The film that broke a legendary Hollywood partnership over a role
In short: In 1987, a teen drama became the catalyst for the end of a major creative dynasty. While it served as a gender-swapped reimagining of a previous hit, the production was defined by fired directors, replaced leads, and a casting decision that permanently severed a celebrated working relationship.
Some Kind of Wonderful was part of a prolific 1987 output from screenwriter John Hughes. The film served as a deliberate narrative experiment: Hughes chose to retell the story of his previous collaboration, Pretty in Pink, but switched the sexes of the main characters. The three protagonists—Keith, Watts, and Amanda Jones—were actually an inside joke, named as tributes to Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and the Rolling Stones' song 'Miss Amanda Jones.'
The production was marked by significant instability. Hughes originally hired Martha Coolidge to direct, but he fired her after she proposed a vision that was darker than his intended tone. He replaced her with Howard Deutch and subsequently fired the original cast members, Kim Delaney and Kyle MacLachlan. Lea Thompson eventually accepted the role of Amanda Jones only after her previous project, Howard the Duck, failed at the box office. This marked the third time Stoltz and Thompson were cast together, following their work on The Wild Life and the production of Back to the Future.
The most enduring legacy of the film, however, is the fracture it caused with Molly Ringwald. Hughes wanted Ringwald to play the female lead, Watts, but she declined, seeking more adult roles and citing similarities to her character in The Breakfast Club. Hughes took the refusal personally, effectively ending their professional partnership. While critics like Roger Ebert praised the film for its clever re-examination of tropes, the production remains a case study in the volatile mechanics of 1980s studio filmmaking.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Some Kind of Wonderful (film)
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