
Way back in 2001 a film wrapped. It was a modern-day remake of the classic story “The Devil and Daniel Webster”. Alec Baldwin is Jabez Stone, who sells his soul to Satan (Jennifer Love Hewitt) in return for a successful literary career. When it is time for Jabez to “pay up”, he asks powerful attorney Daniel Webster (Anthony Hopkins) to help him weasel out of the deal. Oh, and the film was Alec Baldwin’s directorial debut.
Like so much in Hollywood, what is on the screen isn’t as good as what is going on behind the scenes so the plot of how this film finally got finished and released is way better than a ticket to the flick. The production, overseen by producer David Glasser had financial difficulties and during post-production the FBI seized the investors’ assets and the film…due to alleged bank fraud. Baldwin had already butted heads over creative differences and after the FBI bust, he had his name removed from the directing credit and replaced with the pseudonym "Harry Kirkpatrick". Glasser partnered with producer Bob Yari and bought the film from bankruptcy court back in 2003. In 2006, in order to complete post-production, another company, owned by Yari, made it a comedy, finished the film, changed the title to “Shortcut To Happiness”, and it was finally released on Friday, July 13, 2007…a very limited release...6 cities-Las Vegas, Rochester, Fort Myers, Columbus, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The DVD release will soon follow.
To make the behind the scenes drama even more entertaining, Baldwin urged fans to boycott the film saying it was “unrecognizable”. Poor Alec, he has been having a really bad year.
As for me, since it wasn’t released in New York, I’ll have to check it out in the DVD release…after all, if Hopkins is in it, I’m watching it. Sorry Alec.
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