Town & Country
Directed by	Peter Chelsom
Written by	Michael Laughlin, Buck Henry
Starring	Warren Beatty Diane Keaton Andie MacDowell Garry Shandling Jenna Elfman Nastassja Kinski Charlton Heston and Goldie Hawn
Editing by	Claire Simpson
Running time	104 min.
Budget	$90,000,000 (estimated) language = English
IMDb profile

Town & Country is a 2001 film starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton and directed by Peter Chelsom. It is a romantic comedy in which Beatty plays a New York City architect Porter Stoddard and Keaton plays his wife Ellie. The movie was, at the time and by some calculations, the largest money loser of any movie ever made, based on absolute dollars lost. It was passed in 2007 by Evan Almighty and Stealth.^[1]

Production history

Production costs

The production costs of the film totaled an estimated $90 million, not including distribution and marketing expenses. The total world-wide box office came to $10,365,000. Considering that typically half of the gross box-office receipts go to the exhibitors and half to the filmmakers, Town & Country lost the studio at least $100 million, and probably much more if costs for distribution and marketing are considered, which average around $35–50 million for a studio picture such as this. The studio, having already spent in excess of $90 million, backed a very limited distribution and marketing campaign in the $15-20 million range, bringing the total cost to $105-110 million.

1998-1999

The production itself began on 8 June 1998 on a budget of $44 million, including $5 million up front for Warren Beatty. Filming was originally supposed to wrap by the fall of 1998 for a summer or fall 1999 engagement. But various problems cropped up during filming, including Warren Beatty's meticulous demand for many takes. Also, the script was still being worked on. They were not happy with the ending that had been originally written by Michael Laughlin. Various other screenwriters were brought in, including Paul Attanasio and Gary Ross. By April 1999, production was still going, but Garry Shandling had to leave to film another movie (What Planet Are You From?) and Diane Keaton left to film another movie (Hanging Up). It would take a full year before they could gather the cast back together to film the new pages that had now been written by Buck Henry.

2000 reshoots

Reshoots began on 10 April 2000, and wrapped by late April/early May 2000. More money was spent since the other cast members had to be paid their full salaries again.

Release

The movie finally made it into theaters on 27 April 2001, nearly three years after filming began.

References

1. ^ www.thenumbers.com

External links

• Town & Country at the Internet Movie Database
• "Stumbling Toward a Theater Near You", a 2001 article from The New York Times on the making of Town & Country.

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