WAYNE'S WORLD Director Penelope Spheeris Talks About Why She Was Fired Before WAYNE'S WORLD 2
Wayne’s World director Penelope Spheeris made one of the greatest movies of the ‘90s. It’s one of the best, if not the best, movies based on SNL characters, and goes down as having one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. One of the people we have to thank for this movie is the film’s director, alongside its stars, and producer Lorne Michaels.
But rumors have flown over the years about the lack of cohesion between Spheeris and Mike Myers, and it actually led to her being fired from the film’s sequel.
Spheeris told THR's It Happened in Hollywood podcast (via CB):
"It was not an uncomfortable set. Mike is hypoglycemic, so if he got low-blood sugar he could get grumpy. So big deal. I worked with Richard Pryor and Albert Brooks. They'll cause you a heart attack."
Still, she admitted that Myers was responsible for her not directing the second movie. Not because he was so hard to work with, as some have suggested, but because he wielded his power as star and director to steer Paramount away from her when they clashed on the final cut. It certainly wasn't a fun experience, but it's a pretty different narrative from the one that has been pushed for years.
Spheeris claimed that Myers didn't vibe with the "Bohemian Rhapsody" scene, which became the film's most iconic moment, arguing that it wasn't funny. She told THR that everyone involved knew that it wasn't going to be easy to go up against Myers, and essentially told her that she was doing so on her own - the studio was not going to tell Myers that she refused his changes, she would have to.
"Lorne took me aside and said, 'Penelope, if you don't change the movie, you won't be able to direct Wayne's World 2. Mike's not going to approve you.'"
She quotes Paramount executives as saying, "We really want to do Wayne's World 2 with Mike. We're not going to tell him you won't change it — you have to tell him. And Lorne said, 'I'm not telling him, you tell him.' So I told him, and I got canned."
The final version of Wayne's World is something Spheeris is happy with, having incorporated only a few of Myers's notes and largely remaining intact from the version that blew people away at test screenings. Still, it stung, and has left a mark. When she was officially replaced, Spheeris said she pulled the phone out of the wall in anger.
"[I] cried for two weeks. And then I got over it," Spheeris said, although she has not talked to Lorne Michaels, with whom she had been collaborating for almost 20 years at the time, since then.
This is such a bummer to hear. Wayne’s World is such a great and hilarious movie, and the second one has its moments, but it pales in comparison. I would have liked to have seen Spheeris return to direct the second movie. I wonder if Myers feels his decision was hasty all these years later.