Wedding Crashers
Wedding Crashers is a 2005 American romantic comedy film directed by David Dobkin, written by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, starring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher with Christopher Walken, Bradley Cooper and Jane Seymour in supporting roles. The film follows two divorce mediators who crash weddings in an attempt to meet and seduce women. When they crash the wedding of the U.S. Treasury Secretary's daughter, they are unexpectedly invited to the family's home, where a weekend of farcical events changes their perspectives on love and marriage.
The film opened on July 15, 2005, through New Line Cinema to critical and commercial success, grossing $288.5 million worldwide on a $40 million budget. It was the 6th highest grossing film of 2005 in the United States and became the first R-rated comedy to make $200 million at the domestic box office. The success of the film has been credited with helping to revive the popularity of adult-oriented, R-rated comedies.
Plot
Best friends John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey are divorce mediators in Washington, D.C. who, in their spare time, crash weddings under false identities to meet and have sex with women. At the end of a season of successful crashes, Jeremy convinces John to crash the wedding of the eldest daughter of the U.S. Treasury Secretary, William Cleary. At the nuptials, the pair set their sights on Cleary's other daughters, Gloria and Claire. During the reception, Jeremy has sex with Gloria on a nearby beach; she tells him afterward that she was a virgin. Possessive and infatuated, Gloria tells Jeremy that she loves him. Meanwhile, John becomes smitten with Claire, the maid of honor, but is interrupted by her hotheaded boyfriend, Sack Lodge, who is unfaithful and disrespectful behind her back. Gloria invites John and Jeremy to an extended weekend retreat at their family compound in Maryland. Jeremy is anxious to escape from Gloria, but John overrules him and accepts in an effort to get closer to Claire.John and Jeremy become acquainted with the Clearys. The Secretary's wife Kathleen comes on to John sexually while Gloria's brother Todd tries to seduce Jeremy during the night. Gloria continues to lavish sexual attention on Jeremy, massaging his penis at dinner and later tying his wrists and ankles to a bedframe and raping him. Sack also repeatedly injures Jeremy during a game of touch football. At dinner, John spikes Sack's wine with eye drops to make him sick and get more time to connect with Claire.
John and Claire continue to bond the next day during a sailing trip. The suspicious Sack takes John and Jeremy on a hunting trip and pranks them, shooting Jeremy in the buttocks. While Jeremy recovers, John and Claire go on a bike ride to a secluded beach. Claire finally admits she is not sure how she feels about Sack and kisses John passionately. Back at the Clearys' estate, Gloria tends to Jeremy's wounds and reveals to him that she lied about being a virgin. Jeremy realizes that he may be in love with Gloria. Later in the afternoon, Sack announces that he and Claire are getting married. Jeremy prompts John to forsake his pursuit of Claire so they can go home, but John refuses, stating that he is in love with her. While John is confessing his feelings to Claire, they are interrupted by Jeremy being chased out of the house at gunpoint. Sack, who has been investigating them, reveals John and Jeremy's real identities to the family. Disappointed, the Secretary tells them to leave.
Over the following months, John attempts to reach Claire, but she refuses to see him. Expecting Jeremy to aid him, he attempts to sneak into Claire and Sack's engagement party, but is caught and beaten by Sack. Confronting Jeremy about abandoning him, John learns that Jeremy has secretly continued his relationship with Gloria. Feeling betrayed and brokenhearted, John spirals into depression, crashes weddings alone, and becomes nihilistic and suicidal. As Sack and a reticent Claire plan their wedding, Jeremy proposes to Gloria and tries to ask John to be his best man, but John turns him away.
John visits Jeremy's former wedding-crashing mentor, Chazz Reinhold. Chazz, who lives with his mother as a middle-aged man, convinces John to crash a funeral with him. At the funeral, John reconsiders his belief in love and marriage after seeing the grieving widow. John rushes to Jeremy's wedding and joins them mid-ceremony. Claire is upset by his presence and begins to leave, prompting John to regret his past behavior and profess his love for her in front of the congregation. Sack mocks John and orders Claire to return to the altar, but she finally tells him that she can not marry him. After the Secretary stands by his daughter and John quips about Sack's temper, Sack tries to attack John, but Jeremy intervenes and knocks him out. As Jeremy and Gloria tie the knot, John and Claire share a kiss. After the wedding, the two couples drive away from the ceremony and discuss crashing another wedding together.
Cast
- Owen Wilson as John Beckwith, Jeremy's fellow wedding crasher and womanizer who falls in love with Claire
- Vince Vaughn as Jeremy Grey, John's fellow wedding crasher and womanizer who becomes attached to Gloria
- Rachel McAdams as Claire Cleary, William and Kathleen's daughter and John's love interest
- Isla Fisher as Gloria Cleary, William and Kathleen's daughter and Jeremy's love interest
- Christopher Walken as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury William Cleary
- Jane Seymour as Kathleen Cleary, William's wife
- Bradley Cooper as Sack Lodge, Claire's verbally abusive boyfriend and John's rival
- Ellen Albertini Dow as "Grandma" Mary Cleary, William's mother
- Keir O'Donnell as Todd Cleary, William & Kathleen's artistic yet brooding son
- Henry Gibson as Father O'Neil
- Ron Canada as Randolph
- Rebecca De Mornay as Mrs. Kroeger
- Dwight Yoakam as Mr. Kroeger
- Jenny Alden as Christina Cleary, William and Kathleen's daughter
- Will Ferrell as Chazz Reinhold, a wedding and funeral crasher who mentored Jeremy
Production
Andrew Panay, co-producer of Wedding Crashers, had the idea for the film based on his own experiences of being excited to attend weddings in his 20s due to the prospect of meeting women. Panay then consulted the screenwriting team of Steve Faber and Bob Fisher to come up with a story based on this premise. Much of the film was based upon Fisher's experiences as a college intern in Washington, D.C., where he would make up fake backstories to crash lobbyist events for the free food. Panay and Fisher's experiences merged together to form the idea of a film in which the main characters crash weddings to meet and sleep with women.The screenwriters had doubts that the premise could be sustained into a feature-length film, so they decided to add female love interests born from a political family, inspired by their dream of marrying a girl from the Kennedy family when they were young boys. It was also Panay's desire "to explore male friendship through this crazy idea of crashing weddings" as the emotional core of the movie. In preparation for the film, the creators would crash political party platform committee meetings in order to delve into the psyche of the characters and what it means to crash a party.
On April 6, 2003, Variety reported that both Faber and Fisher had struck a "mid-six figures" deal with New Line Cinema to acquire the pitch for the film. David Dobkin signed to direct in 2004, seeing it as an opportunity to pair Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, who had previously worked with Dobkin and gave him an Abbott and Costello impression when they were at the premiere of his film Shanghai Knights.
According to Dobkin, the marketing department at New Line Cinema raised some concerns regarding the protagonists of the film, who were seen as misogynists whose goal is to seduce women at weddings and have sex with them. Dobkin saw these characters in a different light, however, convincing the department:
They love weddings, authentically. They like the free food, they like the music and the bands, they like the dancing and the kids, they like talking to the grandparents. These guys make the weddings better. You would want them to crash your wedding.
That's the distinction. It's not misogynistic and, in fact, what it's doing is replicating a real seduction, which is, "I want to go to bed with you, but I have all these walls up. Can you make me laugh, make me attracted to you and find a way to make this really fun so we could get to the good part?" That's a seduction. So, if I can seduce the audience — if I can make them laugh and be entertained and think these are okay guys — by the time they're dropping the girls in the bed, it's a magic trick. That was the whole idea.
Vaughn and Wilson were the first actors cast in the film. Dobkin cast Bradley Cooper without even watching his audition tape as he was so impressed by Cooper's test reading. Isla Fisher, then a relatively unknown actress in the United States was cast as Gloria over Shannon Elizabeth and Anna Paquin. The casting of Secretary Cleary was a contentious issue between Dobkin and the studio executives, with Dobkin wanting to cast Christopher Walken, but New Line Cinema wanted a more comedic actor such as Burt Reynolds instead of Walken, who was viewed more as a serious character actor. Nicolas Cage was considered for the role of Chazz Reinhold, before Will Ferrell was cast. The role of Claire was the final role to be cast, with Dobkin auditioning over 200 actresses before casting Rachel McAdams.
Dobkin originally considered the possibility of releasing a version of the film that was not R-rated to broaden the film's commercial appeal, but the idea was abandoned after a consultant provided a long list of the many R-rated elements in the film, and Dobkin realized "The two funniest scenes in the movie would have had to go." Despite this New Line Cinema still did not want the film to be rated R but eventually conceded to keep the R rating after pressure from Dobkin.
Dobkin has said that the script originally set the film around Cape Cod, but a need to film in spring made this impractical. He suggested moving the shoot to Washington, D.C., his home town, feeling that his knowledge of the area would make choosing locations easier, and that using the city as the setting for a comedy would be an unexpected choice.