Dr. Tess Coleman (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Anna (Lindsay Lohan), are not getting along. They don’t see eye-to-eye on clothes, hair, music, and certainly not on each other’s taste in men. One Thursday evening, their disagreements reach a fever pitch—Anna is incensed that her mother doesn’t support her musical aspirations and Tess, a widow about to remarry, can’t see why Anna won’t give her fiancé (Mark Harmon) a break. Everything soon changes when two identical Chinese Fortune cookies cause a little mystic mayhem.
The next morning, their Friday gets freaky when Tess and Anna find themselves inside the other’s body. As they’re literally forced to walk in each other’s shoes, they gain a little newfound respect for the other’s point of view. But with Tess’s wedding coming on Saturday, the two have to find a way to switch back (and fast). Mary Rodgers’ classic novel gets a new spin in this big-screen adaptation.
This new adaptation of “Freaky Friday” got started in 2000, when Andrew Gunn entered into a production deal with The Walt Disney Studios and began brainstorming ideas with studio executives about film projects he’d like to pursue. “There were two classic Disney movies that I wanted to remake,” remembers Gunn. “One was ‘Escape to Witch Mountain,’ and the other was ‘Freaky Friday.’
“I think the mother / daughter relationship is universal,” he continues. “The way mothers and daughters relate to each other, is, I think, different than the way fathers and sons relate to each other.”
Executive producer Mario Iscovich agrees. “I have a girl who’s eleven, and sometimes she and my wife don’t seem to be quite in sync. That familiar vein is what appealed to me about working on the project. It’s an age-old problem. Mothers have always said, ‘The kids don’t understand me,’ and kids have always said, ‘Mom doesn’t understand me.’”
Gunn, along with Disney executive Kristin Burr, had just finished formally mentoring a young writer from the Disney / ABC Fellowship Program when it was time to hire someone to work on the screenplay. Having become a fan of Heather Hach’s writing, Gunn and Burr encouraged Disney Studios head Nina Jacobson to give Hach her first paid job.
Read the Full Production Notes
Directed by: Mark Waters
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Harold Gould, Chad Michael Murray, Mark Harmon, Christina Vidal, Rosalind Chao, Lucille Soong, Dina Spybey-Waters
Screenplay by: Heather Hach, Leslie Dixon
Production Design by: Cary White
Cinematography by: Oliver Wood
Film Editing by: Bruce Green
Costume Design by: Genevieve Tyrrell
Set Decoration by: Barbara Haberecht
Music by: Rolfe Kent
MPAA Rating: PG for mild thematic elements and some language.
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
Release Date: August 6, 2003
