Messing with a movie called Fanboys is really just asking for trouble—the real-life fanboys are pretty much required to get on your case—but that’s exactly what’s happening with the upcoming movie about a pilgrimage to Skywalker Ranch. Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that, months after test screenings of the first version of the film, a second one that features extensive changes is being shown to test audiences.
Shauna Robertson, Judd Apatow’s frequent producing partner, is the producer in charge for The Weinstein Company, and she has apparently led several weeks of re-shoots that may fundamentally change the plot of the movie. Originally about friends who plan to break into Skywalker Ranch to see The Phantom Menace early, since their friend is dying of cancer and won’t live to see it in theaters, the film may now completely remove the cancer subplot. There’s a debate going on within the one post at AICN as to how extensive the changes are, but worst-case scenario could see a far different film than the one screened several months ago.
The general concern is that the “soul” of the movie will be lost, turning into something about punk kids going on an adventure rather than a group of friends doing something for their dying comrade. I have no idea what Robertson is like on her own as a producer, but it seems highly unlikely than an Apatow collaborator wouldn’t know any better than to take a tender and sweet comedy and turn it into a raunchfest. We’ll have to see what happens once both versions of the film are shown to test audiences, which apparently is happening this week. I think the obvious thing to do is to root for the original, more human version, but I have a feeling there’s plenty we don’t know in this situation, and Robertson probably isn’t ruining everything the way a lot of, well, fanboys fear.
