Director Chris Columbus has announced that he wants to make a documentary about the unrepentant actor Robin Williams, and for that purpose he would use the material from the filming of the movie “Mrs Doubtfire”. Namely, in the warehouses there are almost 1000 boxes of recordings that show Williams’ talent for improvisation, which were recorded while they were working on the hit comedy from 1993.
In it, Williams, who died in 2014, plays a divorced actor who disguises himself as an elderly housewife in order to get a job at his ex-wife’s house. A wife who has been granted full custody of the children and has a new man in her life is played by Sally Fields.
Danielle, Williams’ character, having become an eccentric and funny housewife, wants to spend as much time as possible with her daughters and son. Williams won a number of awards for that role – including the Golden Globe and MTV and Kid’s Choice awards.
Chris Columbus: We have a lot of material to make a movie
In an interview with Business Insider, on the occasion of the film’s 30th anniversary, director Columbus talked about the footage that remained in the archives and the possibility of making a documentary out of it.
“We are talking about it and trying to make that idea come true” – said the 65-year-old director. – “We have 972 boxes of recordings, roughly speaking. Some were used in the film, there are repetitions, behind-the-scenes footage.
It’s all gathering dust in storage. We’d love to hire an editor to go through all of that.” He explained that he would like to “show Robin’s creative process” in the documentary. “There was something special and magical about the way he worked and I think it would be fun to deal with that.
I mean, we have so much film material in that warehouse and it would really be a shame not to use it” – said Columbus. He believes that, thanks to Williams’ magnificent talent for improvisation, they would get a completely different, new image than the one they got by shooting according to the script on the film set. It is unclear when the documentary will be released, but it is sure to be a must-see for fans of Robin Williams.
