Jon Favreau Originally Turned Down A Darker, PG-13 Version Of Elf
In light of Will Ferrell's other comedy films in the mid-2000s, "Elf" is a little surprising. Unlike movies like "Anchorman," "Talladega Nights," "Stepbrothers," or "The Other Guys," the 2003 Christmas film is surprisingly clean-cut and wholesome. It fits comfortably within its PG rating, never spoiling the truth about Santa to younger viewers, and avoiding most of the raunchy humor that so many of Ferrell's movies are full of. Back in 2002 as Ferrell was wrapping up his final season as a cast member at "Saturday Night Live," it would've been a little surprising to learn that Ferrell's next big project would basically be a kids' movie.
That's because, in the early drafts, it wasn't. Director Jon Favreau explained that when he first read Judd Apatow's script for the film, he originally wasn't interested. "It was a much darker version of the film," he told Rolling Stone. "I liked the notion of being involved with Will in his first solo movie after 'SNL,' but it wasn't quite there."
Details on what the original "Elf" movie looked like are unfortunately sparse, but it's easy to imagine what a meaner, darker version of the film could look like. The final product already takes advantage of the fish-out-of-water comedy inherent to a story about a sweet, innocent elf trying to figure out and survive in the real human world. It's easy to picture a PG-13 version of this film where innocent Buddy is exposed to some more adult areas of modern life.
Making it family-friendly
The early script featured a much less innocent version of Buddy the Elf. "He was a darker character in the script I had read originally," Jon Favreau said in an interview with Rolling Stone. As he rewrote the script, "the character became a bit more innocent, and the world became more of a pastiche of the Rankin/Bass films." Specifically, Favreau wanted Buddy to have grown up in a version of the North Pole as close as possible to the one in the 1964 special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." The moment Favreau made that choice, "everything fell into place tonally."
And so, the version of "Elf" audiences ended up getting is a heartwarming tale where the day is literally saved by Christmas cheer, and the kids in the audience never realize the truth about Santa Claus. In this "Elf," the most adult jokes we get are the scene where Buddy doesn't realize how creepy it is to go into the women's bathroom to listen to Jovie (Zooey Deschanel) singing in the shower, gifting his father lingerie, or the scene after Buddy's rejected by his dad, where it's implied that Buddy's going to jump off a bridge to end his life. "Elf" occasionally threatens to veer into PG-13 territory, but it always stays kid-friendly.
This was probably the wiser choice for Jon Favreau and the rest of the creative team, but one can't help but wonder what that darker version of "Elf" would've looked like. Much like James Gunn's original plan to make a raunchy R-rated version of "Scooby Doo," a PG-13 version of "Elf" is something we'll just have to imagine.