Production
Adrian Lyne, whose background was primarily in directing television commercials, was not the first choice as director of Flashdance. David Cronenberg turned down an offer to direct the film, as did Brian De Palma, who instead chose to direct Scarface (1983). Executives at Paramount were unsure about the film's potential and sold 25% of the rights prior to its release. Three candidates, Jennifer Beals, Demi Moore, and Leslie Wing, were the finalists for the role of Alex Owens. Two different stories exist regarding how Beals was chosen. One states that Paramount president Michael Eisner asked women secretaries at the studio to select their favorite after viewing screen tests. The film's scriptwriter Joe Eszterhas claims that Eisner asked "two hundred of the most macho men on the lot, Teamsters and gaffers and grips ... 'I want to know which of these three young women you’d most want to f---.'" Flashdance is often remembered for the sweatshirt with a large neck hole that Jennifer Beals wore on the poster advertising the film. Beals said that the look of the sweatshirt came about by accident when it shrank in the wash and she cut out a large hole at the top so that she could wear it again. The role of Nick Hurley was originally offered to KISS lead man Gene Simmons, who turned it down because it would conflict with his "demon" image. Pierce Brosnan, Robert De Niro, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks and John Travolta were also considered for the part. Kevin Costner, a struggling actor at the time came very close for the role of Nick Hurley, that went to Michael Nouri.
Flashdance was the first success of a number of filmmakers who became top industry figures in the 1980s and beyond. The film was the first collaboration between Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, who went on to produce Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Top Gun (1986). Eszterhas received his second screen credit for Flashdance, while Adrian Lyne went on to direct 9½ Weeks (1986), Fatal Attraction (1987), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Lolita (1997). Lynda Obst, who developed the original story outline, went on to produce Adventures in Babysitting (1987), The Fisher King (1991), and Sleepless in Seattle (1993).
Flashdance was executive producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber's follow-up to Endless Love (1981), another PolyGram Pictures release.
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Famous quotes containing the word production:
“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)
“In the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to assist man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)