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THE FLINSTONES IN VIVA ROCK VEGAS |
Universal Pictures
presents a Hanna-Barbera/
Amblin Entertainment production. A Brian Levant film.
Prod: Bruce Cohen; Exec prod: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera, Dennis
E Jones; Co-prod: Bart Brown; Dir: Brian Levant; Scr: Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont, Jim Cash, Jack Epps, Jr, based on the animated series by Hanna-Barbera Productions Inc; Ph: Jamie Anderson; Prod des: Christopher Burian-Mohr; Cost des: Robert Turturice; Creature fx: Jim Henson’s Creature Shop; Vis fx: Rhythm & Hues Studios; Ed: Kent Beyda; Mus: David Newman.
With Mark Addy (Fred Flintstone), Stephen Baldwin (Barney Rubble), Kristen Johnston (Wilma Slaghoople), Jane Krakowski (Betty O’Shale), Thomas Gibson (Chip Rockefeller), Joan Collins (Pearl Slaghoople), Alan Cumming (The Great Gazoo/ Mick Jagged), Harvey Korman (Colonel Slaghoople), Alex Meneses (Roxie).
International
distribution:
Universal Pictures/UIP
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The film was shot entirely on location in the Los Angeles area in the late spring and early summer of 1999. The Rock Vegas ‘Strip’ was built, like many of the film’s major sets, in the Cal Mat Quarry in Sun Valley, and required one-and-a-half million watts of electricity to create its night-time look.
“In creating Rock Vegas,” says Levant, “we wanted to expand beyond the Flintstones world of stone, bone and lava. We wanted to introduce new elements and vary the palette - make every surface reflective, and utilise crystalline formations and giant shells and fish scales and have the streets running with veins of gold...”
“Our production department, art department, costume department and everyone else involved got to research a period that technically never existed,” jokes co-producer Bart Brown.
Fred Flintstone (Mark Addy), Wilma, Betty and Barney Rubble (Stephen Baldwin).
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The film was shot entirely on location in the Los Angeles area in the late spring and early summer of 1999. The Rock Vegas ‘Strip’ was built, like many of the film’s major sets, in the Cal Mat Quarry in Sun Valley, and required one-and-a-half million watts of electricity to create its night-time look.
“In creating Rock Vegas,” says Levant, “we wanted to expand beyond the Flintstones world of stone, bone and lava. We wanted to introduce new elements and vary the palette - make every surface reflective, and utilise crystalline formations and giant shells and fish scales and have the streets running with veins of gold...”
“Our production department, art department, costume department and everyone else involved got to research a period that technically never existed,” jokes co-producer Bart Brown.
The level of inventiveness is, if anything, greater than either the TV series or the original film, with special effects house Rhythm & Hues (which worked on the Babe movies) coming in to supplement the creations of the Henson team, Burian-Mohr and costume designer Robert Turturice. A particular challenge was to transform Cumming into The Great Gazoo, for which the actor had to undergo three weeks of blue-screen work before principal photography began.
“I had to get strapped in a harness and come in at 4 o’clock in the morning to get a big, huge prosthetic head put on and purple contacts poked in me eyes. I was getting chafed in areas that should never be chafed,” jokes the Scottish-born actor, whose other recent screen roles have, like Baldwin’s, been less fanciful, including Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Julie Taymor’s Titus.
Here, though, chafing apart, the emphasis was on having a good time. “The most fun was working with Brian,” says director of photography Jamie Anderson, “because of his sensibility and his playfulness. The film is a big, bright comedy - a fun fantasy kind of world. It’s not every day you get to bring a cartoon to life.”
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