THE CANADA BULLETIN

Who can forget last year's DARIA?  The teen comedy, loaded with star power, all of which ended up going so wrong that afterwards many ended up in bars getting plastered as they tried to blot out the memory of the horrors they just witnessed.  I still have nightmares from my viewing, and whenever I stroll into Hollywood Video these days and see copies in the rack with the other used tapes, I feel compelled to ask the clerk to remove them and put them somewhere where no one will get hurt.  You can imagine how unhappy I felt when I heard they were coming out with a DARIA 2.  Was there no mercy left in the world?  What kind of cruel, sick people would inflict such a thing upon the world?

Little did I know I would soon find out the answer.  It happened many months ago, back when DARIA 2 was still in production.  It was at a rally we had set up in Hollywood one day.  The inside scoop had it that some executive at Warner Bros. had green-lighted making a live-action film based on ANIMANIACS.  Word had it that Tom Green would be playing Yakko.  We weren't going to stand for this.  So out we were to Warner, staging our protest, picketing and chanting.
Okay, we might have been overdoing it, but we were on a power trip after we had managed to shut down production of an adaptation of THE PRISONER.

It was around noon, and as I was coming back from a Jack-in-the-Box with some supplies, my eyes fell upon a familiar--and unexpected--face.

What the heck was Alyson Hannigan doing here?

Most remember Hannigan as the flute-player from AMERICAN PIE, the one with the only good line in the movie, or the timid witch Willow from the series BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.  But she had also been in DARIA as Tiffany Blum-Deckler, one of the members of the Fashion Club (that is, the bad guys).  If there was anyone less expected here, it would have to be the top-heavy Jennifer Love Hewitt, who played the title character to near-unanimous critical dismay.

Uncertain, I approached, not knowing if I was about to attacked with a hidden weapon.  It turns out she had heard we were around and wanted to ask a question of us.  She had heard of THE FUGITIVE (the upcoming series based on the television show based on an older series) and wanted to know if we had information.  An exchange was quickly and peacefully negotiated.  Fortunately we had a camera ready...

DD:  How did you get involved in these movies anyway?

AH:  My agent.  I was pitched this movie, and it was all so very different than the one I signed up for.  I think that happened to a lot of people.  I don't see how some of them got involved otherwise.

DD:  Not the best experience, was it?

AH:  I've been on better sets.

DD:  So why did you come back for a second round?

AH:  You're hoping I'm going to say something noble like "I was impressed with the script" or "I've always wanted to work with Wes Craven."  I wish I could say that.  Really, it was to watch the fighting.

DD:  Say what?

AH:  Everyone knows how much Love Hewitt and Chris Ricci hated each other when they on the first movie.

DD:  I think everyone who reads the CANADA BULLETIN knows that.  Was it really that bad?

AH:  Oh, yes.  But it was fun to watch.  They couldn't make sense of each other.  It was like, Love thought Chris was this stuck-up bitch who wouldn't give her a chance, and Chris thought Love was a talentless bimbo who she shouldn't be playing sidekick to.  I actually think this was Love's best acting since she managed to hide on camera how much she hated Chris.

DD:  So you came back to watch the sparks fly.

AH:  Hey, you would too.  I mean, first day of shooting [DARIA 2], Chris shoved her against a wall and said something like "Listen, you stupid bitch!  They're called 'breasts,' not 'boobies'!" DD:  That doesn't sound very nice.

AH:  It's been coming for a long time.  Love acts kind of, um, immature.  I mean, she's nowhere as bad as Leo DiCaprio, but she acts like she thinks she's all wonderful and stuff.  I think the rivalry in part had to do with how much time they had to spend together.  Like this one time, on the set, there's reason to think that Love was like poisoned by Keri Russell, nothing serious, of course, but she really didn't want to do the scene that day.  So, here was a chance to work with someone better than Schumacher, and we get to watch this real-life soap opera before us.

DD:  You came back for the entertainment.

AH:  And the money.

DD:  They paid you well?

AH:  Not through normal channels.  We had a betting pool, and there were all these things they were betting on.  I made out pretty good on the first film, so I thought, what the heck?  So I came back.

DD:  Christina Ricci and Jennifer Love Hewitt didn't know about this, did they?

AH:  The first time, no, though Mel Hart was doing so well at one point that one of the makeup people thought she was conspiring with Chris.

DD:  So how are you making out this time?

AH:  Not so good.  Things are getting really nasty and you would think by chance you could hit these things.  And somehow Melissa managed to guess the day when they broke down and had a fist-fight.

DD:  Ouch!  What happened?

AH:  They had this scene where Chris is taking pictures of Love and they end up sucking face and feeling each other up.  Anyway, halfway through Love flipped out, claiming Chris is getting too much into it.  Wes [Craven] is going crazy trying to calm her down, Chris calls her paranoid, and Love finally snaps and gives her a black eye.

DD:  Ow!

AH:  And then there was the fight, and of course Chris beat the crap out of Love.  They had to pull them off each other, and afterwards we learned that the makeup people we have are really good.

DD:  How the hell did they get Christina Ricci to come back for this?

AH:  Three little words:  gross revenue shares.  That and the rewrites she got out of Kevin [Williamson] to do to get more action sequences.  She made out like a bandit.

DD:  That makes sense.  What about Jennifer Love Hewitt?  Why did she return if she had to work with someone she hated?

AH:  Are you kidding?  Where else is she going?  Her attempts at indie films bombed, her TV show was canceled, she's not getting the roles she wants.  No one liked that Audrey Hepburn picture she worked so hard for.  Her music career is totally dead in the water, even more than usual; she lost her big ally at MTV when she dumped Carson Daly.  She's going nowhere so fast that I hear she's going to be topless in something just to attract people.  She has to take every job she can get at this point.  The original DARIA may have only done so well, but it did better than anything she did since I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER.  This is her best chance at the moment to help her career.

DD:  I hear they're already talking about DARIA 3.  Is that true?

AH:  Definitely.

DD:  You think they'll both come back for it?

AH:  Not unless they do something outrageous like give Chris half the gross revenue.  Love's bitching and whining about how she won't work with Chris a third time, and Chris is saying the same things about Love.  But Chris has all these things planned out, she's getting into production, she doesn't need to be here.  Love has to take the job if it's offered to her.  If anyone goes, it'll be Chris.  And, no, I don't know where this is going.  Love and Chris are keeping largely to themselves.  Well, Love has been sobbing a lot in private.  But Chris is spending a lot of time working on other things when she's not on the set.  I've seen this script she's been lugging around, one she's going to work on right after she's done with this movie.  She really doesn't have that much attachment to this project.

DD:  How about you?  Are you coming back for the third installment if they make it?

AH:  I don't know.  Maybe, if they can find anyone good to replace Love or Chris.  Besides, I got a lot of money to get back from Mel.