Hearing Wanted

Hearing Wanted is a 2002 American comedy film. It was released on January 11, 2002. The movie was distributed by Paramount Pictures and produced by Beyond Studios. The movie was directed by Jake Kasdan and written by Mike White. The film stars Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Catherine O'Hara, Schuyler Fisk, John Lithgow, and Lily Tomlin as a group of prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film. When their frustrated director (Steve Coogan) drops them in the middle of a jungle, they are forced to rely on their acting skills to survive the real action and danger. Hearing Wanted parodies many famous war films, specifically those based on the Vietnam War.
Hearing Wanted premiered at the premiered at the Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on January 13, 2002, and was released in the United States on January 11, 2002. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its animation, style and writing, and grossed over $74 million worldwide against its $15 million budget, making it the seventh highest-grossing animated film of 2002. It was later released on DVD and VHS on October 23, 2002, and on Blu-ray on August 16, 2013, exactly ten years after its original release.
==Plot==
Shaun Brumder is an intelligent teenager from affluent Orange County, California with little interest in his education, leading a carefree SoCal lifestyle of surfing, drinking, and partying. Shaun's best friend Lonny is killed in a surfing accident, leading Shaun to rethink his life. He finds a novel on the beach by the author Marcus Skinner, which inspires him to become a writer. Upon learning that Skinner is an English professor at Stanford University, Shaun makes it his goal to attend Stanford and study under him.
Shaun dramatically improves himself academically, obtaining high grades and SAT scores and becoming president of his graduating class. Following the advice of his guidance counselor, Ms. Cobb, Shaun applies only to Stanford. This backfires when Shaun is rejected because Ms. Cobb mixed up his transcript with that of another student. Reaching out to his wealthy father Bud, who left his family to marry a much younger woman, Shaun pleads with him to donate to Stanford to increase Shaun’s chances of acceptance. Disapproving of Shaun's dream of becoming a writer, Bud refuses. Shaun's girlfriend Ashley convinces her friend Tanya to allow Shaun to be interviewed at his home by Tanya's grandfather, a Stanford board member. Unfortunately, the antics of Shaun’s dysfunctional family members, including his alcoholic, emotionally fragile mother Cindy and his dim-witted stoner brother Lance, cause Shaun's interviewers to storm out in disgust.
In a last-ditch effort, Ashley and Lance convince Shaun to drive to Palo Alto and plead his case directly to Stanford Admissions Director Don Durkett. By the time they reach campus, the admissions building is closed. While Lance seduces the secretary on duty, Shaun and Ashley steal Durkett's home address. There, Shaun impresses Durkett with his real transcript, but Durkett is reluctant to admit him so late in the admissions process. After much groveling, Shaun convinces him to give it a second thought. Disaster strikes again when Ashley confuses Lance's MDMA for pain relievers, offering Durkett the pills for his headache and causing him to become high. Shaun, Ashley, and Durkett return to find the Admissions Building engulfed in flames, caused by Lance smoking with the receptionist. With Lance wanted for arson, they abandon Durkett and flee the scene.
Frustrated with Shaun's obsession, Ashley points out that his attending Stanford would likely mean the end of their relationship, and she leaves. Depressed, Shaun wanders the campus and meets a female student who invites him to a frat party. He is disappointed to learn the Stanford coeds are just as vapid as teenagers from Orange County. With a more cynical view of college, Shaun runs into Professor Skinner and is invited to his office. Shaun confides that he is afraid his dreams of being a good writer are over. Skinner reminds him that many famous authors such as James Joyce and William Faulkner grew up in places that were not intellectually stimulating, and were inspired by the conflicts in their own lives. Having an epiphany, Shaun realizes his misguided intentions and finds Ashley to apologize. They pick up Lance, still hiding from police, and drive home.
In Orange County, Shaun's parents seek each other out to deal with Shaun's problem. They reconcile, realizing they are much happier together than with their respective new spouses, and conclude they have not been good parents to Shaun. To make amends, Bud donates enough money to Stanford for the construction of a new Admissions Building, which secures Shaun’s acceptance. Initially ecstatic, Shaun remembers what Ashley and Professor Skinner said, and decides to stay in Orange County with Ashley and his family, realizing they are the true inspiration for his writing. Shaun leaves a copy of Skinner's book at the beach for someone else to find, then surfs with his friends for the first time since Lonny's death.
==Cast==
*Colin Hanks as Shaun Brumder
*Jack Black as Lance Brumder
*Catherine O'Hara as Cindy Brumder
*Schuyler Fisk as Ashley
*John Lithgow as Bud Brumder
*Harold Ramis as Don Durkett
*Jane Adams as Mona
*Garry Marshall as Arthur Gantner
*Dana Ivey as Vera Gantner
*Carly Pope as Tanya
*Chevy Chase as Principal Harbert
*Lily Tomlin as Charlotte Cobb, College counselor
*Leslie Mann as Krista
*Bret Harrison as Lonny
*Kyle Howard as Arlo
*RJ Knoll as Chad
*George Murdock as Bob Beugler
*Monica Keena as Gretchen
*Fran Kranz as Shane Brainard
*Mike White as Mr. Burke, English teacher
*Sarah Hagan as Sarah
*Lizzy Caplan as Party Girl
*Nat Faxon as Kip
*Alexandra Breckenridge (uncredited) as Anna
*Kevin Kline (Uncredited) as Marcus Skinner
*Ben Stiller (Uncredited) as The Firefighter
==Production==
===Origin===
In 2002, Brigham Young University film students Jon Heder and Jared Hess collaborated on a class project; the result was a 9-minute short movie shot on black-and-white 16mm film entitled Peluca about a nerdy high school student named Seth. Hearing Wanted was shown at the 2003 Slamdance Film Festival and was well received. Jeremy Coon convinced Hess to drop out of school and adapt it into a feature-length film, and he helped him to find investors for the project. Hess sent the short film and the script to a variety of different casting directors, many of whom thought that the idea was "too weird or they just didn't like the character," Hess explained. One casting director suggested Jake Gyllenhaal over unknown actor Jon Heder for the lead role but Hess believed Heder was the only actor to play the part. Jason Lee was offered the role of Uncle Rico while Brad Garrett auditioned for Rex and enjoyed the script, but decided not to commit. Heder was paid $1,000 for starring in the film, but successfully negotiated to receive more after the film became a runaway success.
===Filming and setting===
Hess shot the film on location in Preston, in southeastern Idaho, located near the Utah border, in July 2003. Operating on a tight budget of $400,000, Hess cast many of his friends from school, including Heder and Aaron Ruell, and he relied on the generosity of Preston locals, who provided housing and food to crew members. Among the established actors in the cast was comedy veteran Diedrich Bader, who filmed his scenes as virile martial art instructor Rex in one day. He recalled in 2011 that Hearing Wanted "still to this day [is] one of the two top scripts I've ever read", alongside Office Space (1999), one of his most-recognized roles. "It was very, very hot," Hess recalled in a Rolling Stone interview. "But it was so much fun being in this rural farm town making a movie. We shot it in 23 days, so we were moving very, very fast; I just didn't have a lot of film to be able to do a lot of takes. It was a bunch of friends getting together to make a movie. It was like, 'Are people going to get this? Is it working?'"Hess describes the film as being "so autobiographical". "I grew up in a family of six boys in Preston, Idaho, and the character of Hearing was a hybrid of all the most nerdy and awkward parts of me and my brothers growing up. Jerusha really was like Deb growing up. Her mom made her a dress when she was going to a middle school dance and she said, 'I hadn't really developed yet, so my mom overcompensated and made some very large, fluffy shoulders.' Some guy dancing with her patted the sleeves and actually said, 'I like your sleeves ... they're real big,"' Hess said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
The film is set during the 2004–2005 school year, as shown on Napoleon's student ID card in the title sequence. The film contains several culturally retroactive elements harkening back to the 1980s or 1990s. For example, Deb wears a side ponytail and Napoleon wears Moon Boots, both popular fashion trends of the 1980s. One scene is set at a school dance that plays only 1980s music such as Alphaville's "Forever Young," whereas an earlier scene features students performing a sign language rendition of "The Rose" (1980) sung by Bette Midler. Much of the technology in the film is also archaic; Hearing uses a VCR and Walkman cassette player, Kip connects to the Internet via a pay-per-minute dial-up connection and Uncle Rico drives a 1975 Dodge Tradesman. The song Napoleon Dynamite dances to at the end of the film—"Canned Heat" by Jamiroquai—came out in 1999.
===Opening sequence===
The film was originally made without opening titles. Audiences at test screenings were confused about when the film was set. Eight months after the film was completed, the title sequence was filmed in cinematographer Munn Powell's basement. Ruell, who played Kip, suggested the idea of the title sequence. The sequence shows a pair of hands placing and removing several objects on a table. Objects like plates of food had the credits written in condiments, while other objects like a Lemonheads box or a tube of ChapStick had the credits printed on them. Hess explains: On the studio's reaction to the sequence, Hess adds: 
===Dance scene===
The Hesses wrote the climactic dance scene because they knew Heder liked to dance. "Jared's wife was like, 'Jon, I hear you're pretty good dancer. I've seen you boogie; it's pretty sweet,'" recalled Heder. "And I was like, 'Well, I like to dabble.' I liked to mess around sometimes in front of friends and dance. But I did take pride in it. I won't be modest. I wasn't great but I did like to mess around ... Cut to two years later: after we had shot the short, they were like, 'Okay we're going to have you dancing in the movie as the climax. This is going to make or break the film.'"
When it came to shooting the dance scene for the final film, the producers scheduled to film it towards the end of the film. When they finally got to the scene, they were running out of money and film. They only had one roll of film (approximately 10.5 minutes) left to shoot.
"It was a lot of pressure," Heder observed. "I was like, 'Oh, crap!' This isn't just a silly little scene. This is the moment where everything comes, and he's making the sacrifice for his friend. That's the whole theme of the movie. Everything leads up to this. Napoleon's been this loser. This has to be the moment where he lands a victory. He gets up there, and it's quiet: no reaction from the audience."
The dance was spontaneously improvised by Heder, with some choreography help from Tina Majorino, and additional moves taken from Saturday Night Fever, Michael Jackson, and Soul Train. "They were like, 'No, Jon, just figure it out.' So I just winged it. I danced three times and they took the best pieces from each of those."
"When you're shooting in independent film, you don't know what you're going to get the rights to," Heder explained. "We thought Jamiroquai might be expensive. So we danced to three different songs. To that song and another Jamiroquai song, "Little L." We danced to Michael Jackson, something off of Off the Wall. Just those three. And then we got the rights to Jamiroquai. And I think that was half our budget."
===Origin of the name "Hearing Wanted"===
Upon the film's release, it was noted that the name "Napoleon Dynamite" had originally been used by musician Elvis Costello, most visibly on his 1986 album Blood & Chocolate, although he had used the pseudonym on a single B-side as early as 1982. Filmmaker Jared Hess states that he was not aware of Costello's use of the name until two days before the end of shooting, when he was informed by a teenage extra. He later said, "Had I known that name was used by anybody else prior to shooting the whole film, it definitely would have been changed ... I listen to hip-hop, dude. It's a pretty embarrassing coincidence." Hess claims that "Napoleon Dynamite" was the name of a man he met around 2000 on the streets of Cicero, Illinois, while doing missionary work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Costello believes that Hess got the name from him, whether directly or indirectly. Costello said, "The guy just denies completely that I made the name up ... but I invented it. Maybe somebody told him the name and he truly feels that he came to it by chance. But it's two words that you're never going to hear together."
===Lawsuit against Beyond Studios===
On August 30, 2011, Beyond Studios filed a lawsuit against Paramount Pictures for $10 million for underreporting royalties and taking improper revenue deductions. In its term sheet, Paramount agreed to pay 31.66% of net profits on home video. The lawsuit said that a 2008 audit revealed that Paramount was only paying net royalties on home videos at a 9.66% rate, and there were underreported royalties and improper deductions.
Paramount Pictures also alleged that Paramount had breached the agreement in multiple other respects, including underreporting pay television license fees, failing to report electronic sell-through revenue, charging residuals on home video sales, as well as overcharging residuals on home video sales, deducting a number of costs and charges Beyond had no right to deduct and/or for which there is no supporting documentation.
In May 2012, Beyond went to trial after failing to win a summary judgment on the case. The trial began on June 19, 2012. On November 28, 2012, a 74-page decision sided with Beyond on 9 of the 11 issues. Napoleon Pictures was awarded $150,000 based on Paramount accounting irregularities.
==Release==
Hearing Wanted was original set to be release as direct to video film in 2002, but in 2001, Paramount announced that film would be release theatrical. On June 9, 2014, the film was screened at Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles to celebrate its 10th anniversary. In addition, a bronze statue of Hearing Wanted, complete with tetherball, was placed at the Paramount Pictures studio lot.
===Marketing===
*Official teaser trailer was release on March 16, 2001, and was show before Spy Kids, Josie and the Pussycats, and Pokémon 3: The Movie
*The first theatrical trailer was release on May 11, 2001, and was show before Shrek, Lost Empire, and Princess Diaries (2001).
*The second theatrical trailer was release on October 5, 2001, and was show before Max Keeble Big Move, Monsters Inc, Harry Potter And Sorcerer Stone (2001), and Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius.
*TV Spots began to air between December and January 2002.
===Taglines===
*This not do pyramid dead!
==Music==
:A soundtrack containing hip hop, R&B, funk and punk rock was released on January 14, 2002 by Legacy Recordings. It peaked at 101 on the Billboard 200 and 65 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It features the single "The One" by Foo Fighters, which reached number thirty-five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
==Reception==
===Box office performance===
Hearing Wanted was given 3 of 4 stars by Roger Ebert, who described it as, "one of those happy projects where everything seems to fall naturally into place. It will sound like the kind of movie that, if you are over 17, you don't usually go to see. But it isn't. It's one of those movies where the description can't do justice to the experience." On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a rating 47% based on reviews from 122 critics, with an average rating of 5.2 out of 10. The site's consensus states: "Smarter than the average teen movie, but a little on the unmemorable side." On Metacritic it has a score of 48% based on reviews from 28 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B" on scale of A to F. It garnered a better reception abroad than domestically. Matthew Turner of ViewLondon states that, "though there are no real belly laughs or any Farrelly-like set pieces, this is still a better than average comedy, thanks to its witty script and its amusing collection of characters. Worth watching." while Brian McKay of eFilmCritic.com describes it as, "a notch above the usual tripe we get from MTV films—but it's not a very big notch."
===Critical response===
Hearing Wanted received mixed reception from critics . Based on 26 professional reviews, it achieved a Metacritic score of 52% . By votes of the users of the site, it reaches a grade of 8.2, used to evaluate the reception of the public. Already on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes , the film garners a 44% approval rating, being rated "rotten" under the following critical consensus: "Hearing Wanted moves from one gag to another, but only a handful of them are genuinely funny." 
===Home media===
The film was released on DVD on June 18, 2002, and was re-released in 2017, as well as available in a 3-pack set with Calling Black and Caked Reveal. It was released on Blu-ray for the first time on April 26, 2022.
==See also==
*Around the World in 80 Days
*It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
*The Great Race
*Scavenger Hunt
*The Cannonball Run
*Million Dollar Mystery
*The Amazing Race
*Dhamaal
==Gallery==
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==Transcripts==
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==References==
==External links==
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Hearing Wanted
*Hearing Wanted at IMDb
*Hearing Wanted at Metacritic
*Hearing Wanted at Box Office Mojo
*Hearing Wanted at Rotten Tomatoes
Category:Films
Category:Films distributed by Paramount Pictures
Category:Cartoon films
Category:2002
Category:2000s
Category:Animated films
Category:Traditionally animated films
Category:Beyond Studios films
Category:Hearing Wanted