FSteven Spielberg made five of the top 10 movies at the box office in the United States last weekend. Jurassic Park roared at n. ° 1, leaving Jaws biting his heels at n. 2. Back to the Future was at n. # 6, just above ET, with The Goonies at n. ° 10. What people want to see during a pandemic, it seems, is a good nostalgia, especially if it’s from the early to mid-1980s and well suited to a drive-in movie theater (almost the only theaters currently open in the United States ).
“There is an element in these movies that I miss now,” says Josh Gad. “They allowed the audience to bow and did not speak ill of them. Today, that has been relegated to children’s animation, unlike the momentous live-action family films we grew up with, which now really don’t exist. “
Gad, better known as the voice of Olaf, the snowman in Frozen, has spent much of the past two months in a web series called Reunited Apart, featuring Zoom calls between key players in his favorite movies, all The main hits of the 80s, except for The Lord of the Rings. It started with The Goonies, went on to Splash, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, and ends on Sunday with Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
“That particular movie seemed to me like that since its time,” he says. “The main character, who is not based on any existing IP, speaks to the camera and tells us about a day he skipped school and is being chased by a psychopath. Throw that today and you would be kicked out of the room.
Inventiveness and innocence are refreshing, Gad says, similarly storylines in which strange things happen to normal people, rather than superheroes who do extraordinary things. “I am curious about the evolution of entertainment after the coronavirus,” he says. “People may want to go back to some of that, [rejecting] the cynicism that is in many things now, many of which were a direct result of September 11th. “
While the audience in World War II was eager for movies that reflected their own battles, people in the future, Gad thinks, want escapism and elevation: “We are all exhausted.” The enemy is different: global, mysterious, existentially problematic. “I think part of the success of Reunited Apart is that it reminds people of a time when movies didn’t necessarily have a loaded message. They only were. “
The series, like other optimistic efforts at celebrity homes like John Krasinski’s Some Good News, has been a success. The shows have generated substantial profits for good causes: The Lord of the Rings episode, now viewed 5 million times, raised more than $ 2 million for the anti-poverty group No Kid Hungry. (Each episode comes with a designated charity and generally has a corporate partner.)
The stock at Gad’s brand has also increased, though the actor was already something of an American love for his roles in the remake of Frozen and the Beauty and the Beast, as well as for the original Broadway cast of the Book of Mormon and a series of large and small screens. satires
This eclectic resume, who is also an expert on the chatshow circuit, has been a valuable contact book. Preparing Reunited Apart, he swaps names for a week, records for a couple of hours, and then hands it over to an editor. Some expected shows failed: Beetlejuice, Coming to America: “Eddie Murphy’s agent frankly told me it is not going to happen.”
You can see why some stars may hesitate. High-profile Covid outreach efforts, such as Gal Gadot’s Imagine chant, have misjudged the divide between stars and fans, reiterating the difference, not the ordinary. The ideas that Reunited Apart offers about the houses of the rich and famous are more endearing: the chandeliers are kept with tact; instead, there are plenty of distant spatulas and soft shelves, plus the chance to admire Christopher Lloyd’s equine photography or Bill Murray’s DIY hat.
A collegiate atmosphere watches over any excess of self-gratification, while the intimacy of the format acts as an intelligent leveler. It’s easy to feel like you’re eavesdropping on Zoom’s reunion of a real extended family: many generations, delighted to find themselves in a time of crisis, some better with technology than others.
“We ask everyone to have a second camera, even just an iPhone,” says Gad. “But it is incredible how difficult it is for so many people, once they have taken the footage, to send it to us. A lot of times we just get what we get. “Our line is bad, but there seems to be some forgiving murmurs about Dan Aykroyd.
Tom Hanks’ participation in the Splash show, Gad says, was powerful not only because he talked about having a coronavirus, but because “his internet didn’t work for about 80% of the filming. That was very endearing. He really it is just like us. They are all going through the same madness, trying to operate in a world that is still very new and complicated, where our only connection is through the Internet. And sometimes it just fails. “
• Reunited Apart is on YouTube.
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