The Notorious 1989 John Belushi Biopic Wired Was Such a Flop That It Scared Filmmakers Away from Saturday Night Live for Decades
Nearly two decades ago, I wrote about producer Edward S. Feldman’s wonderfully titled but less-than-wonderful memoir Tell Me How You Love the Picture for my Silly Show-Biz Book Club column at The A.V. Club.
Feldman produced or executive produced hits and cult classics like The Other Side of the Mountain, Witness, Explorers, The Golden Child, Near Dark, Save the Tiger, and The Truman Show. Yet a sizable portion of the book was devoted to the sleaziest, most embarrassing movie Feldman was ever involved with.
I’m not referring to 1985’s Hot Dog…The Movie, 1986’s Hamburger: The Motion Picture or even 1994’s incest and pedophilia-themed light comedy My Father The Hero. Incidentally, I’m disappointed that Feldman produced movies with hot dogs and hamburgers in the title but didn’t keep going and giving the world Salami: A Comedy or Pastrami: The Film.
No, the most embarrassing movie on Feldman’s resume, and one he discusses at length in his memoir, is the infamous 1989 John Belushi biopic Wired.
If I were a successful producer like Feldman, with lots of non-humiliating films to my name I would want the world to forget that I produced Wired. I would be ashamed.
That’s not how Feldman sees the notorious flop and his role in it, however.
As a producer, Feldman understands that a story needs conflict. In turning John Belushi’s rise and fall into a major motion picture, Feldman and his collaborators defied a Hollywood establishment that did not want Bob Woodward’s rancid insult to the Animal House star’s memory turned into an equally salacious and exploitative movie.
Feldman acts as if people like Dan Aykroyd and Belushi’s manager, Bernie Brillstain, didn’t want Wired to be made into a movie because they did not want the world to learn the ugly truth about its subject. The producer acts as if “The Man” is trying to keep him from making Wired because it couldn’t handle its explosive revelations.
The reality is that people didn’t want Wired made into a movie because they cared about Belushi as an artist and a human being and did not want his character assassinated in a sleazy, bottom-feeding exercise in sordid melodrama.
Fans and friends didn’t want Wired turned into a movie because they knew that the result would be ugly, cruel, and patently unfair. They were right. Wired wasn’t just a flop; it was a bona fide career killer.
Larry Peerce, whose credits include Goodbye, Columbus, and The Other Side of the Mountain, never directed another movie, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai writer Earl Mac Rauch never had another screenplay produced.
Getting cast as a legendary performer in a high-profile biopic would be a career-maker for many young actors. For Michael Chiklis, who was unfortunate enough to be cast as Belushi, it was closer to a career killer.
Chiklis succeeded despite Wired, not because of it.
I’m writing about Wired now because two separate movies about Saturday Night Live are being made more or less simultaneously. Josh Gad is directing a Chris Farley biopic starring Paul Walter Hauser, and Jason Reitman, whose dad directed Ghostbusters and Stripes, is directing SNL 1975, a movie about the show’s first episode.
Wired was about the recent past. Making Wired in 1989, just seven years after its subject’s death would be like making a movie about Pete Davidson’s life after he died of a heroin overdose in 2017 over the vigorous objections of his friends, family, and coworkers.
The ill-fated John Belushi biopic undoubtedly scared filmmakers away from making movies about Saturday Night Live alum.
That’s probably for the best. It’s a good thing that the Farley biopic and movie about Saturday Night Live’s first episode are period pieces set in the distant past. The filmmakers need time, space, and distance to do right by their subjects.
Wired serves as a cautionary warning to filmmakers who want to make movies about Saturday Night Live and the many larger-than-life icons who have worked there over the last half-century.
Thankfully for Reitman and Gad, their films can only benefit from comparison to Peerce’s flop.
Nathan needs teeth that work, and his dental plan doesn't cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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