“Four Christmases” is a romantic comedy that is taking place during Christmas holidays.
Let’s find out more about the movie!
- Four Christmases is a 2008 Christmas comedy-drama film.
- It is about a couple visiting all four of their divorced parents’ homes on Christmas Day.
- The movie is known as Four Holidays or Anywhere But Home in some territories.
- It stars Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon.
- Sissy Spacek, Mary Steenburgen, Robert Duvall, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw, Dwight Yoakam, and Kristin Chenoweth acting as supporting cast.
- The film’s director is Seth Gordon/
- It is his first studio feature film.
- The film is produced by New Line Cinema and Spyglass Entertainment.
- It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on November 26, 2008, the day before Thanksgiving.
- It received generally negative reviews from critics.
- Despite that it grossed $163 million worldwide.
- During the filming of the dinner sequence, Reese Witherspoon was hit in the face with a ceramic plate and required five stitches.
- This is why the filming was delayed the shoot for three days.
- Vernon Vaughn, Vince Vaughn’s real-life father, makes a cameo as a churchgoer during the Christmas play. He is sitting right behind Reese Witherspoon.
- Actually, he had cameo roles in several of Vince’s films.
- Many of the film’s key scenes were improvised.
- According to Director Seth Gordon, the film’s subject is the difficulty all people have of reconciling who they are, and the person they’re supposed to be, which is why it’s so hard to spend Christmas with one’s family, and why it can engender uneasiness. Naturally, he also felt Christmas was an amazing playground for comedy.
- Cast includes two Country and Western singers, (Dwight Yoakam and Tim McGraw.
- Also, three people have won Oscars for playing Country and Western singers (Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall, and Sissy Spacek).
- Vince Vaughn didn’t go out to promote the film after it was rumored in gossip columns that he and Reese Witherspoon did not get along throughout filming.
- Star and Producer Vince Vaughn, actor and Executive Producer Peter Billingsley, and actor Jon Favreau are all good friends in real-life, and have collaborated on several other projects together, in different capacities.
- The film started production during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, which meant that there could be no changes made to the script during filming.
- In order to develop the characters and give each of them an identity, Seth Gordon drew up detailed timelines of their lives.
- Howard’s house was built from scratch in the Shadow Hills area of southern California, with a reinforced roof that could stand the weight of the cast and the camera crew.
- Some of the crew were unaware of this, and were surprised when they went into the house to find it completely empty, something of which Seth Gordon is very proud.
- Seth Gordon inspired himself from memories of his own family Christmases, where the mood was tense, where his sister would always be after him, and where no one would want to go get his grandmother for dinner, to approach the directing on this film.
- According to Vince Vaughn, the film’s message is that the point of Christmas is to get together with all the members of one’s family, be they good, bad, or ugly, to be thankful for their love, and of course, to have fun.
- Seth Gordon was hired as Director at Vince Vaughn’s insistence, Vaughn being a fan of Gordon’s acclaimed documentary The King of Kong (2007).
- When talking about not being married after the dance lesson, Brad (Vince Vaughn) refers to the famous short story “The Most Dangerous Game”, written by Richard Connell in 1924. The story dealt with a wealthy Cossack who hunts men on his private island, the scenario to which Brad refers.
- When Brad is introduced to Jim he is playing a video game and the sounds of which can be recognized as Donkey Kong. Jim is played by Steve Wiebe who was the subject of the director’s documentary The King of Kong: a Fistful of Quarters about his quest to get the all time high score on Donkey Kong.
