Let's Fix FIRST WIVES CLUB

Not doing your work for you, OP.

Which studio are you pitching this unnecessary revamp to?

There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s a delight.

I'm not really a huge Midler fan, but she is the weakest link in FWC, IMHO. She's not funny, not charming, just shrill and unpleasant. I don't buy her chemistry with the other leads. And she has rarely looked less attractive on film.

The backstage stories of her being abusive and awful to the director and featured cast are just icing on the cake.

Then there's the scene where Kunton smugly outs someone...

The whole lesbian daughter and trip to the lesbian bar need to be rethought. The biggest casting error is SJP as man-trap Shelly. Sarah had already started looking haggish when the movie was made.

Who was directing it? Because the three actresses literally SCREECH most of their lines.

I think the casting was prefect.

Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler were perfect for their respective roles.

The husbands- Stephen Collins, Victor Garber, and Dan Hedaya also great as sleazy scum.

The bimbos- Marcia Gay Hardin, Elizabeth Berkley, and Sarah Jessica Parker were funny.

The supporting cast- Eileen Heckart, Bronson Pinchot, Philip Bosco, James Naughton, Heather Locklear, Rob Reiner, Edward Hibbert, and Jennifer Dundas made it even funnier.

It was a shock when Stockard Channing threw herself off the balcony

And Maggie Smith can always be counted upon.

The film just loses steam around the ladies fight scene and picks up when the decide to destroy their husbands. Everyone I know loves this movie. It is pure entertainment and enjoyment.

It is a pajamas, wine, and pizza movie to enjoy at your house on a Friday night after a long week. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yes ^ trying to make it a higher-quality film would ruin what’s good about it. It’s in the same category as My Best Friend’s Wedding.

I didn't have a problem with the supporting cast.

The three leads were unbearable and the film doesn't work because of it.

It’s a Goldie Hawn movie - the movie could have just been about Elise and been the better for it. Diane Keaton can make her “Diane Keaton” persona work in other late career projects (Something’s Gotta Give), but here it feels like watching a serviceable if broad SNL impression. Bette Midler looks like a Lubavitcher and seems to be realizing throughout that she has officially ticked over from “frau-friendly” to “actual frau”.

I disagree with R5, SJP is a hoot as Shelley the Barracuda - much funnier and campier than Midler.

I actually like the movie, but I would say Goldie is the only one who is irreplaceable in this role. Midler WAS a bit too shrill and broad for me in this. And Keaton is fine and cute but not too memorable.

Poor SJP's wig is hideous in FWC.

I adored Stockard Channing. And Maggie Smith--I just wish they'd given her more to do.

The featured cast is pretty damn good.

And finally coming to blu-ray at the end of June.

We really don't need to see Duck Lips and Bette Midler in HD.

Okay, then who would have been a better replacement for Brenda, a frumpy and bossy middle aged housewife?

Roseanne Barr?

Stockard Channing?

I liked Goldie Hawa in it. She was a riot. And that last scene when they sang and danced to - No, You Don't Own Me. Goldie made the other two look like amateurs. She can move!

They ought to recast She Devil.

Even if She Devil was miscast (it wasn't) it doesn't depend on the audience sympathizing with the main characters over the supporting ones like FWC does.

Barr would've been an improvement on Midler (as suggested) and Streep would've been a great improvement on Keaton.

I winced when Keaton screeched 'leave me alone' before they all began singing the final song.

She was fully into just playing her persona at that point.

Streep must've turned it down.

R15, Brenda is the worst written of the three leads - she’s intended to be the “funny one”, but all the actual humor in the movie belongs to Goldie Hawn.

Elise and Annie both have actual arcs (Elise accepting her age and figuring out how to mature as an actress, Annie learning how to stand up for herself), but Brenda has nothing to do but get her revenge and then show some calf and have Dan Hedaya realize he’s still in love with her.

Throwing out a name: Kathy Bates

I previously suggested Streep, Close and Field.

As a jumping off point that would be an improvement.

Streisand would have been a great Brenda - everything that she thought she was doing in the excruciating but unintentionally hilarious The Mirror Has Two Faces - including the UWS frump into Long Island mafia wife makeover sequence - would have worked in First Wives Club. She probably would have insisted on a hunkier husband than Dan Hedaya, though.

I agree.

But would Streisand be willing to do it? I'm not sure if she'd want to share the spotlight.

The movie was perfectly cast. This thread is as dumb as the op.

Shit-heel Roseanne as a Manhattan housefrau? Well, OK then.

I can see Sally Field in the Keaton role. She has a similar jittery, mousy quality that the character requires.

What R7 and R8 said.

It didn't have to become Schindler's List, but it did need a different set of actresses.

Fix it? Make all of the cast members black. That's very forward thinking and original.

I would prefer the Waiting To Exhale ladies in it.

Nobody could be as bad as Hawn, Keaton, and Midler.

You're so right R32.

This film was great as-is. OP is clearly a millennial who is likely appalled and horrified at the rampant transphobia, sexism, and homophobia, and thinks it should be redone with nonbinary pansexual leads and a murder-mystery subplot where we find out the victim was a secret TERF.

Elise - Viola Davis

Annie - Tracee Ellis Ross

Brenda - Laverne Cox

Gunilla - Pam Grier

Shelly - Zendaya

🤢🤢🤢🤢 ^

Tiresome, R35.

I thought Diane Keaton was the most accurate of a real family- She is a moderately successful career woman who has an extremely overbearing mother, a husband who has a mid life crisis and has an affair (but not with just anyone, someone you thought you could trust), and a daughter who turns out to be a lesbian.

Keaton comes off as a real cunt.

Keaton comes off as a wimpy doormat.

This is movie is cat nip for FRAUS.

Joanna Barnes, Gloria Upson from [italic]Auntie Mame,[/italic] would have been a perfect Gunilla Garson Goldberg.

I would definitely be up for a remake that veered closer to the book. During lockdown I listened to the abridged audiobook read by the always divine Christine Baranski and it is VERY different from the finished film - for one, the Brenda character (Midler) is a lesbian and the Stockard Channing character is given much more background and development. The less said about the abysmal musical adaptation (either version), the better…or, judge for yourself.

I read the book and it's not really a comedy. Maybe a dark one.

[quote]Keaton comes off as a wimpy doormat.

I think that's kind of the point.

R42 if this total excrement is "catnip for fraus" then they are mighty dumb bitches.

R32 - Bitch, that shit's already been done. Season three coming soon. Where have you been?

And, OP, the movie is perfect as it is. I remember when it came out. The day it was released, every woman in my office took the day off to go see it together. It was an event.

They should all be Oscar-winning actresses: Meryl, Frances, and Jessica Lange. And more catfights and bitchslaps please.

Is it streaming anywhere?

I was surprised at how dour Midler was in this movie. She just seemed sour and unpleasant.

What are the stories behind the scenes of Midler abusing people?

I think it's interesting how Goldie played the actress who gets her lips done... and then Goldie basically became that character later in life.

I also think SJP was very funny in this.

"Hello, I'm looking for a low-quality, top-cost appliance!"

Dan Hedaya was hilarious as the sleazy new money husband.

What ever happened to Dan Hedaya? In the 1990s he was in what seemed like every second movie. At least that I watched. And they were big movies. And then suddenly he was relegated to guest spots on shitty TV and obscure indie flicks. I've only seen him in 4 projects since 2000.

Per Wikipedia:

Of these movies, Shaft, Mulholland Drive, Robots, The Humbling, and Fantastic Beasts. My guess he was smart with his money and only does projects that he wants to do.

2000 Shaft, The Crew, The Extreme Adventures of Super Dave

2001-Down, Mulholland Drive

2002- Quicksand, Swimfan, New Suit

2003-American Cousins

2005- Strangers with Candy, Robots (voice), Pizza My Heart

2006- The Good Student

2007- The Warrior Class

2010- The Extra Man

2012- The Normals

2013- Clutter

2014- The Humbling

2016- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

2020- Funny Face

2021- Slapface, The God Committee

Among other things, R54... he got old.

Dan Hedaya is 82 years old. He was 56 during FWC.

As R55 pointed out, he still works regularly. God bless.

R55 I know. I'd perused his IMDB page. That's how I knew he had only done 4 things in the past 22 years that I'd seen. A drastic reduction to how often I saw him in the 1990s when he was in one major movie after another. I was wondering if there was some Me Too thing or other problem that he suddenly got hit with that resulted in him going from star-filled studio movies to random indie flicks most people have never heard of.

The entire cast should have been African-American, maybe one suffering from alopecia.

R57 No. He was in some very famous movies and TV shows- Hill Street Blues, Cheers, Commando, Joe Versus the Volcano, Pacific Heights, The Addams Family, Law & Order, Rookie of the Year, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Maverick, The Usual Suspects, Nixon, Clueless, The First Wives Club, In & Out, A Civil Action, Alien Resurrection, and Shaft.

I mean why work unless you have to. Clueless for example made more on VHS rentals.

Everything was great except the script. I thought the comedy was sitcom level.

R59 I'm not sure why you're arguing with me when you're actually agreeing with me. And, again, those credits are from the 1990s when he was in everything. Nothing you've said explains why a character actor would suddenly stop getting these big all-star gigs. Even if he was rolling in money, wouldn't he continue to do big all-star studio movies? Just less of them each year? That might make sense. If the same thing happened to a pretty actress in the same time period you'd assume she'd been Weinsteined. Did Hedaya do something to get blacklisted?

Bronson Pinchot talks about Bette being mean during FWC filming in this interview.

Remember when this was supposed to happen back in 2015? Interesting that Goldie and Diane worked together again after The First Wives Club (in that awful Warren Beatty movie Town and Country) but neither has worked with Bette again.

Not a surprise though. Goldie and Diane are always very positive on their social media while Bette is a raging cunt on hers.

Blacks love to complain about everything, especially appropriation. Meanwhile, all they do is remake white movies. Hypocrites.

Also look at idiots like p diddy who sampled white guy hooks, like herb alpert and gave no credit.

Still waiting for this idiot moment to be over.

R61 Boy. I am saying those jobs allowed him to not act. He was able to retire.

I have always felt he should have played Robert Shapiro

R64 What makes you think white people aren’t behind those remakes? You know Scott Rudin is the producer of the black First Wives Club reboot? He’s not black.

R49, Jessica Lange was actually the producers' first choice for the Hawn role. Lange isn't particularly known for comedy, but she capably exuded humor and pathos in Men Don't Leave and that disastrous Wild Oats. But it definitely would've been a different interpretation in her hands.

[quote]I was surprised at how dour Midler was in this movie. She just seemed sour and unpleasant.

Bette, like Barbra has never really warmed to their comedic movies, and almost seems to resent the fact that the public made them such beloved hits. Midler thinks as much about Down and Out and Beverly Hills and Big Business as Barbra does about What's Up Doc?, Which is to say, not much. The only one of the bunch she effusively praises is Hocus Pocus.

Bette's heart was in movies like The Rose and Beaches. She desperately wanted to bring back 1930's and 1940s melodrama's with Stella and For the Boys, and be taken seriously as a dramatic actress and was devastated when they flopped with critics and audiences.

Plus, she deeply resents not being an oscar winner.

She didn't have much hope for First Wives Club, because she knew the studio would pass it off as a fluke and not bother trying to make more veteran female oriented mainstream pictures. And unfortunately, she was right.

R65 But he didn't retire. He just spent 22 years doing lower-paying smaller projects. Doesn't make sense. I can appreciate wanting to work less as you get older (just like the leading ladies in this movie did) but then wouldn't you work on the same big movies you always were doing (but just less of them) and continue to get paid well? The catering costs on The First Wives Club were probably greater than the entire budgets of some of his work over the past 20 years.

Didn't he have plastic surgery or something? I remember in the early 2000s he suddenly looked different.

R69 maybe he just liked the projects. Why are you arguing about the career of a retired character actor?

Want to talk about Larry Miller next??

How is he retired when he hasn't stopped working?

I saw most of Don Hedaya's films until Mulholland Drive, but nothing after that. Weird, isn't it?

Apparently they loathed each other, but Midler’s never had better on-screen chemistry than she did with Shelley Long in Outrageous Fortune - Shelley Long would have made a terrific Annie, by the way.

Also for all the griping she did about Hollywood not wanting to give her a fair shot in the nineties, Bette passed on Sister Act, which would have been a slam dunk for her.

Agree with r17: Goldie was an absolute minx of a dancer when she stole the final scene. Did she get to ‘showcase’ these skills in any other movies?

R74 - According to Bette, the final scene was unscripted and sprung on them at the last minute and at about 3 in the morning after a long day of shooting. Bette said she was so out of it she was falling over.

[quote] Jessica Lange was actually the producers' first choice for the Hawn role. Lange isn't particularly known for comedy, but she capably exuded humor and pathos in Men Don't Leave and that disastrous Wild Oats. But it definitely would've been a different interpretation in her hands.

That would have been a disaster. I agree Hawn was easily the best thing about the movie (and never looked better, either).

R76 Agreed about Goldie. It's clear the producers decided to go with Goldie, Diane and Bette because they wanted three iconic comedy movie stars of the same age in order to make it an event. It was a nostalgia thing.

Remember one of the things they kept mentioning in the media at the time is that they all turned 50 during filming. First Goldie in November then Bette in December then Diane in January. It made them sound like school girls. Like they grew up together.

Each woman had built up a career of doing fun and memorable comedies over the decades. But Jessica Lange? She's a very good actress but not iconic much less known for comedy. She's a drama girl. And now the Lange Loon will make my life a living hell.

But I say the same thing about Sally Field. Sally is known more for her dramas than her comedies and so even though she'd have probably made a great Annie, she wouldn't have brought to the table what Diane did marketing-wise.

The First Wives Club gave us Private Benjamin, The Divine Miss M and Annie Hall together at last It was an event for anyone who grew up loving comedy in the 80s.

That's why all the women in my office at the time took the day off to see the movie when it first came out. They loved Goldie, Bette and Diane so much. The scorned wife plot was a bonus of course.

Marketing-wise, The First Wives Club was not unlike The Expendables which served up everyone's favorite 80s/90s action stars together at last (Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Willis).

Are The First Wives Club and The Expendables great movies? Maybe not. But they made a lot of people very happy and that's all they needed to do. Not every movie is supposed to be Schindler's List. Some people just want a good time. Thus there's nothing to "fix" here.

I was too much of a snob to see it when it first came out, unfortunately.

I watched the whole thing last year and loved it. It was a lot of fun and it probably contains my favourite Goldie performance. She killed it. She was perfect and effortless. The three of the leads had great chemistry together. And it delivered one of the most iconic endings from at least the 1990s.

Xennial/R76, Goldie did look good, but I insist she never looked hotter than in the TV special she did with Liza circa 1980 (it was supposed to be a warmup to doing Chicago together). Especially around 1:00. SUPER hot! But she looked hot throughout the 1980s and early 1990s IMO.

I loved Marcia Gay Harden as Annie's smarmy therapist.

R79 she was terrible

I thought the couples looked like real life couples.

Dan Hedaya and Bette Midler were middle class Jews who lucked out and struck it big.

Victor Garber and Goldie Hawn were glamorous movie stars.

Stephen Collins and Diane Keaton were the business oriented power couple.

r81, Bette was supposed to be Italian. Her character's maiden name was Morelli. Her stereotype mob uncle was a part of her husband's undoing.

More cultural appropriation by Jewish actors playing Italians.

I remember Kathie Lee Gifford talking on her morning show with Regis about her bit part. But, before taping, she wanted to make sure it wasn't too anti-male.

Meanwhile, her husband Frank is bonking the stewardess.

One of my best friends and I still say to each other when we get pissed at something - "Learn from love. Grow from love."

First, let's fix the title to FIRST HUSBAND'S CLUB.

Colton Ford as one of the first husbands.

Ideas for the rest of the cast are most certainly welcome, seeing as this is supposed to be a gay board that sometimes features straight ideation on its peripheries, not a gay board taken over by deplorables so now it's straight adjacent with a vomit-inducing helping of TRANSPAM, and a leetle modicum of gay interest threads.

That was a great year for Goldie. She was also in Woody Allen’s “Everybody Says I Love You” and was terrific in that one too.

But just for fun - how about Dolly as Elise, Jane as Annie and Lily as Brenda?

I saw it in the theater while I was in college, with a girlfriend whose bf had just dumped her. She cried through the whole movie! It kind of put a damper on it for me. I for one did not like SJP in this.

Today the daughter would be a non-binary Che Diaz nightmare because lesbians are canceling themselves out with their trans delusions

The luncheon scene with Maggie Smith and Sarah Jessica Parker is hilarious. SJP is acting all kinds of stupid and Maggie Smith is giving her best not to cringe.

Welp, the dim bulbs gushing over this crap movie prove yet again how execrable most Americans are.