THORA BIRCH stars in United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.
© 2001 United Artists Films

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GHOST of a Chance

If you're thinking of taking in Terry Zwigoff's film GHOST WORLD, you should be aware that it's not about ghosts. And while it's based on a comic book, it also doesn't feature anyone with superpowers. Also missing in action are monsters, guns, secret identities, flying or web-slinging scenes or anything else you might normally associate with a comic book. It's just the story of two girls, Enid and Rebecca, who graduate from high school and can't quite figure out what to do with their lives until they encounter an older fellow named Seymour.

GHOST WORLD is based on a comic book by Daniel Clowes, who is the first to admit that it flies in the face of most comic book conventions. When asked why he created the book, he reveals a savvy marketing strategy.

Scarlett Johansson in the dark comedy GHOST WORLD

© 2001 United Artists Films

"I thought I'd have the only two girl characters in all of the comic stores," he says. "I'll have that niche market and the one girl who goes into the comic stores will buy this one. I like these girls because they're very scary to the typical guy who buys comics he'd never want to meet them."

While comic book movies are big business these days, Clowes doesn't lump GHOST WORLD in with THE X-MEN or SPIDER-MAN.

"Most of those movies are not adaptations of comics; they're adaptations of properties," he says. "They're taking the basic mythos of Spider-Man and turning it into a whole new thing. GHOST WORLD is really taking a story and turning that into a movie. Nobody really cares about these characters as properties they don't have strange powers or neat costumes. So this is a whole different thing. I'm not really interested in comic book movies they creep me out."

STEVE BUSCEMI stars in United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.

© 2001 United Artists Films

Director Terry Zwigoff put GHOST WORLD together after meeting with Clowes while in search of a movie to follow up his highly successful documentary CRUMB.

"After CRUMB came out I was getting all these screenplays and I didn't think they were very well written," Zwigoff says. "Dialogue wasn't very good, character wasn't very good. I like John Huston films like THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, and films today are so contrived and targeted to just the dumbest creatures in America, the whole culture is sort of dumbed down. I just couldn't connect with any of these scripts. Then we watched a particularly bad film that I don't remember now but I said, 'Jesus Christ, I can do better than this.'"

Zwigoff's wife suggested filming the GHOST WORLD comic, but when the director checked it out he didn't find an identifiable plot.

THORA BIRCH (right) and SCARLETT JOHANSSON star in United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.

© 2001 United Artists Films

"It's got these two characters that are great and this strong weird mood to it, but it was great as a comic and I didn't think it would work as a film. But I met with Dan and I liked him right away. He was very funny, which was important to me, and we seemed to share a sensibility, and I suggested writing this screenplay together."

The result according to Zwigoff is a loose adaptation that captures the spirit more than the details of GHOST WORLD.

"We tried not to be too married to the comic," he says. "We didn't try to imitate the mood or the look. GHOST WORLD as a film meant something entirely different to me than it did as a comic. I tried to treat them separately and I warned Dan from the start and said, 'You're going to hate this film. It's going to be different than the comic.' I couldn't do it exactly the same if I wanted to. But he likes the film, which is a miracle."

Clowes admits to liking the film and gives full marks to Zwigoff's approach in making it.

"I think he just understood how delicate the story was," the comic artist says. "It has this range of emotion from wacky humor to melancholy sadness, all in the scope of one scene. It's very much on the razor's edge between those emotions throughout the film and that's a very hard thing to attain, and I think he was very stubborn about getting that."

Director TERRY ZWIGOFF on the set of United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.

© 2001 United Artists Films

One of the key elements in the movie is the older man named Seymour (indie vet Steve Buscemi), whom Enid and Rebecca initially prey on for a practical joke. But Enid winds up becoming fascinated by the unassuming record collector and develops a friendship with him. Seymour was not a character in Clowes' comic book.

"There's a plotline in the comic of sorts where the girls set a guy up on kind of a blind date as a practical joke," explains Zwigoff. "I added Seymour to the film as an excuse to get my own music into the movie, because every pitch meeting I went to the executives would go, 'Teenage girls! Great!' They're very interested in that because that's the demographic they want for their movies. Then they'd say, 'What's the music going to be Backstreet Boys? *NSYNC?' I said I hate that music and I don't want it in the film. The only reason I'd want it in there is to make fun of it if I can get the rights to it and I can criticize it then I'd do it. It's really an adult movie about teenaged girls; we're not trying to pander to teenaged girls. We wanted to make a smart film. I hate most art films, and I hate most Hollywood films I find them boring for different reasons. I wanted to take the best elements of both genres and try to combine them in an entertaining, thought-provoking movie."

DP AFFONSO BEATO (left) and Director TERRY ZWIGOFF on the set of United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.

© 2001 United Artists Films

Of course pitching the movie to studios was an exercise in frustration for Zwigoff.

"You go into Warner Bros. and say you want to do a comedy about alienation, they say they don't want to do that," he notes. "They want something that has a girl in bright saturated colors and a handsome boyfriend played by Freddie Prinze Jr. That's who they wanted to play Seymour! They wanted Sara Michelle Gellar or Jennifer Love Hewitt for Enid. I don't criticize directors anymore, because you have to compromise so much to get anything made. I held out for Steve Buscemi for four years. Every studio said if I got Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Harrison Ford, we'll make this movie tomorrow. With Steve Buscemi, well, they thought maybe if we rounded out the cast with other stars maybe. But the guy had to be somewhat funny-looking, he had to be able to play drama and tragedy and comedy, which is very hard to find."

For Enid, Zwigoff initially had Christina Ricci in mind.

"Christina Ricci could have done it, but she's done similar things and it was sort of for the best that she didn't do it," the director says. The role of Enid eventually went to Thora Birch of AMERICAN BEAUTY. "When I first met Thora, I didn't want to cast her because I didn't think she was right for the part. I'd seen AMERICAN BEAUTY and I certainly thought she could do this whole sarcastic outsider, alienated thing, but the character needed a kind of wacky, goofy, upbeat, slightly abrasive thing I didn't see in her. I had three meetings with her and I honestly said to her I didn't think she was right. I took this leap of faith and hired her and she's such a terrific actress that I'm so glad I did."

Comic creator DANIEL CLOWES on the set of United Artists Films' dark comedy GHOST WORLD.

© 2001 United Artists Films

GHOST WORLD is something of a rebound for Birch after the disastrous DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, with Enid rivaling her highly praised performance in AMERICAN BEAUTY.

"She was just someone I naturally glommed onto," Birch says of Enid. "She was also someone I thought would be a challenge to pull off because I'm not naturally like her at all. But I could understand her and empathize with her."

The actress gained around 30 pounds for the role and died her hair in order to create Enid's quirky, outsider appearance.

"I probably didn't have to go as far as I did but it was a choice," the actress says. "Enid is dry and sardonic, but I also found her to have a vivacious sort of life-force, an intrigue in the world around her even if she disses it right away, she's at least interested in it. So that usually gets the reaction from the audience that she's fine and that's nothing wrong, but I wanted the audience to have to look at her to see that beyond that façade she put on was something a little more off-kilter and human."

Rounding out the cast is Illeana Douglas, who plays an art teacher who's initially dismissive of Enid but who eventually plays a pivotal role in her development. While GHOST WORLD would seem to be an odd choice for a summer movie from a studio as large as MGM, she sees it as a potential sleeper.

"I think it has a wide appeal in the sense that I like the idea of the alienation," Douglas says. "Obviously the teenagers that feel like they can't relate to what's going on in high school, and it also has an indie feel, and there's also a universal feeling of being alienated in high school and not knowing where you're going to go or where you're going to wind up. And you're also looking for someone who's going to influence you. I think everyone has a Seymour, some weird person you meet in high school who's a little older than you."

The open format of GHOST WORLD allowed Zwigoff to also take pot shots at some very specific targets, from movie trailers to friendly chemical companies and having that forum was a big reason for him taking on the film.

"There's not much left in America that's genuine or authentic it's all been wiped out by this very corporate culture that's designed to sell you shit," Zwigoff says. "To me it's very satisfying to put that message in the film."