Seinfeld: You can't buy me off
2007-11-01 13:21
Los Angeles - "Here's the beauty of
being me," says comedian Jerry Seinfeld. "They can't buy me
off."
Seinfeld, whose Bee Movie debuts in theatres on Friday,
grins when he tells his off-the-cuff joke, and although the
reporters with him laugh, everyone knows he is not joking.
Last month, Forbes.com estimated the annual income of the
stand-up comedian and creator of the 1990s smash hit television
show Seinfeld at $60m, among the highest on TV.
This was nine years after his show left the air and was
based largely on payments for reruns and other products from
the programme.
The "they" that Seinfeld referred to are Hollywood
executives who would salivate at any hint Seinfeld and co-stars
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards might
reunite for a special about Seinfeld and cash in on the
sure-fire TV event.
Animated movie
But Seinfeld said there is no need to rehash the TV show.
He gets more excited about working in new arenas, which is why
he ventured into computer animation and Bee Movie.
The new style of animated movie was fresh, he said. The
idea also was pushed along by Steven Spielberg.
As Seinfeld tells it, he was dining with the star movie
director and mentioned he had a funny idea: a film about bees
titled Bee Movie - a pun on old, low-grade "B" movies.
Spielberg called his friend Jeffrey Katzenberg - now the
head of the DreamWorks Animation movie studio - and faster
than one can say "punch line," a movie deal was born.
Seinfeld said he wanted to remake his favourite film, 1967's
coming-of-age tale The Graduate, but he was stung by his
newfound commitment to bees.
A wink toward The Graduate
"I thought: It'd be funny to do a Graduate with bees," he
said, prompting more laughs. But he looks downward and his
voice softens. "But you know, you can't do that."
What a writer, producer and comic genius (not to mention
rich) could do, however, was to write jokes for Bee Movie
that offer audiences a wink toward The Graduate.
Adults will get the joke when lead bee, Barry B Benson
(voiced by Seinfeld), lounges in a pool instead of choosing his
career path.
Kids may not get it, but there is plenty other
things to laugh about in the family movie from DreamWorks,
which also released the smash hit Shrek animated comedies.
Barry has graduated from school and is set to enter the
honey-making working class when he ventures out of the hive,
falls for a girl (voiced by Renee Zellweger) and discovers
people are stealing honey for their own consumption.
Barry sues the human race and wins a court order returning
the sweet stuff to the bees.
Inconsistencies in life
Life should be good, but without
pollination, the world's flowers, fruits and vegetables begin
dying, so Barry must figure out how to undo his legal damage.
Seinfeld has made his living telling funny stories about
ironies and inconsistencies in people's everyday lives, and
similarly Bee Movie pokes fun at human foibles.
The comedian said he is not certain what new comedy arena
he will enter next. For now, he is content to let Bee Movie
roll out and see how it plays in theatres.
Early buzz around
Hollywood is that it should be a smash box office hit.
Producer Christina Steinberg said in the four years she
worked on Bee Movie, she learned many things about Seinfeld,
and one key lesson was not to question his instinct about a
good joke.
"I did it a few times, and he'd say 'OK let's test it.' I
was always wrong, and it'd get the biggest laugh," she said.
But about not rehashing his old TV show, Seinfeld is dead
serious. And that you can take to the bank.