We mentioned much earlier that our favourite comedian is John Candy. But there's one movie star we love even more...and that's Jack Nicholson. Jack's simply one of the best movie stars ever. He's such a jokester, he's a very wily devil and one hell of a guy. The trademark of his that most people reconise is his smile, his manic, sly, grinch-like smile. He's a manic madman and a lose cannon. You've got to love his insanity.
Our favourite films with him in are:- Batman.
- The Shining
- Wolf
- Witches Of Eastwick.
- Mars Attacks
- A Few Good Men.
- Easy Rider.
- The Bucket List.
- As Good as It Gets.
- Anger Management.
- Anger Management.
We loved him as the Joker in Batman. I think he was great in that role, I know some people enjoyed Heath Ledger's performance in Dark Knight but the thing is, me and my brother are fans of the Tim Burton Batman movies. Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns were genius, Joel Schachuer's Batman Forever and Batman and Robin ruined the Batman franchise. We liked Batman Begins and Dark Knight though- Chris Nolan did a good job.
Facts about Jack:
- He is the only actor to play the Joker in a live action adaptation of the Batman comics who is still alive. Heath Ledger and Caeser Romero are both dead.
- When Danny DeVito came on board for the voice cast of Disney's animated adventure Hercules, the producers were having a tough time deciding on who should voice Hades, the god of the underworld. One day, Danny asked who the producers had in mind to play Hades. The prodoucers mumbled under their breath a bit, saying they hadn't yet come up with the right performer for the job. Danny DeVito (who provided the voice of Phil, the satyr) suggested "Why don't you ask Jack?". The very next week, Nicholson drove up to the Burbank lot. He brought along his daughter, Lorraine, who came dressed as Snow White. (When folks at the Mouse saw how Jack's little girl was dressed, they took it as a very good sign.) Musker and Clements -- along with several other top end Disney executives -- gave Jack and his daughter a full tour of the lot. They then took the two of them to lunch at the executive dining room in the Team Disney Building.
After lunch, everyone wandered over to Feature Animation -- where Ron and John made their pitch. They told Nicholson and his daughter the story of Disney's "Hercules," emphasizing Hades' central role in the proceedings. Jack was charmed by what he saw and seemed genuinely enthusiastic about taking part in the project. There was just one slight minor snag.
Money.
Putting it simply, Nicholson wanted an obscene amount of money to play Hades. Disney was hoping to sign him for the part for $500,000, maybe as much as $1 million. Nicholson wanted something more along the lines of $10 - $15 million, plus a 50% cut of all the proceeds from Hades merchandise.
This may seem like an outrageous amount to ask for. But -- to Jack's way of thinking -- it wasn't unprecedented. He had asked for -- and received -- a similar deal from Warner Brothers 'way back in 1986, when he played the Joker in Tim Burton's "Batman." Since that film had grossed over $400 million, Warners had more than gotten its investment back in Jack. Plus Nicholson had made an absolute fortune off his share of the Joker merchandise. Some estimate that Jack's cut of the "Batman" merchandising bonanza eventually came to $50 million.
Nicholson knew that his star power would add considerably to "Hercules" box office potential. All that Jack asked was that he adequately compensated for his efforts.
It was a heart-breaking moment for Musker and Clements. They knew that Nicholson really wanted to be in "Hercules." They also knew that having Jack as the voice of Hades would do for this film what landing Robin Williams to play the Genie did for "Aladdin." That 1992 Disney film went on to gross $217 million domestically -- most of that just because people came out to see Williams in cartoon form. Audiences were sure to do the same for Jack -- which meant that "Hercules"'s domestic box office potential was almost unimaginable.
But Ron and John also knew that there was no way that Michael Eisner would ever okay giving Nicholson everything he asked for. Eisner might see his way clear to giving Jack $5 million or so to play Hades. But there was no way the Mouse would share 50% of the profits from the Hades merchandise with Nicholson. That condition was the deal-breaker.
After Disney came back with a counter offer that was significantly less than what he had asked for, Nicholson passed on the project. It was hard to tell who was more disappointed: Musker and Clements, or Jack's daughter, Lorraine. In the end, the part ended up being voiced by James Woods.
- He auditioned for the role of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather.
- He was considered for the role of The Grinch in Ron Howard's live action adaptation of How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
We read on the internet movie database that he was considered to play the role of the title character in the feature film version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas. We've done quite a few photomanips of him as a Jim Carrey style anthro grinch.
This is the original photomanip of Jack Nicholson as a Grinch. The inspiration behind this was Scar from Disney's The Lion King. We gave it sort of a cat-like quality.
This is the alterate version of the first one. This one has a more demonic appeal to it. Inspired by Tim Curry as Darkness in the movie Legend.
Tbis is the second photomanip of Jack as a grinch. We gave him a more cartoon vampirish look. Inspired by the 80's horror flick Fright Night- in particular the scene where the main character's girlfriend turns into a rather crazy looking vampiress with some rather crazy looking teeth and fangs. One thing we didn't want to change was the teeth, because in the movie Jim Carrey's grinch has termites in his smile (as seen during the You're A Mean One Mr Grinch villain s0ng number), so with our Grinch version of Jack Nicholson we went with vampire style fangs instead. We didn't want to ruin his trademark smile.
This is the third one. We made it slightly zanier and more chaotic. Inspired by Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
This is the fourth one, we gave it the same feline quality we gave the original one. We even made the eyes kind of like cat eyes.
And this is the final one. We gave this one a sort of werewolfish looking. Inspired by the movie Wolf (in which he became a werewolf) and the tv series Big Wolf On Campus.
