John Candy: I Like Me
Millions of people loved John Candy. Only a few really knew him.
Despite his astronomical rise in fame, everyone who knew him says John Candy remained the same nice, funny guy from Ontario throughout his career. How is that possible?
The life and legacy of John Candy is not only heartwarming, moving, and joyous, but also heartbreaking, complicated, and tragic. John lived with anxiety, with celebrity, with his identity and appearance. He was a relatable, normal guy… who also happened to become a moviestar overnight. His success and his hardship made him the man we loved and identified with; but it was incredibly difficult to be John Candy.
Director Colin Hanks (Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis, All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records), producer Ryan Reynolds (Free Guy, The Adam Project), and John’s children, Chris and Jen Candy, will explore all aspects of John Candy’s life. No stone will be left unturned. Our film will be an honest, heartfelt and definitive portrait of a man so many of us feel an inexplicable connection with. That’s the thing about him—John was a deeply complex human being—just like the rest of us.
The unanimously loved
Hollywood Star
When we think of John Candy today, we think of a movie star. We remember an actor who gave an earnest, vibrant, masterful performance in every role he played—something rarely said of comedic actors.
What was John’s specific alchemy which endeared him so fully to loved ones and strangers alike? People who had never met him felt close to him; they wanted to sit in theaters to spend time with him.
Audiences recognized something in John: the vulnerability that belied his size, his optimism that matched the cultural zeitgeist. He was more than the characters he played; he was our best friend, our dad, our brother, our son. We knew him.
The Man
He wasn’t supposed to be famous. John Candy was just a nice, funny guy from Ontario who did solid work on a television show. A reliable, humble character actor.
An anecdote that John’s daughter, Jen Candy, shared with our team, which perfectly demonstrates how extraordinary her father was, is once, when someone on set confused her father for crew, John happily followed instructions and started moving gear around — because it wouldn’t occur to him to do otherwise.
The Heart of the Film
With the aid and blessing of his wife Rose, daughter Jen and son Chris, we will approach telling his story from a place of love and empathy. We’ll peel back the curtain of the enigma that is John Candy and examine all parts of his life to truly understand—as best we can—how John Candy became John Candy.
Our film will explore all phases of his life, and uncover a goldmine of never-before-heard stories. We’ll learn about John’s childhood, about the people he knew back when he was “Johnny Toronto,” about his time at Second City (and how Dan Akroyd tricked him into auditioning), about his A-list-actor movie career.
In order to understand the complete picture, we’re going to dig into the other side of John’s life, too. We’ll learn about his depression and how it affected him. We’ll find out what demons he fought and what adversity he succumbed to. The unique combination of incomprehensible success, and the incredible pressure to not fail is almost unimaginable—however, we will authentically present what that actually looked like in John, and how it reverberated into every facet of his life.
John didn’t get enough time. Despite his untimely death, the legacy he left behind at just 43 years old is baffling. Through our storytelling, we’ll understand the extent of how special and talented he was, and perhaps we’ll be able to grasp and envision just how much more he could’ve achieved.
Director Approach
This film will be an unprecedented, premium feature length documentary on all things John Candy. To support his story and legacy, we will conduct one on one interviews with family and other key figures from Candy’s life (Second City, co-stars, directors he worked with).
Interviews, combined with extensive archival material—both public, and never before seen family archival footage—will allow us to create a tightly crafted and uniquely authentic narrative.
Tonally, the film will inherently be filled with humor, but we will also be sensitive to the struggles and dramatic components of John Candy’s life.
Interviewees
To get an idea of the wide range of people who impacted John’s life, here is just a brief list of potential interviews:
Various Candy family members
Eugene Levy
Catherine O’Hara
Martin Short
Dan Aykroyd
Bill Murray
Tom Hanks
Rick Moranis
Mel Brooks
The Team
Maximum Effort
Maximum Effort makes movies, tv series, content, ads, and cocktails for the personal amusement of Hollywood Star Ryan Reynolds. We occasionally release them to the general public.
Company Name
In October 2011, actor/director Colin Hanks and producer Sean Stuart formed “Company Name,” a new media venture focusing on both scripted and documentary projects for film, television and branded content.
Zipper Bros Films
Glen Zipper is an Academy Award® winning producer, founder of Zipper Bros Films and formerly an Assistant Prosecutor in Hudson County, New Jersey. Zipper Bros develops and produces premium documentary content dedicated to authentic storytelling.