Showgirls started with Joe Eszterhas. At the time, Esterhas was the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood. His previous collaboration with director Paul Verhoven was Basic Instinct – a huge hit that made Sharon Stone an international star. Eszterhas concocted the idea for their follow-up while on vacation in Maui.
One day while they were having lunch in Beverly Hills, Verhoeven told Eszterhas that he had always loved “big MGM musicals”, and wanted to make one. Eszterhas suggested the Vegas setting. He scribbled down the idea on a napkin and received an advance of $2 million dollars to write the script! Eszterhas received an additional 1.7 million when the movie went into production.
Verhoven was confident enough in Showgirls’ success that he deferred 70% of his $6 million dollar directing fees in exchange for complete creative control and the ability to release the movie with an NC-17 rating. Verhoven would receive the rest of his fee if the movie was a hit… which it was not.
Since we’re talking money, Elizabeth Berkley was paid a paltry $100,000 for starring in the movie which had a budget of around $45 million dollars! In 2004, Berkley requested an additional fee of $2,500 to be interviewed for the Special Edition VIP Boxed Set of Showgirls. Her request was declined. Obviously, Berkley was working for peanuts because she hoped Showgirls would make her a star. But it should be noted that she was working up to 16 hours a day in high heels. I don’t think the same could be said of Eszterhas.
Verhoven originally passed on the project as he didn’t care for Eszterhas’ original script. Instead, he hoped to make a movie about the crusades with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the financing fell through when the studio ran out of money on the pirate movie, Cutthroat Island. By the time Carolco pulled the plug on Crusade, it had already sunk $10 million dollars into the movie. They had also paid nearly $4 million dollars for Eszterhas’ Showgirls script. Verhoven claims that he decided to make Showgirls as a favor to Mario Kassar to save Carolco from bankruptcy.
When Verhoven came on-board, Eszterhas’ script was extensively re-written with All About Eve as inspiration. Verhoven’s intent was to make Showgirls a social satire about how women are exploited. Instead, it was seen as a form of exploitation. Ironically, the box office failure of Showgirls and Cutthroat Island contributed to the bankruptcy of Carolco.
Several actresses were considered for the two lead roles. The film-makers originally wanted to cast Madonna and Drew Barrymore. Both of them passed, but during the scene where Berkley is shown to her dressing room there is a name card over her mirror that reads “Drew” in reference to the original casting choice.
Former Playboy Playmate, Jenny McCarthy, auditioned for the lead role and was a front-runner until it was discovered that she could not dance. Charlize Theron, Angelina Jolie, Pamela Anderson and Denise Richards were among the other actresses considered to play Nomi. Sharon Stone and Sean Young were both considered for Gina Gershon’s role.
Reportedly, Berkley and Gershon did not get along while filming and Verhoven did his best to encourage the rivalry.
When Showgirls opened, Eszterhas publicly suggested that kids should bring their fake IDs to get into the movie. Eszterhas also took out a full-page ad in Variety urging women to go see Showgirls. He did this in response to the movie’s marketing which was aimed squarely at men.
According to Eszterhas, Showgirls “shows that dancers in Vegas are often victimized, humiliated, used, verbally and physically raped by the men who are at the power centers of that world.” He was also critical of those who focused on the movie’s nudity. “They’re like a guy who looks at a woman and all he sees is her body. He’s ignoring her character, her soul.” Again, this comes from the writer of Basic Instinct, Sliver and Showgirls…
Lots of theaters wouldn’t carry Showgirls because it was rated NC-17. It opened on roughly half as many screens as the R-rated Seven and actually earned more per screen than the successful thriller did. Showgirls was the first movie to get a wide release with an NC-17 rating and it essentially proved why that is a bad business model. An NC-17 results in fewer screens and no tickets being sold to minors.
The critics blasted Showgirls and its box office tumbled in subsequent weeks. It fell to fifth place in its second week with more than a 55% drop. In its third week, it dropped another 47% and fell into 9th place. From there, Showgirls started shedding screens faster than Berkley shed her clothes and the movie plummeted from the top ten with drops up to 71%. It ended up grossing less than half of its production costs during its domestic run.
Roger Ebert gave Showgirls a middling review noting that it was “not, in short, quite unredeemably bad.” But most in the media weren’t so forgiving. Showgirls developed a reputation for being one of the worst movies ever made. The Golden Raspberries cemented that perception by nominating Showgirls in a record 13 categories. Showgirls “won” a then-record-breaking seven awards. That record was tied by Battlefield Earth which also “won” seven awards five years later in 2000. Finally the record for most “wins” was broken in 2008 by I Know Who Killed Me which took home 8 trophies. But Showgirls‘ record for most nominations still stands.
Showgirls “won” for Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. Berkley “won” Worst Actress and Worst New Star. Adding insult to injury, the Razzies awarded Worst Screen Couple to “Any combination of two people (or two body parts!) in Showgirls.” It even “won” Worst Song for “Walk into the Wind (also known as Love Theme from the Rape Scene)”.
But the Razzies weren’t done with Showgirls. In the year 2000, the Golden Raspberries added some additional categories to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Berkley was nominated for Worst Actress of the Century which she “lost” to Madonna. She was also nominated for Worst New Star of the Decade which she “lost” to Pauly Shore. But Showgirls “won” Worst Picture of the Decade beating out such luminaries as Hudson Hawk and The Postman.
Showgirls performed really well on video. Although the movie only grossed $20 million in theaters, it has grossed over $100 million dollars on video and continues to add to that total today.
Once Showgirls became one of MGM’s top 20 best-selling movies on home video, they took notice. The studio rereleased Showgirls for midnight screenings and the movie took on a second life as a cult movie. It has become a Rocky Horror Picture Show-style event. Gradually, the movie has been reevaluated by critics and defended by filmmakers including Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch and Jacques Rivette.
Originally, Verhoven and Eszterhas expected to make a sequel to Showgirls. The movie ends with a Los Angeles freeway sign. This was intended as a tease for the sequel in which Berkley’s character would go to Hollywood. But the movie’s poor performance at the box office prevented that sequel from ever being made. Instead, Rena Riffel who played a supporting role in the original movie raised money on Kickstarter to make a sequel about her character, Penny. Showgirls 2: Penny’s from Heaven was released in 2011.
For nearly two decades, Berkley lived with the stain of Showgirls. Although she would talk about the movie’s effect on her career, she rarely ever mentioned the movie by name. When she appeared on Dancing With the Stars, she said that her experiences with Showgirls put her off dancing for many years. But in 2015, Berkley appeared at a screening of the movie and finally seemed to come to terms with her place in cult cinema.
I’ve said before on Elizabeth Berkley’s write-up, but this film just got a bad rap. It seemed to be made fun of just because it existed, by people whom many didn’t even view the picture. I’m glad I viewed it after the hostility died down and I could see it with eyes wide open. I mean, it isn’t a great film, but I think it’s interesting. and better than “Sliver”, if you ask me.
Yes! It pisses off Gina Gershon that the same people who claimed to hate the film when it was released, always ask her about it in every single interview….
I watched it for the first time when I wrote the WTHH entry on Berkley. At the time Showgirls came out, I was still a movie theater manager. I was working at a big multiplex in a dilapidated strip mall. By this point, there was nothing left in the entire complex but us and a grocery store and the grocery store wouldn’t be there much longer. We were one of the few theaters in town to run Showgirls. I think the only reason we ran it was to make Universal happy. The chain stuck it in a theater in a… Read more »
My friends and I rented Showgirls and enjoyed it with irony, the way all good Gen-Xers were supposed to.
So this movie is supposed to open our eyes about the objectification of the women dancers in Vegas… I think people kind of know that already,…. and how ironic that the real life actress was denied a fair salary for her work.
This was the “have your cake and eat it too” philosophy that often gets trotted out. We’re not objectifying women. We are showing how wrong it is that women are objectified… wink wink…
I think the biggest joke is that Elizabeth Berkley was refused payment to contribute to the Special Edition release of the film. All these years, and you STILL don’t want to pay her? Get outta here!
That to me was the real kick in the balls. That particular edition of the DVD came with a naked picture of Berkley that you could put pasties on if you wanted to. No problem exploiting her years after the movie ruined her career. But paying her a nominal fee to participate in the commentary is somehow too much for them.
Yep, that’s the definition of class. Wait, no it isn’t.
One could, in fact, probably say that Showgirls is the greatest movie of any genre or style to ruin the film career of an SBtB cast member (since most of them had no film careers to be ruined to begin with 😉 )
You’re not wrong there. I started off with as broad of a category as possible and kept narrowing it to make sure I was covering my bases. Then I decided to just make a joke of it by getting as narrow as possible.
It’s hard to believe any studio would put $45 million dollars into a movie like Showgirls back then, let alone a movie that was intended from the start to have an NC-17 rating. Wow, that’s crazy.
Yeah, especially since they didn’t handle the marketing or distribution all that well. I agree, that’s a lot of funds to be casual about.
It seemed crazy at the time. It seems crazier now. But back then, erotic films were more prevalent. Eszterhas and Verhoven had a massive smash hit the last time they worked together. No one had really attempted a mainstream NC-17 movie. If anyone could do it and make it a hit, it seemed like the guys behind Basic Instinct would be the guys. And then you have the desperation factor. Carlco overspent when they bought the script because Eszterhas was hot at the time. Then they hit a rough patch and basically had to put all their eggs in one… Read more »
I remember those few years in the 90’s when erotic films were a thing. Basic Instinct really started a trend, didn’t it? Sliver with Sharon Stone, Jade, Indecent Proposal, Body of Evidence with Madonna, Disclosure, Striptease (both with Demi Moore), Showgirls, and a few others I’m probably forgetting all were hoping to capture that Basic Instinct-sized success (and money), but most didn’t. Still, in that light when considering how huge a success Basic Instinct was it could be understandable that Carolco were hoping to capture lightning in a bottle twice with Showgirls. Carolco were kind of doubling down in a… Read more »
I’d say it started earlier than that. Jagged Edge was a sexy thriller written by Eszterhas as far back as 1985. Fatal Attraction took that up a notch in 1987. Final Analysis with Richard Gere, Kim Basinger and Uma Thurman came out just months before Basic Instinct. That trend had been around and was building. Basic Instinct took it over the top. Once that movie hit, everyone was trying to cash in on steamy thrillers. Meanwhile, audiences decided they were more comfortable watching those kinds of movies in the privacy of their own living room instead of the movie theater… Read more »
Wow, you are so right; there was a prevalence of erotic films in that era. Lebeau is right though, those type of films were happening already (I love “Jagged Edge”, but I already rambled on about my favorite film period of Jeff Bridges, so enough with that:-).
Um, the Escape channel had “Final Analysis” on. I think it’s a really good film. Kim Basinger is definitely at her most wicked there.
I’m actually surprised that “Jade” missed the mark. I think it had something, but it lacked a hook (though the San Francisco locale was pretty cool).
Jagged Edge had the benefit of the supremely gifted Peter Coyote, in addition to the other acting talents in the film. I didn’t know Eszterhas was the writer. JE was less steamy than it was psychological, but it’s been a long time since I saw it so who knows.
I’m also giving more and more thought to these movie anniversaries. If Dr. Zhivago was released in December of 1965, is it 50 or 51…..
December 31st would be the 50th anniversary of Dr. Zhivago. Just in case you were interested in commemorating that event.
I think it’s been mentioned on this blog about the general coolness of Peter Coyote (a real free spirit, which I think is important), but i agree, even though he’s the “bad guy” in that film, he’s actually right. The more I think about it, maybe I like video game Jeff Bridges more than I like murderous Jeff Bridges. I like helpful Jeff Bridges from “The Morning After” the best though.
If I remember correctly, Peter Coyote wrote a review of his own movie on Amazon. I think that was in the Elizabeth Berkley WTHH article.
Yes, it was; interesting inclusion.
Yeah, I’m going to cry a lot, and then start figuring out what to write.
11 Hilarious Visual TV Edits of R-Rated Movies: http://screenrant.com/worst-tv-censor-edits-r-rated-movies/?view=all “Digital Bra” – Showgirls (1995) Elizabeth Berkley wanted to break out of the good girl persona she acquired as Jessie Spano on Saved by the Bell by starring in something that would make people take her more serious as an actress. Unfortunately for her career, she chose Showgirls to be that project. Sometimes, a movie is so terrible it manages to fall into the “it’s so bad, it’s good” category – Showgirls is not one of those films. The cursing in the film isn’t absurdly abundant, but since Berkley’s character becomes… Read more »
Charlize Theron Lost Showgirls Role to Elizabeth Berkley for Not Being Well-Known Enough: http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/charlize-theron-lost-showgirls-role-elizabeth-berkley-details-20152010 “There’s always someone younger and hungrier coming down the stairs after you.” In Charlize Theron’s case, that someone was Elizabeth Berkley (minus the younger part). Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven revealed that the Oscar-winning actress, 40, was up for the part of dancer Nomi Malone in the 1995 cult classic film, but ultimately lost out to the Saved by the Bell alum, 43. “Charlize also auditioned, and I don’t recall her having any problem with the nudity at all,” Verhoeven told the New York Daily News in… Read more »
There was nothing wrong with “Showgirls” and it was ridiculous to blame Elizabeth Berkley. However a film like that or “Basic Instinct” would never be made today as we have so much free pornography on the Internet.
I definitely don’t think the film is Elizabeth Berkley’s fault, and I don’t think it’s a terrible film (nothing to get estastic about, but nothing to bemoan either) , but I also feel it isn’t quite right either. As it stands, this choice really backfired on Berkley, so with anything that doesn’t work out the way one plans it’s within reason to look back and see what could’ve been done differently. This project just had too many strikes against it before it was even screened (people probably don’t think about 1990’s “Henry and June” too much either, which was directed… Read more »
Of course without “Showgirls” she might have just had a low-key career and would not have been offered the lead role in a major movie, so it’s debatable whether it was a mistake in the end.