There are plenty of examples of films that were made but never made it to the big screen – for several reasons. The case of ‘The Day The Clown Cried’ is legendary: director and star Jerry Lewis was so dissatisfied with the Holocaust film that he prevented a public screening – even after his death. The film, shot in 1972, will not be available to the public for the first time until 2024!
A more recent example is the DC film ‘Batgirl’: Warner Bros. announced in 2022 that the already completed superhero blockbuster would not be released in theaters or on a streaming platform – for commercial reasons.
And also a movie with “Oppenheimer‘ star Cillian Murphy got it. The biopic ‘Hippie Hippie Shake’ is loosely based on the autobiography of Richard Neville, the influential and controversial editor of the Australian satirical magazine Oz, which was considered an important organ of the counterculture, especially in the 1960s. Neville, who died in 2016, repeatedly raised taboo topics in crude terms, campaigned against homophobia, racism, censorship and police brutality, and was also one of the fiercest critics of the Vietnam War.
No wonder he was met with hostility from the public: the writer and satirist had to appear in court in two cases for alleged obscenity. Material made for a historical biopic! As a result, in 1998 the British production company Working Title Films acquired the rights to Neville’s autobiography and commissioned author Don MacPherson (“Thirteen Lives”) to prepare a first draft of the script.
Trapped in development hell
For unknown reasons, the project initially came to nothing, until it was picked up again in 2002: this time also on board was Shekhar Kapur, a renowned director, who had already appeared in the biopic with “Elizabeth” (before Cate Blanchett appeared in won a Golden Globe in 1999). Tom Butterworth (“Birthday Girl”) wrote a completely new script. But this time too, there were delays – and “Hippie Hippie Shake” was once again on hold for several years.
However, neither the production company nor Neville himself wanted to give up on the project so easily, and so they made a third (and final) attempt at making the film in 2007. This time, everything seemed to work: Beeban Kidron (“To Wong Foo”) was a first-time director, and “Gladiator” screenwriter William Nicholson wrote the final script version with support from Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot – I Will Dance”). Of Cillian Murphy there was finally a protagonist, and stars like Sienna Miller (“Layer Cake”), Derek Jacobi (“Gosford Park”) and Hugh Bonneville (“Paddington”) completed the ensemble. What could go wrong now? Unfortunately some…
That’s why we may never see the Cillian Murphy movie
Details about the recordings are hardly known, but it turned out that they were quite chaotic and anything but smooth. While Neville supported the film, feminist writer Germaine Greer wrote an angry article for it in which she spoke out against the film and also criticized the actress’ choice to portray her in the film.
“It’s going to be a little scary to play her. (…) I’m sure she’ll hate me,” Emma Booth speculated to her – and she was right. Greer complained, among other things, that “you used to have to die before some scribblers started chewing on your remains and sculpting a new version of you from their own feces.”
An angry newspaper article usually doesn’t bring down a movie – but that director Kidron abruptly left the project during post-production, didn’t make it any easier. Additionally, Working Title Films was facing financial difficulties, so the production company and its distribution partner decided to completely halt work on the film to avoid hideous tax payments.
As part of the promotional tour for Ben Affleck’s “Live By Night” (2016), Sienna Miller broke her silence on “Hippie Hippie Shake” (via Yahoo): She doesn’t think we’ll see the movie anytime soon – and seven years later she was unfortunately proven right. Miller himself saw a rough cut and thought, “It was a pretty nice movie.”
To this day, fans hope that the film will one day be released on a streaming platform – maybe the hype surrounding “Oppenheimer” and Cillian Murphy will make it happen after all!