The Fly II (1989)

Interesting facts

• Box office: $38.9M
• Budget: $12.5M
• Earned 3.1× its budget

The Fly II is a 1989 American science fiction horror film directed by Chris Walas. The film stars Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga, and is a sequel to the 1986 film The Fly, itself a remake of the 1958 film of the same name. Stoltz's character in this sequel is the adult son of Veronica Quaife and Seth Brundle, a scientist who became a human-fly hybrid as a result of an experiment gone awry, played by Jeff Goldblum in the 1986 remake. With the exception of footage of Goldblum from the first film, John Getz was the only actor to reprise his role, with another actress filling the Geena Davis role as Quaife in the opening birth scene.

Production

Early in development, Tim Burton was a director for consideration. Mick Garris was hired to write and direct The Fly II and wrote multiple drafts of the film before losing patience with the production and joining Critters 2 due to liking the script and New Line Cinema offering him creative input. Following Garris' departure, Chris Walas who had provided the effects work for The Fly was hired as director.

My exec on the project was Scott Rudin, who later became one of the best and most tasteful of producers. Producer Stuart Cornfeld and I wanted to do something smart and adult in the realm of the brilliant Cronenberg movie that preceded it, and Scott was completely on board with us. But Leonard Goldberg, producer of The Love Boat and other such TV shows, was inducted as the studio chief at Fox, and he wanted a teenage monster movie.

Ken and Jim Wheat were tasked with rewriting Mick Garris's draft of the screenplay after Fox turned down the duo's proposal for After Midnight. The Wheats described the initial draft of the film as "broad" and attempted to refocus the film but were unable to do so due to Fox's rushed schedule as well as receiving notes from eight different people that were oftentimes in conflict with each other.

Oh those poor guys, they (the Wheat brothers) got caught in a huge vise between the studio, Mel Brooks, the producer, and myself. Everybody was giving them a lot of input and pressure. They formulated the basic script, almost an outline of what everyone was talking to them about. It helped tremendously because up to that point there hadn't been a clear vision of what FLY II was supposed to be.

Despite the improvements Darabont brought to the script, the set production date meant that Darabont was only able to work on roughly half the script with the cast and crew ad libbing certain scenes and dialogue exchanges as needed.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.