The mask (1994) was one of the greatest hits of Jim Carrey in the ’90s. This comedy, which told how a man radically changes after putting a strange utensil on his face that represents the god of mischief, gave the actor the opportunity to show off his histrionic brilliance and leave behind one of the funniest and most extravagant characters of all time. he.
The more than 350 million dollars that it grossed at the box office when it was released 30 years ago corroborate this, as does the Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor – Comedy, the nomination for the Oscar for Best Special Effects or all the marketing that Hollywood developed from this title, such as an animated television series that came to the small screen a year later.
But before their debut and all these joys, the team of The mask had reasons to fall in love with Jim Carrey, since The actor’s natural gift for comedy made things much easier for them when managing the shoot.. In fact, it motivated them to dispense with an element that they believed was essential in many scenes and They ended up saving a millionaire amount of money.
The director told it Chuck Russell in an interview with Chicago Tribune, who spoke about how interested he was from the beginning of production in having Carrey because of his cartoonish ability. According to his statements, The ease with which he modified his face with strange shapes was what they were looking for for a film like The maskwhere changes in the protagonist’s personality and comic exaggeration had to be taken to the extreme.
The initial idea was to complement the actor’s facial work with special effects, which involved recording Carrey’s face, creating digital effects around his work and using computers to exaggerate his expressions and comical tics. “I insisted on working with Jim’s face, on making the action organic to Jim’s performance. No matter how good the effect is, if it doesn’t fit the character and the story, it won’t be effective,” the director explained. However, after starting the tests, They realized they could follow a different method.
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Millionaire savings on ‘The Mask’
Carrey took his comedic performance to such an extreme, had such an unusual ability to modify his face, and exaggerated gestures so well that They chose to do without many of the special effects. They only used them to modify the color and shape of their face or create fantasy moments, which saved them a good part of the budget. “The ILM guys [la empresa de efectos especiales] They said they calculated that I saved about a million dollars once I got Jimjust because of what he was capable of doing compared to what we originally intended to do,” Chuck Russell clarified.
In the case of a multi-million dollar Hollywood production it may seem that a million is not much, but nothing could be further from the truth. Despite the stratospheric figures it achieved at the box office, The mask It was planned as a low-cost comedy, so, according to Box Office Mojo, only $22 million was needed to make it. Between paying the cache of his stars, among which were also Cameron Diazand have the many elements that make up a production (equipment, cameras, insurance, sets…) that money can be very short.
In fact, the director, although at all times he tried to have fun and enjoy the experience of making a comedy as crazy as this one, acknowledged to the Chicago Tribune that the planning of The mask It was “complex”, so a million more to have room for error or having extra resources in other departments can be a good relief.
The success and social impact of the film exemplified the enormous help that the actor of Ace Ventura either Almighty for production, which was confirmed when, a decade later, Hollywood released a sequel without Jim Carrey titled The mask 2: The son of the mask with catastrophic results. On this occasion, the cost skyrocketed to 84 million dollars, the box office only amounted to 60 million worldwide and critics had no mercy with the film. Furthermore, on this occasion it was noticeable that digital effects had to be abused to achieve the desired result at the level of expressiveness and comedy, which was precisely the advantage with which Jim Carrey worked the miracle.
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