding his intentions for the movie, they might have at least been able to reach various compromises on the material - it wouldn't necessarily have been good but it at least would have been coherent. As it is, he essentially eliminated any kind of possible working relationship for the sake of a failed plan. In terms of being a creator, he was utterly stupid in his behaviour from start to finish.

Basinger, on the other hand, despite her reported diva behaviour, clearly wasn't as successful in her attempts to derail the movie (I mean, you still can't show the finished product to kids what with the innuendos and the actual sex scene and all) and even the most "diva" movie star doesn't hold nearly as much power in terms of the hierarchy of movie-making as the producer and son of the studio president. From what I can tell, the only real result of her attempted meddling is that singing scene and that's simple enough to ignore.

[–] TMC-4 (19411) 4 years ago

I get the feeling that Kim Basinger when she signed up, wasn't entirely familiar with Ralph Bakshi's filmography. I mean, Bakshi apparently told her point blank that she was telling the wrong guy to make kids movie. She probably just saw it as another Who Framed Roger Rabbit (albeit grimier), with her playing essentially, Jessica Rabbit. We were still miles away from Adult Swim, South Park, Family Guy, so there really wasn't much of a mainstream precedent (outside of maybe The Simpsons) set animation for more adult audiences. I'm assuming that Kim was also still high off her Batman success, and she would routinely visit sick hospital kids, who recognized her and really only saw her as Vicki Vale.

It appears that Cool World even without her input was being set up to turn out to be a trainwreck or at the very least, something completely different from what Ralph Bakshi set out to be. But Kim Basinger came in and made an already bad situation even worse or less salvageable than before.

[–] momur (107) 4 years ago

To be honest, I'd agree on all points there. And I certainly don't want to seem as though I'm condoning her behaviour but to me, it feels as though most, if not all, the movie's issues can be traced back to the decision made by Mancuso, Jr. to not only rewrite the script (which, to be fair, happens in film-making a lot) but to rewrite it entirely behind Bakshi's back which is just plain rude at the very least and incredibly damaging to both the finished product and a working relationship at worst (which is exactly what happened with this). And not stopping at that, but then threatening to sue Bakshi if he didn't direct it. If any one of those things didn't happen (say, he had it rewritten in consort with Bakshi or allowed Bakshi to step off the project after it was rewritten), the movie might at least have stood a much better chance even with Basinger's additional attempted meddling. Therefore, to me, the vast majority of the blame lies solely with Frank Mancuso, Jr. Basinger was just one more nail in the coffin.