Popeye

Popeye (1980)

Haves a happy holiday with me an' Olive!

Popeye is a super-strong, spinach-scarfing sailor man who's searching for his father. During a storm that wrecks his ship, Popeye washes ashore and winds up rooming at the Oyl household, where he meets Olive. Before he can win her heart, he must first contend with Olive's fiancé, Bluto.

Date of release
1980-12-12
TMDB
5.6 / 10 (749)
Runtime
1h 54m
Genres
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Family
Director
Robert Altman

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $60M
  • Budget: $20M
  • Earned 3× its budget
  • Based on: Popeye
  • Filmed in: Malta and Anchor Bay

Popeye is a 1980 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman and produced by Paramount Pictures and Walt Disney Productions. It is based on E. C. Segar's Popeye comics character. The script was written by Jules Feiffer, and stars Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor Man and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl. Its story follows Popeye's adventures as he arrives in the town of Sweethaven.

Production

In his book, Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops, James Robert Parish says that the Popeye musical had its basis in the bidding war for the film adaptation of the Broadway musical, Annie, between the two major studios vying for the rights, Columbia and Paramount.

At that time, although King Features Syndicate (a unit of Hearst Communications) retained the television rights to Popeye and related characters, with Hanna-Barbera producing the series The All-New Popeye Hour under license from King Features, Paramount had long held the theatrical rights to the Popeye character, due to the studio having released the Popeye cartoon shorts produced by Fleischer Studios and Famous Studios from 1933 to 1957.

Evans commissioned Jules Feiffer to write a script. In 1977, he said that he wanted Dustin Hoffman to play Popeye, opposite Lily Tomlin as Olive Oyl, with John Schlesinger directing. Hoffman dropped out due to creative differences with Feiffer. Gilda Radner was also considered for the Olive Oyl role.

In December 1979, Walt Disney Productions joined as part of a two-picture production deal (including Dragonslayer), with Paramount Pictures handling the North American distribution, and Buena Vista International at the international distribution.

Principal photography commenced on January 23, 1980. The film was shot in Malta. According to Barry Diller, cocaine was heavily used on set, saying, "You couldn't escape it." He also said that "film cans were actually being used to ship cocaine back and forth to this set." The elaborate Sweethaven set was constructed beyond what was needed for filming, adding to the cost and complexity of the production, along with a recording studio, editing fac…

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