How Did This Get Made: Kazaam (An Oral History)

How Did This Get Made is a companion to the podcast How Did This Get Made with Paul Scheer, Jason Mantzoukas and June Diane Raphael which focuses on movies. This regular feature is written by Blake J. Harris, who you might know as the writer of the book Console Wars, soon to be a motion picture produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. You can listen to the Kazaam edition of the HDTGM podcast here. 

Synopsis: After finding a boom box that happens to contain a magic lamp, Max (Francis Capra) awakens a rapping genie named Kazaam (Shaquille O'Neal) who offers to change the young boy's life by granting three wishes. But what Max seems to want more than anything is a relationship with his estranged father...Tagline: He's A Rappin' Genie With An Attitude... And He's Ready For Slam-Dunk Fun!

In 1996, famed film critic Gene Siskel named Kazaam as one of his least favorite movies of the year. And although it didn't crack Roger Ebert's "Least Favorite" list, Siskel on-screen cohort wasn't much more enthusiastic. "Kazaam is a textbook example of a filmed deal," Ebert wrote, "in which adults assemble a package that reflects their own interests and try to sell it to kids."

From a distance, this is an easy (and perhaps logical) conclusion to draw. That Kazaam must have been a movie written, produced and directed without vision or heart. In reality, however, that couldn't be further from the truth. If anything, an overabundance of vision and heart is what doomed Kazaam. But amazingly (as well as strangely and beautifully), that overabundance helped save the soul of a very talented man.

Here's what happened, as told by those who made it happen...

Featuring:

In June of 1975, two months after Starsky & Hutch debuted on television, one of the show's stars—Paul Michael Glaser—decided to go for a drive. So too, at this time, did a special needs schoolteacher named Elizabeth Meyer. Somewhere along the way—on Santa Monica Boulevard to be precise—the two wound up driving side-by-side. Strangers, for one final moment, until their glances soon intertwined. After passing smiles back and forth, Glaser motioned for Meyer to pull over and then invited her out for Chinese food. Three months after that fateful meal, they moved in together. Given the velocity of their romance and the circumstances it would later endure, one can only assume that Glaser felt a strong sense of emotional fulfillment. Creatively, however, the same could not be said. Paul Michael Glaser: As an actor, the amount of time you spend being creative is minimal. And I felt I had these other abilities—telling a story, composition, you name it—so I told the people doing Starsky & Hutch that I wanted to direct. They weren't really enthusiastic about it. Nobody supported it, but they went along with it and I learned. I learned by the seat of my pants.Glaser learned quickly, and while starting to build a career for himself as a director he also started to build a family as well. He married Elizabeth in 1980 and then welcomed two children into the world over the next four years: Ariel (1981) and Jake (1984). And as his family grew, so too did his standing in Hollywood as a director. Paul Michael Glaser: After I finished Starsky & Hutch, I decided that I wasn't going to act anymore. I got a movie for television to direct and then Michael Mann—who had been on the writing staff of Starsky & Hutch—he was doing this series called Miami Vice and he asked me if I could direct a couple of episodes. Two episodes led to four episodes and then he asked me if was interested in directing a movie that he was producing in Florida.The movie was called Band of the Hand, which Glaser directed and was then released by TriStar in 1986. One year later, he received a lot of attention for directing a successful sci-fi film called The Running Man (1987) and then followed this up with a pair of family/comedy hits: The Cutting Edge (1992) and The Air Up there (1994). With this string of successes, Glaser seemed to be on an upward trajectory creatively. But emotionally, one can only imagine, as he was in the midst of a constant battle. In 1985, it was discovered that Elizabeth had contracted HIV through a blood transfusion she had received four years earlier while giving birth to the couple's first child. Unaware of the virus, it was inadvertently passed along to both Ariel and Jake. In 1988, at only seven years old, Ariel passed away from complications with AIDS. Hoping to spare Jake from a similar fate, Elizabeth co-founded the Pediatric AIDS Foundation in 1988 and became a public ambassador in the fight to raise awareness, inspire hope and de-stigmatize the virus. She continued these efforts—soon entering the national spotlight following a now-famous speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention—until she succumbed to the virus in December 1994. Paul Michael Glaser: Two months after my wife had died, I was going to take my son down to the NBA All-Star game. And friends of ours who worked on Shaquille O'Neal's management team asked if Jake would be interested in meeting with Shaquille. I said, "Yeah, sure he would." And then before I got off the phone they said, "By the way, do you know of any good film roles for Shaquille O'Neal for the summer?" I didn't know of anything, no, but before hanging up the phone I said he ought to play a genie.The more Glaser thought about it, the more he liked the idea. And perhaps just as importantly, the more he liked the idea of throwing himself into a creative endeavor. Paul Michael Glaser: I went to, I guess it was Phoenix, for the All-Star game. I met Shaq and Leonard Armato [Shaq's agent] and that crew. I said I wanted to do a rap musical, because Shaquille thought of himself as a rapper, and I asked when he would have to report to basketball camp. They told me the date, whatever it was, and I knew that I had ten and a half weeks to get a script and a greenlight. In this town, doing something in that amount of time is kind of unheard of. But I did it. Because necessity is the mother of invention.With necessity driving the project forward, Glaser quickly set it up at a studio.   Paul Michael Glaser: I set it up in about two seconds flat. With Warner Brothers. They were taking the project because they basically didn't want any competition for the Michael Jordan/Bugs Bunny project they were doing. So I got the project and I went to a friend of mine [Robert Cort at Interscope Pictures] who had produced two of the movies I had directed, The Cutting Edge and The Air Up There, and asked him if this was something he and his partners would be interested in. So I got a couple of writers to write the screenplay and they were delightful.

Francis Capra: Kazaam came at a really busy time for my mom and I, and for the family. We were at a transitional period. I had just finished production on this TV series called My Guys with Lorraine Bracco and was working with Rob Reiner on a series called Canterbury Tales.In addition to those television shows, Capra was coming off major roles in A Bronx Tale and Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home. Francis Capra: So that brought us to LA and everything seemed to be going great, but at the same time I was running into issues with casting directors, where people were saying that I was "too urban" or that I had a "weird look." I guess I was going through puberty—I went through some of the worst hairstyles in the world—and we never knew if I was too light, too dark. I think my mom could tell that it was starting to wear down on me mentally. And I maybe was getting a little insecure. Luckily I had the most amazing agent/manager in the world who introduced me to Paul Michael Glaser and I got that appointment for Kazaam and I got a one-on-one meeting with him.Paul Michael Glaser: I liked Francis, thought he had a really interesting quality about him. And I didn't want Max to be just like every other kid that you see in pictures. I wanted him to have some attitude.Francis Capra: Me and Paul, I think we just hit it off. I remember in the room, Paul was really trying to get across to me that this story was about a boy discovering his relationship with his father. And I don't remember the meeting with enough clarity, but it's so cool—and also strange—that, looking back as an adult, that was my life. I had a disconnected relationship with my own father and went through a lot of pain and turmoil as an adult and growing up and dealing with that. Being estranged from such an important family member. I don't remember if Paul and I had talked about that at the time, but maybe he was able to look inside and see that he could pull that stuff out of me. Because I think he absolutely did when we were shooting the film. He totally pulled out so many things from me that I don't even think I realized that I was feeling about my own father. And we also talked about Shaquille O'Neal. I had no idea who he was. I was the most non-athletic kid in the world; I thought Shaq was a football player at the time.Despite not knowing Shaq, Glaser knew that this was the kid he wanted. So a meeting was arranged between Capra and O'Neal. Francis Capra: Before I met with him, I had established [laughing] that he wasn't a football player and figured out what sport he played and which team he played for. I think Shaquille he was in LA to shoot a music video. I remember walking into his trailer and, as soon as I saw him, the it felt like the trailer shrunk by like 50%.  He was such a massive figure. I'd never met anybody that big before. But it wasn't just his size, it was his whole demeanor. He's larger than life, man. He's a child in an adult's body...but it's a massive adult's body! It was just such an awesome time hanging with him. We talked about videogames and, specifically, I remember us talking about Mortal Kombat. The clincher of that meeting though was when he turned around and handed me a copy of Shaq-Fu, his videogame for the Sega Genesis. And I remember actually being like wow I want to go home and play thisPaul Michael Glaser: The two of them, they seemed to have a pretty good chemistry. And Shaq was very, you know, he was very good to Francis.Francis Capra: One of the things we talked about during that initial meeting was his song "Biological Didn't Bother." And what I think is so funny is that he had this song about how his biological father didn't bother, and then he met with me, and my biological father didn't bother. And then in the story, Max's father didn't bother. So it's like you have this crazy triangle of a father-son redemption story that refused to die. It refused to lay down and just shut the fuck up. In the end, maybe, it turned out to be too much of a recurring thing and maybe suffocated the entire film.Paul Michael Glaser: Francis had a real good feisty quality about him and I waned to cast him for the part. But nobody [at the studio] agreed with me.Christian Ford: We were not privy to a lot of the casting decisions and discussions, but I do remember that Paul was having a really hard time with Interscope. And I remember him just being livid some time at some of those things that were happening.Paul Michael Glaser: I never got to the point where I was an auteur. Which is where I wanted to get to. So I became a talented director for hire, you know? And I had a lot of good experiences. But when you make a film like this, there's a lot of compromise that goes on.Compromise and competing visions (sometimes even from Glaser himself) would eventually plague the movie in a variety of ways. But before any of that really took hold, Glaser was able to cast his choice for Max and Francis Capra was hired.   Francis Capra: As far as what happened next, I think we were just rushing to get everything ready for when Shaq was ready to start shooting.Paul Michael Glaser: That kind of energy—racing the clock—is imparted to the film. Literally, I believe. A I think that can be a very good thing.Christian Ford: For us, we were very excited. And there were some surreal moments at the beginning. Because Paul—given his personal situation—we saw him go from sort of dipping his foot back in the water to exploding back to life.Roger Soffer: Let me paint one picture of that explosion. It was, what would you say Christian, 5:30 AM?Christian Ford: Yeah, about 5:30, 6:00 AM. But he came to my place first.Roger Soffer: He did? Oh, okay.Christian Ford: Yeah so Paul in part of this explosion of re-experiencing life, it's a Saturday morning and he gets on his bike and he comes racing down the bike path on the beach and comes over to where we live. And I'm awoken at some godawful time in the morning by my wife who says, "So I think Starsky is in the alley shouting your name." And I hear Paul say, "I know you're up there, I know you're up there! But maybe you're asleep. I'll go see Roger."Roger Soffer: But you've got to understand that the reason he's doing this—and the reason behind a lot of our experiences—is because Paul has one of the biggest hearts in the world.Christian Ford: Uh-huh. He really does.Roger Soffer: That's his reality and it's beautiful. Unfortunately, we were not strong enough, or not politically strong enough to help the movie become what it could have been. But I'm not sure anyone could have pulled that off. And had we been strong enough and able to creatively pull that off, then we might have fulfilled our agent's prophecy and been fired.Christian Ford: Bob Cort [the producer at Interscope], he was an old friend of Paul's, and I think he basically gave this show to Paul because he felt he needed to. He cared. But at the same time, he was always uneasy about that decision; worried about how this movie would turn out. And because of that he was constantly making decisions and suggestions and pushing things that were—in his mind—going to help the whole thing be better. But clearly were antithetical and disastrous to what Paul wanted to do. So it wasn't a situation that, I think, was ever going to yield something good. Except by accident.Roger Soffer: In my opinion, the core idea had huge value. And it had emotional value as well. But in this case, it was inextricably intertwined with Paul's emotional—and tragic—situation. He had a deep and powerful connection to something he wanted to see on the screen because of the loss he'd experienced and still was experiencing. So you're going to have situations, like we did, where we're working in a room with Paul and if we tell him his idea is not best for the story, then he might start crying. Because he can't take the loss. He just can't take another loss.Christian Ford: When we were doing it we quickly moved from the "Wahoo!"—we're doing it! we're moving up!—to our role here is to in some way fulfill this part of Paul's life. To act in some way as supports in his transition from a really dark place back into living.Roger Soffer: I remember that feeling, I remember it. I mean, there's the old artist cliché about getting too invested in your own work to really see what's happening. And that's true for any movie that gets made; you're in the forest and you've lost the trees. But for Paul, it was a quantum leap beyond that. His emotional investment was about creating a second wish for a boy. Giving a second life to a boy. That's what this movie was about. If I could only make my life better with this magical genie then everything would be good. Literally the psychic scenario he had to have been living, I would assume, with his own son. So he got caught between the sentimentality—based off his own horrible life experience—and the playful, fun irreverent comedy that it needed to be to have Shaq make it work. And so our nature was to accommodate. And we're good at accommodating.Christian Ford: Yeah. So we tried to do that and we tried to get paid.

Christian Ford: Kazaam was, for us, it was a whirlwind. And then suddenly it was over. And it was very interesting because I think the big thing that it did for us—besides being this thing that we then had to explain away when we went into meetings—was that it really sort of blooded us, if you will. It made us see how the process typically worked and the problems with it and how it was designed to not necessarily produce good work.Roger Soffer: I would say that blooding, that arrow, took about 15 years to clear the body.Paul Michael Glaser: Do I have a favorite part of Kazaam? You know, I like the premise of the story a lot. I like the premise that a genie has granted so many wishes to mankind that he's lost his faith and his heart. But in the end, he finds his power—or magic, if you will—when he finds his heart. And the boy does too. I think that's a real good metaphor for our world.Roger Soffer: The force of positive will that Paul had to not just sit there and wallow but actually stand up and create? It's astonishing in retrospect.Christian Ford: I remember Paul saying, "All I'm trying to do is be present in the moment. And not be trapped in the memories or the What Ifs." And it's funny, sort of, because that's of course an actor's primary skill. To be totally present and open to whatever is happening in a scene at that moment. That was the skill he was drawing on to, you know, not fall apart while this was happening. This was a creative baby. He was making a living thing in response to this terrible loss.Francis Capra: There were some signs during production that maybe this thing was kind of spinning out of control. Towards the end, it did feel a little bit like Paul was losing control of the cohesion of things.Christian Ford: There was a day they were shooting in downtown LA and they called us. "We need a new Act 3." Huh? What? "I said we need a new Act 3." "But aren't you shooting Act 3 right now?" And they said yes. I said, "So you need it now, then?"Francis Capra: So you had situations like that, and all kinds of issues with the tone, and what we ended up with was this sin upon mankind of modern filmmaking. But I promise you though, regardless of the way I make jokes and I talk about it and whatever, I will always look back on Kazaam as one of the greatest times of my life. And I can tell you right now, you don't know how many people come up to me and say that movie was like a great part of their childhood and they loved it.Roger Soffer: Occasionally, I'll meet a person who will literally tell me that Kazaam is their favorite movie. And I stare at them like an anthropologist and try to figure out where exactly this person came from.Francis Capra: I sometimes think about Kazaam's legacy. And I'll wonder: are we ever going to get to the point where people will look at the movie and say it's so bad that it's good? But I feel like we'll never get to that point because it's not that Kazaam was "so bad that it was good," it's more like it was so bad that it was strange."Paul Michael Glaser: I think we ran into a problem with this film that had just come out called Cool Runnings. It kind of lived in the same world, you know? So Kazaam didn't do great. But it didn't do awful. I don't know ultimately how it did at the end of the day. It might have made some money.Christian Ford: Strangely, the song "We Genie" is a hit in Brazil for some reason...Hope Hanafin: I've done now 54 movies and I've kind of given up trying to predict how people are going to respond to the film when it comes out. Kazaam, I think, may have been the start. You just can't tell. Or I prefer not to. Because if you think it's going to be bad, it might be harder to keep working on something. But I can tell you this: I loved working with Paul Michael Glaser. He has a vision and he is visual. He encourages you to be better. You give him an idea and he goes with it and can often improve on it and make it larger. He's not afraid. His humanity kind of rules the day. He's kind and funny and warm. He's the kind of guy who can eloquently recite poetry. And I'm really sorry he's not directing more, I really enjoyed my time working with him.Roger Soffer: Once when I was going to do a poetry reading, at some point in between then and now, I said to Paul, "I'm nervous. I don't really know how to do this." I'm not an actor and I had to go up and perform. He said, "You only need to do one thing." And this really does sum up Paul. He said, "Just speak from your heart." That was his whole advice and it's his life, I think.Francis Capra: I'm grateful to have worked with Paul. I mean, it's hard for me to even put into words how much that experience meant to me. Being around Paul and Shaq and also Bob Engelman, who was a producer on the film. In fact, that's actually how I got my next project after Kazaam. Bob's production company was going to be make this film called A Simple Wish. I heard the names Martin Short and Kathleen Turner and I was like: oh my god, I want to do it! But of course it had to be a movie about a fairy godmother who was played by Martin Short. So it probably wasn't the best follow-up to a movie about a rapping genie with Shaquille O'Neal. And that, my friend, is how you kill a fucking career right there.