The One Show: Jermaine 'caught off guard' by Tom Hanks joke
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Tonight, Hanks once again puts his voice behind one of Disney’s most loved characters, as Woody and the gang are back in Toy Story 2, which airs on BBC 3 from 7pm. The animated comedy follows Woody, who is stolen by a brutal toy collector, as he comes to terms with his owner Andy going off to summer camp. A group of Woody’s friends, led by Tim Allen’s Buzz Lightyear, attempt to locate the cowboy, but come against a series of tough challenges as they try and find him.
The franchise, which has spawned four blockbuster films, helped Hanks find a brand new audience, with children across the planet falling in love with the character he voiced.
But while Hanks is known for his immaculate performances, which have earned him two Academy Awards, there’s one film that saw his star plummet.
The Bonfire of the Vanities was a huge commercial flop when it was released in 1990, and barely recouped a third of its budget when released in the US.
Audiences did not engage with the film, which also starred Kim Cattrall and Bruce Willis, and neither did critics, as reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes noted feedback on the black comedy was only 16 percent positive.
Speaking last year, Hanks reflected on the film, which was among the first major films he had starred in during his fledging Hollywood career.
He noted how at the time the film was being made “it was huge”, noting that “we couldn’t move anywhere in New York” due to the intense excitement surrounding it.
According to Cinema Blend, Hanks said: “Everybody was talking about it. Everybody was miscast, me particularly.
“Brian De Palma [producer and director] deals with iconography more than filmmaking. He is the most uncompromising filmmaker — both in a good way and a bad way — that you’ll ever come across.
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“This is the guy who made Scarface. So his take on it was just one of those things.”
The Bonfire of the Vanities, when first released by author Tom Wolfe, was a huge sensation when released in the late Eighties, discussing the “ambition, racism, social class, politics, and greed in New York City”.
Hanks noted that even he was given the wrong character, as he played villain Sherman McCoy, as opposed to a more comedic character, which audiences were used to seeing him as.
He continued: “You can’t take a book like Tom Wolfe’s that has changed the way people talk and think and change it into a palatable movie, or alter the thrust of what the source material is talking about.
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“It may not translate in a way that is going to work.”
Reviews for the flick were all in agreement, with Variety magazine noting how “the caricatures are so crude” and “the satire is about as socially incisive as an entry in the Police Academy series”.
In another scathing review, The New York Times’ Vincent Canby condemned the “gross, unfunny movie adaptation”.
After the film was heavily ridiculed, De Palma spoke of the difficulties he experienced in telling the story, and in particular the way it was adapted for the screen.
He added: “The initial concept of it was incorrect.
“If you’re going to do The Bonfire of the Vanities, you would have to make it a lot darker and more cynical, but because it was such an expensive movie, we tried to humanize the Sherman McCoy character – a very unlikable character, much like the character in The Magnificent Ambersons.
“We could have done that if we’d been making a low-budget movie, but this was a studio movie with Tom Hanks in it.
“We made a couple of choices that, in retrospect, were wrong.”
Thankfully, for Hanks at least, the film didn’t harm his career, and he would go on to win Oscars for his performances in Philadelphia and Forest Gump.
Toy Story 2 airs at 7pm on BBC3.
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