Fletch
(1985)
Artemus Ward
Dept. of Political Science
Northern Illinois University
Origins
• Gregory McDonald created the character of Irwin
Maurice Fletcher while working as a journalist for The
Boston Globe. The Harvard-educated McDonald
joined the paper in 1966 and was given what sounds
like the best job in the world — or in journalism at
least. ''Go and have fun and write about it,'' his editor
instructed him. ''And if you end up cut and bleeding
on the sidewalk, call the office.'' Over the next few
years, McDonald reported from both sides of society's
suddenly chasm-like generation gap, writing about
John Wayne, war protesters, Vietnam vets, and On the
Road author Jack Kerouac, with whom he went
barhopping.
• In 1973, McDonald resigned from the Globe and,
guided by ''this blithe spirit of journalism that came to
my mind'' during his exploits there, published Fletch
the following year. The book was a best-seller, and the
author penned 10 more novels involving the
character, most notably the origin story Fletch Won.
Hollywood Comes Calling
• Hollywood was interested in Fletch from
the start. In 1985, McDonald said, ''It
seemed that over the last 10 years,
everybody in the world who acts and is a
male between the ages of 17 and 76
tried to get the role. Even Mick Jagger. I
admire Mick Jagger, but he is not my idea
of a young American male.''
• However, McDonald did approve of the
casting of Chevy Chase, then in his early
40s. ''When Chevy Chase was signed to
play Fletch,'' the author later recalled, ''I
sent him a telegram saying, 'I am
delighted to abdicate the role of Fletch
to you.'''
Chevy Chase as Fletch
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Since leaving Saturday Night Live in 1976, Chase's career
had featured both highs (Caddyshack, National Lampoon's
Vacation) and lows (Oh Heavenly Dog, Deal of the Century).
He even starred in two romantic comedies with Goldie
Hawn (Foul Play, Seems Like Old Times).
But filmmakers had rarely taken full advantage of his adlibbing chops. Chase has fond memories of the leeway
Fletch director Michael Ritchie gave him to improvise. ''It
all began when [costar] Tim Matheson asked me what my
name was,'' he says. ''Right away, with a straight face: 'Ted
Nugent.'''
The Fletch screenplay was penned by Andrew Bergman,
who had coauthored another comedy classic, Blazing
Saddles.
Following the success of Fletch, Bergman wrote a sequel
based on McDonald's 1983 book Fletch and the Man Who.
''He got involved in a political campaign,'' says Bergman. ''I
had him charging things to the Underhills. I thought it was
utterly hilarious.''
Universal, the studio that made the first movie, apparently
did not. They went with another screenplay, one not based
on any of McDonald's novels, and the sub-par film ended
the franchise.
Fletch as Reagan-Era Commentary
• Reagan had just been re-elected by a landslide when the film hit theaters in
1985, and Fletch reflects, in a strange and roundabout way, an era of
wrenching liberal despair.
• While the enlightened bourgeoisie and their scruffy spawn were no longer
running the country, they could at least laugh along with Chevy Chase as he
poked fun at Reagan's America—the nouveau riche, the pig-headed cops, the
Mormons, even Regan’s so-called “war on drugs.”
• The film perfectly captures the rise of the liberal, ironically detached hipster
sensibility: the always-informal Fletch rocks his L.A. Lakers jersey while posing
as an "amiable junkie"—and also while wise-cracking with his uptight editor in
the newsroom of his very serious paper – the reporter/editor adversarial
dynamic is a standard for journalism pictures.
Joe Don Baker as Chief Karlin
• Casting Joe Don Baker as the crooked
police Chief Jerry Karlin was a masterstroke
in turning Hollywood convention on its
head and taking a liberal shot at perceived
Reagan-era hypocrisy.
• Specifically, Baker had portrayed Sheriff
Buford Pusser in the Nixon-era crimebusting parable Walking Tall. In 1973, the
take-no-prisoners lawman was the hero.
• In Fletch, the same man preys on the poor
to line his own pockets. Lesson? Powerful
public officials of the Reagan-era selfishly
pray on the poor and powerless for their
own gain.
Tim Matheson as Alan Stanwyk
• Tim Matheson had been a child TV actor before starring in
Animal House (1978) and 1941 (1979).
• The man who draws Fletch into the whole tangled web is Alan
Stanwyk, a well-coiffed Mormon bigamist who plans to off our
hero just to make a quick buck.
• The unscrupulous Mormon bigamist is yet another dig at
Reagan-era conservatism—this time the religious right’s claims
to moral authority.
• Like Baker’s casting, the choice of Matheson—the former
Animal House 70s hipster—as an 80’s conservative was a
masterstroke.
Journalist as
Detective
Fletch is part detective film, part journalism film.
•
• One of the journalism aspects of the film is that news is a business.
• The editor is always screaming about deadlines and trying to cut
costs at every turn.
• The harried reporter is always trying to survive the pressure and
fighting the constant demand to produce news.
• There is always some larger force like a corporation or politician
trying to use power or money to stop a story or to get the dogged
reporter off the case.
• Like a detective, the reporter goes “undercover” to solve a crime.
• In this sense Fletch is a classic journalism film where investigative
reporting leads to uncovering political corruption.
Investigative Reporting Ethics
• Is Irwin Fletcher an ethical reporter?
• To absurdly illustrate the lengths that investigative
journalists sometimes go to get the story, Fletcher not
only lies to sources but dresses in elaborate costumes
for ridiculous impersonations.
• Does the “greater good” outweigh any ethical concerns?
Fletch Lives and Dies
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Fletch Lives — a film Bergman refers to as ''that
dreadful sequel'' — was hurt by a writers' strike and,
according to Chase, Universal's desire to clad him in
ever more ludicrous outfits. (Fletch's aliases this time
around included Nostradamus, Victor Hugo, and,
rather awesomely, Elmer-Fudd Gantry).
But Chase admits his reasons for appearing in Fletch
Lives were not wholly artistic: ''I probably did it for
the money.''
Critical reaction to the film was harsh. Vincent Canby
of The New York Times wrote, ''Fletch Lives looks less
like Fletch 2...than Fletch 7, the bitter end of a wornout series.''
''They should have done [my script],'' says Bergman.
''I think Chevy could have done five Fletch movies. It
really could have been his Clouseau. It should have
been.''
Three years later, Chase's sojourn on the A list ended,
thanks to a pair of commercial turkeys — Nothing but
Trouble and Memoirs of an Invisible Man — and the
chances of Universal rushing to greenlight a third
Fletch movie went from slim to none.
The Kevin Smith Years I
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Back in 1997, almost a decade after the release of Fletch Lives, Kevin Smith scored a meeting with
Universal executive Stacey Snider. Smith was a hot property after the success of his Miramax-backed
film Chasing Amy, and Snider asked if there was a project he wanted to do. As a matter of fact, there
was. Smith pitched Son of Fletch, in which Chase would reprise his portrayal of I.M. Fletcher
alongside Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee. Smith was soon lunching with Chase at Jerry's Famous
Deli in Los Angeles. Writing in his blog several years later, after relations between them had soured,
Smith described how, at the meeting, Chase claimed to have ''invented every funny thing that ever
happened in the history of not just comedy, but also the known world.... But, whatever.... I told him
I'd call him when I had some pages to read.'' Smith never placed that call. He got distracted by his
controversial 1999 religious comedy Dogma and eventually told Universal that Fletch 3 was a ''no-go
for now.'' Smith's decision irritated Chase, who bad-mouthed the director. ''It's Hollywood-type crap
treatment,'' the actor told the New York Post.
In the spring of 2000, David List, McDonald's manager, contacted Smith with the news that Universal
had let its Fletch rights lapse. Smith told List he would see if Harvey Weinstein, his mentor at
Miramax, was interested in the books. ''Three minutes later, the phone rang,'' recalls List. It was
Miramax co-president of production Bob Osher, who told List he was in a car with Harvey Weinstein
on the way to a screening and that they had seven minutes to make a Fletch deal. Which they did.
According to List, ''Within 48 hours, they had the first half a million delivered to Greg's ranch.'' Smith
now planned to reboot the entire franchise by adapting Fletch Won, chronologically the first book in
the series.
Weinstein thought Ben Affleck — who starred in Smith's Chasing Amy and Dogma — should play
Fletch in what he was calling ''Miramax Films' first-ever franchise.'' But the director had his heart set
on the then-little-known Jason Lee. ''Harvey didn't agree with that,'' says Smith. ''I said, 'I'm going to
wait another year until Jason's got a little more clout.''' List, who was one of the project's producers,
thought from the start that Ryan Reynolds would be a good fit for the part — ''David List wanted
Ryan Reynolds in a big, bad way,'' says Smith — and Miramax put out feelers. But Reynolds was
disinclined to play such an indelible character.
The Kevin Smith Years II
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Finally, in 2003, Weinstein told Smith he'd pay Affleck $10 million to portray Fletch. ''I was like, 'My
God!''' says Smith. ''We were looking to make a $50 to $60 million film at that point.'' He believes
that Weinstein's largesse was partly motivated by a desire to stop Affleck from starring in Disney's
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. (Disney had bought Miramax 10 years earlier, and the relationship had
become increasingly fraught.) ''Harvey hated Disney,'' Smith said of Weinstein (David Glasser,
executive vice president for Weinstein's post-Miramax studio, The Weinstein Company, denied that
his boss attempted to derail the Disney film.)
Although Jason Lee remained Smith's first choice, Affleck was a good friend, as well as a fan of the
original Fletch, and one of the biggest stars in the world. Smith agreed. The Fletch Won train, it
seemed, was finally departing from development hell. ''They opened a production office and sent
out a location scout,'' says Smith. ''Then Ben pulled out.'' (Ironically, Ghosts didn't get made until
2009 — with Matthew McConaughey and Affleck's wife, Jennifer Garner.) After the disappointment
of losing Affleck, Smith says he resumed his old argument with Weinstein: '''Jason Lee.' 'No.' 'Jason
Lee.' 'No.' 'Jason Lee.' 'No.'''
According to Smith, the lack of progress caused tension between him and List. ''Harvey had a zillion
other movies to make,'' says the director. ''He didn't give a fuck. So it created a bad situation. By the
time year 3 or 4 rolled around, List was at his wit's end. I would dread receiving phone calls from
him. I'd see his name come up and be like, 'Ugh.'''
It didn't help that List was unimpressed by Smith's Fletch Won script. ''Which I always found very
fucking strange,'' says Smith. ''My version of Fletch Won is slavishly devoted [to the book]. But List
wanted funny disguises and shit like that.'' For his part, List insists he always wanted to remain
faithful to McDonald's prose: ''Kevin has said a lot of things over the years, and I'm sure he believes
them. My knowledge bears some stark differences.''
The Kevin Smith Years III
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In March 2005, Harvey and his brother Bob split with Disney to form The Weinstein Company. Among the
properties they took with them was Fletch. Harvey Weinstein persuaded Smith to start thinking about other
actors for Fletch Won, and the director met with Scrubs star Zach Braff, who was hot off Garden State.
''Harvey was like, 'Garden State-meets-Fletch equals a billion dollars,''' recalls Smith. Smith himself had
doubts. ''You need somebody who has an air of confidence: 'I'm the smartest guy in the room, but I'm not
going to tell anybody,''' he says. ''What Zach does is really cool. But his thing is not that.'' And Smith wasn't
sure that Braff would ultimately want to play such an iconic character. ''He knew it was a thankless role,'' he
says. Carla Gardini, one of the Weinstein Company executives shepherding Fletch Won, suggested stand-up
comedian Dave Chappelle. ''Dave Chappelle was a stroke of brilliance,'' says Smith. ''Harvey was like, 'No, I'd
rather have a name that works here and overseas.''' Chappelle was not the only African-American
considered for the part. Says List, ''At one point New Line made a written offer in the event that Harvey lost
the rights, because Brett Ratner wanted to direct it with Chris Tucker.''
By the summer of 2005, Weinstein was in danger of losing the Fletch rights. List, frustrated that the project
had stalled, told Weinstein he intended to take McDonald's books elsewhere when the company's rights
agreement expired in 2006 — unless Smith went away and didn't come back. ''David List had reached the
end of his rope with the fucking Weinsteins and me,'' said Smith. ''Harvey asked me, 'Are you in or out?' I
said, 'If it's not going to be Jason Lee, there's no point.' That's when Harvey moved forward. List put into the
contract that I could have nothing to do with this movie ever again at The Weinstein Company. I couldn't
write a script, I couldn't do anything.'' List says his insistence on Smith's departure was inspired by a
businesslike ''desire to move on.'' He admits, though, ''in our business, that old adage of 'It's not personal,
it's just business' never applies. It is personal. It becomes a clash of ego. And if Kevin took it personally, I
regret that.''
Smith, however, wasn't really ready to give up on his pet project, or even on Jason Lee. In September 2005,
a miracle occurred with the hugely successful debut of Lee's sitcom My Name Is Earl. Now, Smith thought,
Weinstein had to take the notion of casting Lee seriously. ''I was driving down Sunset Boulevard,'' says
Smith. ''There is Jason Lee's face, larger than life, multiple times down the boulevard. I call Harvey
Weinstein and say, 'You mean to tell me he's still not big enough to play Fletch?' Harvey goes, 'No, he's still
not big enough.' To his credit, dude had a vision. I don't know what it was, but it did not include Jason Lee.''
The Post-Kevin Smith Years I
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Zach Braff was still intrigued by the idea of playing Fletch. After Smith left the film, Weinstein
recruited Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence as director. ''Once Kevin decided not to do it, Harvey thought
Bill was the best choice as director,'' says The Weinstein Company's Glasser. Lawrence planned to
make a film in the vein of Beverly Hills Cop and 48 HRS. ''Those movies are remembered as
comedies,'' he says. ''But they have an edge that people forget about.'' Unfortunately, once Braff
brought Lawrence on board, he himself jumped ship. ''By the time I was writing it,'' says Lawrence,
''Zach had already gotten a little scared.'' Braff confirms, via e-mail, that he ultimately had second
thoughts about tackling the part: ''There is so much passion out there for the Fletch franchise
amongst the die-hard fans. Whoever takes on the remake really has to nail it. (And even then, most
people will hate it unless it's Chevy Chase.)''
List wasn't a huge fan of Lawrence's script, which he deemed to be not ''sophisticated'' enough.
Weinstein, on the other hand, adored the screenplay, greenlit the movie, and officially offered the
role to Ryan Reynolds. But Reynolds demurred. So did Justin Long. And so did the half dozen other
actors who were offered the part. In June 2007, John Krasinski told MTV.com that his name had been
''tossed around a little bit for the role,'' which he described as ''one of those things that is so
terrifying.'' (''That's the other thing about Jason Lee,'' says Smith. ''He was willing to do it. Most
people were like, 'Dude, you put a target on your back if you're going to play fucking Fletch.''') It
wasn't long before Lawrence returned full-time to his sitcom day job. ''Harvey Weinstein is a very
involved producer, and [List] also has his own specific take,'' says Lawrence diplomatically. ''Luckily, I
was in a financial position where I was able to say, 'This seems like something I might not want to
do.''' The Weinstein Company seems sorry to have lost Lawrence. ''Harvey thinks Bill is very talented
and wrote a great script and should have been the director,'' says Glasser.
An increasingly disillusioned List was now extending the Fletch rights agreement with The Weinstein
Company on a cautious year-to-year basis. The producer claims that Weinstein, a legendarily tough
negotiator, tried to get him to grant those extensions for free. As it happens, there was one easy way
the Weinsteins could extend their control over the rights — they could make a Fletch movie, any
Fletch movie, no matter how little it cost. List says The Weinstein Company told him they were going
to make a cut-rate Fletch Won if he did not give them an extension for free. ''They always wanted to
re-up for no money,'' says List. ''The cheap version was hung out there as a threat.''
The Post-Kevin Smith Years II
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Glasser admits that The Weinstein Company considered greenlighting a $4 million to $6 million Fletch Won
around 2007 just to keep the rights in-house, but denies that it was a negotiating tactic. A source close to
the Weinsteins, who requested anonymity, puts the figure closer to $1.2 million, and Smith, who had kept
an eye on ''the Fletch fucking train wreck,'' says he heard the same thing. ''The updates I would get were
that they were going to do what they call a 'Modesty Blaise,''' he says. The term refers to the straight-tovideo 2004 Miramax movie My Name Is Modesty. The Weinsteins had bought the rights to the character of
Modesty Blaise, a female adventurer who originally appeared in a British newspaper comic strip, for
Miramax golden boy Quentin Tarantino, a huge fan of the fictional heroine. (In Pulp Fiction, John Travolta is
holding a Modesty Blaise book when he is killed by Bruce Willis.) Tarantino never got around to doing
anything with the project, so Miramax produced My Name Is Modesty to ensure the property stayed with
the company. Weinstein, says the inside source, struggled to recruit a director to oversee this bargain Fletch
Won, a project the source believes would have been as creatively fulfilling for whoever took it on as ''hitting
yourself in the nuts with a Nerf bat for an hour.'' One person who was actually willing to undergo that
beating was...Kevin Smith. ''I was like, 'Let me do the $1 million Jason Lee version and show [Harvey] how it
could have been done,''' says the director. ''But that would have meant confronting the idea that perhaps
he didn't know everything there was to know about the movie business.''
In June 2007, it was reported that Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek) would star in Fletch Won, with Steve
Pink slated to direct. Pink had co-penned the well-regarded John Cusack vehicles Grosse Pointe Blank and
High Fidelity, but his only directing credit was the previous year's college comedy Accepted. ''Look, I don't
think I was in the top five choices,'' admits the filmmaker. ''I don't think they were like, 'Who is the most
awesome guy in Hollywood right now? Oh, it's Steve Pink! Let's get him to direct Fletch!''' Pink was on the
project for only a month but still sounds jazzed when discussing it: ''I met with Joshua and he was great, I
liked Bill Lawrence's script. They just called one day and said, 'It's not happening.'''
List says The Weinstein Company hired more writers to tackle the Fletch Won script. These efforts went
nowhere: ''A great deal of money was thrown down the toilet.'' In 2008, List dug in his heels. ''It was a
fiasco,'' he says. ''I said to Harvey, 'No one seems to have a clue as to what Fletch even is anymore.''' List
persuaded Weinstein to let a writer friend named Harry Stein pen a script. Sadly, the possibility that
Gregory McDonald would ever see Fletch return to the big screen ended on Sept. 7, 2008, when the author
died of cancer. ''That's my biggest regret,'' says Smith. ''It would have been nice to have made that movie
while he was still alive.''
The Post-Kevin Smith Years III
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Harry Stein delivered his Fletch Won script in April 2009. The result did not thrill Weinstein, who
remained a fan of Bill Lawrence's screenplay and decided the time had come to get out of the
Fletch business altogether. Whether that decision was a merely creative one is open for debate.
''When the script was delivered, that was the point where it became public that the company
was dealing with some big financial issues,'' says List. In the early summer of 2009, the
Weinsteins hired investment bank Miller Buckfire to restructure the firm's debt. List says shortly
afterwards a Weinstein Company lawyer called and told him, ''We can't make the film.'' In
August of last year, the Fletch rights reverted to Gregory McDonald's estate.
So it has now been over 25 years since Chase's Fletch ordered a steak sandwich and a steak
sandwich. Will a new movie ever get made? And, if so, who will have the, uh, ball bearings to
tackle Chase's role? Perhaps it will be Chase himself. After all, to many fans, Chase is Fletch —
and Jason Lee, Ryan Reynolds, and the rest are, well, not. ''I'd love to do another Fletch,'' said
the actor at age 66. ''I don't think anybody else is going to do it any better than me, frankly. But
I'm not hopeful.''
David List, on the other hand, remains optimistic. He's now planning to adapt a different book,
Fletch's Fortune, for the big screen. And List says he's encouraged by the response he gets
whenever he tells people what he has been doing for the past 10 years. ''As soon as you
mention Fletch, forget it,'' he says. ''Everywhere I go: 'Put it on the Underhills' tab,' 'It's all ball
bearings these days.' Everybody remembers the lines.''
It is a response that continues to amaze Andrew Bergman, the man who actually wrote most of
those lines. ''I think Fletch's particular wiseass-ery hit a nerve with a certain generation,'' he
says. ''These things just become bigger than you. Somebody told me that his son had gone to
Princeton, and in order to get into an eating club, you had to have memorized Fletch. This is
Princeton we're talking about. That's certainly more than I had counted on. To me, it's just a
funny movie.''
Sources
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Collis, Clark, “The Curse of ‘Fletch’,” Entertainment Weekly, February 9, 2010.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20342679,00.html
Salam, Reihan, “Snob vs. Snob: Don’t Let Your Memory Fool You; Chevy Chase’s Fletch is Abominably Bad,”
Slate, May 25, 2007.