Genre: Comedy+Youth+Magic
Directed by: Burr Steers
Starring:
Zac Efron
Mattew Perry )
Leslie Mann
Michelle Trachtenberg
Thomas Lennon
Release Date: March 11, 2009 Sydney, Australia Premiere April 17, 2009 USA
If you had the chance to be 17 again, dear newspaper friends, would you still choose to live today? The comedy movie "17 Again" makes that assumption for us. Mattew Perry, "Chandler" in "Friends," and Zac Efron, "High School Musical," play middle-aged and teenage Mike (Mike O'Donnell), respectively. Mike O'Donnell and Michelle Trachtenberg played Mike's daughter Maggie O'Donnell, and Zac Efron had a lot of scenes with them.
Mike was a popular guy at school, and as a basketball player, he was able to get a scholarship to go straight to school. As a basketball player, he was offered a scholarship that would have sent him straight to college, but he gave it up to be with his girlfriend, Scarlett (Leslie Mann).
Twenty-five years later, Mike, a middle-aged man, has accomplished nothing. He's broken up with his wife Scarlett, he rarely ****speaks the same language with his kids, and his job at the drug company is boring as hell. Frustrated, Mike goes back to high school to reminisce about his former glory. There he meets a janitor, and as they chat, Mike confides in him his desire to be 17 again, and how life would be very different if he had it all to do over again, and if he never gave up on scholarships and opportunities to further his education.
On the way back from school, Mike overheard the mysterious janitor preparing to jump into the river. Surprised Mike rushed to jump out of the car to save him, I did not expect the janitor suddenly disappeared, but was running too fast Mike rushed into the river, and this miraculously turned into the 17-year-old appearance ......
Behind-the-scenes
Second Chance
17-year-old Mike O'Donnell youthful and energetic, was overwhelmed by love. He's so young and full of energy that he's overwhelmed by love and thinks he's found the full meaning of life, but the problem is, his life hasn't even begun yet. ...... Years later, Mike realizes that his only wish is to go back to being 17 again and choose the decision he once gave up on - playing the role of a 17-year-old boy in the movie, "Back to Seventeen". Zac Efron, who plays the 17-year-old Mike in "Back to Seventeen," said, "I think there's a very important cinematic concept contained in the movie, and that's the idea of starting everything over and reversing the trajectory of your entire life. If you start over with knowledge that has to be gained through the passage of years, the decisions you make will naturally change, and along with that, the outcome will be completely different." For his part, Burr Steers, the film's director, believes, "I believe that a story like this can strike some kind of ****ing chord with all who see it, because we've all experienced those moments that are life-changing enough to be made by a decision that leads you down a certain path in life. And then you're constantly wondering, what would it be like now if you went back in time and made another choice?"
The film's screenplay was written by Jason Filardi, who said that because of the amount of repetition required in refining the script, the key here became how to preserve the memories of the first life, and then try to keep the memories of the first life alive when the protagonist is given a "second chance". I'm always thinking there, how much comedic potential can I give to this story," says Frillati, "especially when it comes to the constant reworking. Especially in the constant process of revising it over and over again, the deep fear that this would instead deprive the script of its initial surge of inspiration, so I kept reminding myself of this, hoping that I wouldn't stray from my original goal: If you're an adult and then reenter high school as a teenager, you can assume that what you have is very powerful - I mean, you know how to cater to teachers , being a fish out of water in a small faction of students and being unusually athletic ...... For anyone, that's the equivalent of a dream becoming a reality."
Filmmaker Adam Shankman, who is very experienced in the field of comedy and has directed box office hits like Bringing Down the House and Bedtime Stories, will take on producer duties for the film, saying: "It all comes back to the basic idea that one should be grateful for what we can have in our lives and not ask for what is not ours. For me, this is a comedy piece that relates to the theme of 'yesteryear all over again', both in terms of personal life and work experience, where our protagonist Mike walks into a crossroads in life and he is very disappointed with the reality of his living situation ...... Obviously, when a grown man is in the midst of a frustration that he has no way of grasping, what he prefers to think back to is what he was like when he was younger, and I think that's completely understandable."
Adam Shankman, who has worked with Zac Efron before on the musical comedy Hairspray, went on to say, "When you look at him through the camera, it's a really special feeling, and he brings a sense of the unknown that you don't get to define. He's also a very gifted actor, and most importantly, he's a bit of a hard worker, which is rare for people his age. He's so dedicated to his roles that he gives almost everything he has, and in the last few years I've witnessed firsthand how much he's grown and improved by leaps and bounds."
In fact, when Adam Shankman and producing partner Jennifer Gibgot, who is also his sister, read the script, which was written by Jason Frillati, they immediately realized that the story told in it was a perfect fit for Zac Efron, with Gibgot affirming, "We both We thought it would be a great opportunity to take Efron out of the musical comedy mold and give him a whole new dimension to showcase his talents, because we all know how good this young man is at doing this kind of comedy that relies on a lot of body language. Efron still has a lot of emotional layers of his own that are worth tapping into, but most people don't know that."
Zac Efron got his hands on the script, and it was immediately clear that the movie offered him a no-brainer opportunity to show off a little bit of an emotional dimension beyond his own age, Efron says: "That's the main reason why this movie was so appealing to me, knowing that all along my roles have been kind of teenagers, so it was a great opportunity to play a guy with a 30-something year old face, and to be able to play a guy with a 30-something year old face. So to be able to play someone with the mind of a 30-something is a really fascinating proposition, and it's a piece of territory that I've never been in before. If my character is a teenager, that feeling is nothing new to me - first kisses, crappy dates, disconnect with parents, etc., but the only thing I haven't tried is the fact that I actually have a daughter who's about the same age as myself, and then the relationship between the two of them is pretty awful. ...... For me, that's an experience I've never had. was something I had never experienced before, so I did feel a lot of pressure, but I also really experienced a lot of unparalleled joy in the process."
Generation Gap and Conflict Between Two Generations
Once it was settled that Zac Efron would play the film's lead, Mike, the two producers approached Burr Steers to convince him to direct "Back to Seventeen". Prior to that, Steele had garnered great acclaim for his big screen debut, Igby Goes Down, and Adam Shankman recalls, "I remember vividly the indie film that Steele produced, which was an absolutely great exploration of the richness of the characters' inner worlds. He's a very powerful and easily able director type who can handle all kinds of actors, and for us, that was a crucial talent. When we met Steele, he showed a deep interest in the script, and we couldn't be happier about that." For her part, Jennifer Gilbert added: "When Steele listed to us what he liked about the story, I realized that a lot of it coincided with mine. Both Shankman and I were looking for a director for this movie who possessed an air of good-natured, sophomoric behavior, and we believed that Steele was the one we needed." Steele continues, "What first attracted me to the script was the combination of warmth and humor in it as a storytelling concept, and both Shankman and Gilbert are the kind of filmmakers who are very funny and creative, and I've always been an admirer of Shankman's directorial work, and what he accomplished with Hairspray was an astonishing leap forward. As for Gilbert, she's an impressive producer with a singular vision who seems to always hold the same belief - make the movie better. Then I met Efron again and realized that the two of us personally hit it off very well, so everything just clicked and it went very smoothly." Efron also showed great enthusiasm for Steele, saying, "I learned a lot from Steele, and what he taught me the most was how to stay true to my touch in front of the camera, even in the midst of such a cinematic story that defies the norm, and spawned a great deal of comedy out of it, and I loved and cherished the opportunity to work with him. "
The first time we see Zac Efron in "Back to Seventeen," he appears as Mike, a 17-year-old senior in high school, and it's 1989, and Mike is living a carefree, quality life, handsome and popular, and the hero of his school's basketball team, and Mike looks like he's ready to go for it, regardless of whether the outcome will ultimately make him, or break him. But just then, his girlfriend gets pregnant, so he makes a crucial decision: give up his college scholarship and marry her. ...... Twenty years later, Mike is long gone, wasting away at a dead-end job while going through a doomed marriage and raising two children that he That's why he can't help but look back, says Efron: "From the beginning, Mike had a million paths to the future in front of him that he could have chosen, but he passed up every opportunity. So when one day he didn't fall, he started to think if he could go back in time, if he had seized those possibilities, maybe he wouldn't have ended up where he is today. I mean, if you make a choice that results in a monotonous, dull, boring life for the rest of your life, of course you're going to think about going back in time to change that."
Matthew Perry, who plays the adult Mike in the movie, said, "Everyone makes decisions that they regret, but if you just keep looking back and thinking, 'I wish I had done this or that. ' Then you're going to live in pain forever. Mike is so unhappy with his situation, and is clearly at a bit of a dead end, that the most important thing he needs to learn is how to be grateful for what he has - a competent wife and great kids - and then realize that maybe he himself is at the root of it all. When I read the script, I loved the character so much, and even though he was so down and frustrating to watch, I just couldn't help but sympathize with him." Jennifer Gilbert, on the other hand, said, "Perry's portrayal of the adult Mike, who is so endearing, always with a depressed, taken-advantage-of look on his face, is the most commendable thing he brings to the movie - Perry gives us something we desperately want: a middle-aged man filled with pain and disappointment, without coming across as too much of a klutz. Revealing a realism from head to toe that elicits your ****, Perry has to do a better job than anyone else of balancing the stark contrasts that appear in this character." Burr Steers continues, "Perry is one of those featured actors who instantly endears himself to you, and is key to our ability to connect the story to the audience, because initially, Mike is just too caught up in his self-hatred, when in fact, at heart, he's still kind and soft."