Tagline: See Dick Run.
In Columbia Pictures and Imagine Entertainment’s holiday comedy Fun With Dick and Jane starring Jim Carrey and Téa Leoni, Dick Harper’s (Jim Carrey) years of hard work finally pay off when he is promoted to vice president at Globodyne, a worldwide leader in the consolidation of media properties. But after exactly one day in his new job, Globodyne is destroyed by an Enron-like calamity — and he is left holding the bag.
Dick’s sudden reversal of fortune has left him little time to set money aside for a rainy day. Now it’s raining buckets as Dick and his loving wife Jane (Tea Leoni), watch in horror as their deluxe suburban home, their luxury cars and their statusconscious friends quickly vanish into thin air.
After playing by the rules and working single-mindedly to build a comfortable life for his family, Dick is utterly unprepared to give up the American dream. Taking a lesson from his corrupt employer, however, Dick hits on a brilliant idea: If stealing was good enough for his boss, then it’s good enough for him. Using his newfound skills, he and Jane exact revenge and teach big business a lesson.
Love, Laughs and Larceny
Life has never been better for Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) and his loving wife, Jane Jane (Téa Leoni) — a sure sign that things can only get worse. Dick has waited patiently for almost 15 years to become a vice president at Globodyne. That day finally arrives. His boss, Jack McCallister (Alec Baldwin), finally gives him his promotion and his wife Jane (Téa Leoni) finally gets to quit her job at a travel agency. But the celebration is short-lived. Globodyne and McCallister become embroiled in a giant corporate scandal. The company goes belly-up and Dick is left holding the bag, while his boss takes advantage of his solid gold parachute.
For a time, he waits in vain for a rival company to snap him up. Faced with a mountain of debt and the threat of repossession, Dick tries to find a job, any job. The best position that’s open is as a “greeter” at the local giant box store. Jane decides to go back to work as well. She bluffs her way into a gig as a Tae Bo instructor and then tries to earn some money as a guinea pig for a new Botox-like substance. But they are clearly not cut out for these new jobs and, besides, they don’t make much of a dent in their financial situation. So, one by one, they are forced to sell off their dream possessions, including their cherished plasma television.
At wit’s end, Dick snaps, and in an effort to reclaim at least a part of his former life, steals chunks of sod from the neighbors’ lawns to replenish his own balding backyard. Before long, he and Jane have embarked on a series of nighttime robberies, leaving their six-year-old son Billy in the care of their faithful housekeeper Blanca.
For a time, they are excited and invigorated by their new lives as a latter-day Bonnie and Clyde. But they soon realize that there is stealing and there is stealing. And they discover that the way back to their lives — and their sanity — is to right the initial wrong done to Dick and his co-workers by their unscrupulous boss at Globodyne. It’s payback time.
See Dick and Jane Steal
Producer Brian Grazer has enjoyed enormous success in his collaborations with superstar Jim Carrey. Their films together, Liar Liar and How The Grinch Stole Christmas, were gigantic box office hits and they have been on the lookout ever since for another project on which to pair.
Carrey and his management team had been contemplating a remake of the 1977 comedy Fun With Dick and Jane starring Jane Fonda and George Segal, because they thought its themes had contemporary relevance — a familyoriented comedy that deals with the pitfalls of chasing the elusive America dream set against the backdrop of massive corporate greed. (According to recent economic studies, a generation ago the average chief executive made 40 times as much as the average worker. Today it’s nearly 400 times as much).
“One day Jim came to me with this great idea to update Fun With Dick and Jane. It not only had great comic potential but seemed torn from the headlines,” observes Grazer. “He asked if I would be willing to produce it. I jumped at the chance.”
While it’s told from a uniquely contemporary perspective, the movie’s themes also echoed the great comedies of the 1930s, the golden age of Hollywood. Carrey and Grazer felt the project needed a director who could balance the comedy’s physical elements and its underlying satirical aspects without losing its moral center. They turned to Dean Parisot, who had juggled all these elements so successfully in the sleeper-hit comedy Galaxy Quest.
“Dean has this incredible sense of comic timing,” observes Grazer. “He likes to pull back on the joke — just shy of the punch line. And that makes it all the more funny. You find yourself laughing while it’s happening, and even more later.”
“When I initially met with everyone about remaking this movie,” says Parisot, “I was especially intrigued with how the plight of this couple might play itself out now, at the beginning of the 21st century. By updating this story and putting it in the context of an Enron-like disaster, I thought there was great potential for a new, original, and very funny take on this material.”
These production notes provided by Columbia Pictures.
Fun with Dick and Jane
Starring: Jim Carrey, Téa Leoni, Richard Jenkins, Angie Harmon, Alec Baldwin, Gloria Garayua, Stacey Travis
Directed by: Dean Parisot
Screenplay by: Judd Apatow
Release Date: December 21, 2005
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for brief language, some sexual humor and humorous drug references.
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Box Office Totals
Domestic: $110,332,737 (54.6%)
Foreign: $91,693,375 (45.4%)
Total: $202,026,112 (Worldwide)