Lorne Michaels Wanted To Remake The Graduate With Mike Myers
A remake of "The Graduate" starring Mike Myers: can you picture it? "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels apparently could. According to Myers, Michaels offered him the starring role in just such a movie, though Myers turned it down and it obviously never came to fruition.
Myers is out making the promotional rounds right now for his new Netflix series, "The Pentaverate," which sees him playing multiple characters in a throwback to his Austin Powers days. It's been a hot minute (really, a decade-plus) since we saw Myers take on a live-action starring role like this. Since "The Love Guru" in 2008, Myers has mostly popped up in cameos or supporting roles, such as "Inglourious Basterds" and "Bohemian Rhapsody," the latter of which winked at his association with the title song through "Wayne's World." Michaels was not in favor of that song; he wanted Wayne and his buddy Garth (Dana Carvey) to be head-banging to Guns N' Roses instead.
This is one of the behind-the-scenes stories that came out of Myers' recent appearance at the Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival (per The AV Club). The other story involves Michaels courting Myers as the star of a "Graduate" remake. Myers said:
"He pitched me a movie. 'I want you to do a remake of The Graduate.' And I said, 'I don't think that's a good idea.' He said, 'I just offered you a f****** movie!'"
Myers then told him, "The Graduate doesn't need to be remade. A little man should not stand in a great man's shoes. It's a perfect film."
Has Michaels not seen The Player?
Robert Altman's 1992 Hollywood satire, "The Player," famously opened with a scene where the idea for a haunted-house sequel to "The Graduate" is bandied about in the office of a studio exec played by Tim Robbins. Remaking "The Graduate" sounds about as bad and bereft of creativity as that idea; and given that Myers was midway through his "SNL" run when "The Player" came out, I almost wonder if that scene was in any way based on news in the Hollywood grapevine that a potential "Graduate" remake was being considered at the time.
"The Graduate" is a classic film that won Best Picture of 1967 at the Academy Awards. It's listed in the National Film Registry and was voted the 7th greatest American movie of all time by the American Film Institute in 1997. Directed by Mike Nichols and starring Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, and Anne Bancroft, the movie is based on a novel of the same name by Charles Webb, with Buck Henry and Calder Willingham penning the adapted screenplay.
Webb actually wrote a sequel to "The Graduate" called "Home Front," which he held off on publishing for many years because he had given up the film rights to any sequels and did not want one to be made without his consent. Honestly, the idea of a "Graduate" remake sounds more like the subject of an "SNL" sketch than a viable movie, but with as many films as studios have remade in the continuing bid to bank on existing properties, I wouldn't put it past them to redo "The Graduate" someday.
In the meantime, let's not forget that Mike Myers technically delivered his own riff on "The Graduate" with the ending of "Wayne's World 2" in 1993: