Four Weddings and a Funeral

Screenwriter Richard Curtis's own experiences as a wedding attendee inspired Four Weddings and a Funeral.[7] According to Curtis he began writing the script at age 34, after realising he had attended 65 weddings in an 11-year period. At one wedding he was propositioned by a fellow guest, but he turned her down and forever regretted it; accordingly he based the origin of Charles and Carrie's romance on that situation.[7]

It took Curtis 17 drafts to reach the final version. He has commented on director Mike Newell's influence; "I come from a school where making it funny is what matters. Mike was obsessed with keeping it real. Every character, no matter how small, has a story, not just three funny lines. It's a romantic film about love and friendship that swims in a sea of jokes." [8]

Curtis chose to omit any mention of the characters' careers, because he didn't think a group of friends would realistically discuss their jobs while together at a wedding.[7]

Curtis, Newell and the producers began the casting process for Four Weddings in early 1992. Alex Jennings was cast as Charles, but funding for the production fell through in mid-1992.[9] Jennings would eventually go on to play a supporting role in Mindy Kaling's 2019 television miniseries adaptation of the film. The team continued holding auditions for over a year, seeing roughly 70 actors for the role of Charles before Hugh Grant.[3]

Grant was ready to give up acting as a career when he received the script for Four Weddings and a Funeral; he stated in 2016 that: "I wasn't really getting any work at all, and then to my great surprise this script came through the letterbox from my agent, and it was really good. And I rang on and said there must be a mistake, you've sent me a good script."[10] Initially, writer Richard Curtis, who had modelled the character of Charles after himself, was opposed to casting Grant in the role, because he thought Grant was too handsome. Curtis favoured casting Alan Rickman, but Rickman refused to audition. Curtis was eventually persuaded by Newell and the producers to approve Grant's casting.[11]

Jeanne Tripplehorn was originally cast as Carrie, but she had to drop out before filming when her mother died.[12] The role was offered to Marisa Tomei, but she turned it down, because her grandfather was sick at the time.[13] Sarah Jessica Parker was also reportedly considered. Andie MacDowell was in London doing publicity for Groundhog Day when she read the script [14] and was subsequently cast.[7] MacDowell took a 75% cut in her fee to appear, receiving $250,000 upfront, but due to the success of the film, she earned around $3 million.[15]

Grant's participation hit another stumbling block when his agent requested a £5,000 rise over the £35,000 salary Grant was offered. The producers initially refused because of the extremely tight budget, but eventually agreed. The supporting cast-members were paid £17,500 apiece.[16]

Duncan Kenworthy produced the film while on sabbatical from Jim Henson Productions.[15] Pre-production for the movie was a long process because funding was erratic, falling through in mid-1992 and leading to much uncertainty.[3] Finally in early 1993, Working Title Films stepped in to close the gap. Nonetheless, another $1.2 million was cut just before production began in the summer of 1993, forcing the film to be made in just 36 days with a final budget of £2.7 million (appr. $4.4 million in 1994).[3] Channel Four Films contributed £800,000.[15] The budget was so tight that extras had to wear their own wedding clothes, while Rowan Atkinson appeared as a vicar at two of the weddings so production wouldn't have to pay another actor.[7]

Future Home Secretary and Member of Parliament (MP) Amber Rudd was given the credit of "Aristocracy Coordinator" after she arranged for several aristocrats to make uncredited appearances as wedding extras, including Peregrine Cavendish, who was at the time Marquess of Hartington, and the Earl of Woolton, who conveniently wore their own morning suits.[7]

To make Grant look more nerdy, the producers styled him with shaggy hair, glasses, and deliberately unflattering, ill-fitting clothes.[17][18] Grant was encouraged by director Mike Newell to mess up and trip over his lines, written in "convoluted syntax" as Grant describes them, in order to give Charles a stammering, nervous quality.[18] Grant, who struggled with hay fever throughout filming, was unsure of Newell's direction and his own performance, which he thought was "atrocious." Regarding Newell, Grant commented that: "He seemed to be giving direction against what I thought were the natural beats of the comedy. He was making a film with texture, grounding it, playing the truths rather than the gags".[8]

The film was shot mainly in London and the Home Counties, including: Hampstead, Islington where the final moments take place on Highbury Terrace, Greenwich Hospital, Betchworth in Surrey, Amersham in Buckinghamshire, St Bartholomew-the-Great (wedding number four) and West Thurrock in Essex.[19]

Exterior shots of guests arriving for the funeral were filmed in Thurrock, Essex overlooking the River Thames with the backdrop of the Dartford River Crossing. Stately homes in Bedfordshire (Luton Hoo for wedding two's reception) and Hampshire provided exteriors for weddings.[20]

According to Hugh Grant, the initial screening of a rough-cut of Four Weddings went very badly.

"I thought we'd screwed it up. When we went to watch a rough cut, all of us, me, Richard Curtis, Mike Newell, the producers, all thought this was the worst film that's ever been perpetrated. We're gonna go and emigrate to Peru when it comes out so no one can actually find us. And then they had a, a few cuts later they took it to Santa Monica for a test screening and everyone loved it. And it was a great surprise."[10]

Throughout production, Gramercy Pictures, the U.S. distributor for the film, sent frequent transatlantic faxes objecting to the explicit language and sexual content, fearing the final product would not be suitable for American distribution or television airings.[3] They particularly objected to the opening scene of the movie, in which Charles and Scarlett say the word "Fuck" over and over, after an initial screening of the movie in Salt Lake City led the conservative Mormon members of the city council to walk out.[7][11] Accordingly, Mike Newell and the actors agreed to reshoot the scene with the British swear word "Bugger" to be used in the American version.[7] The executives also objected to the title, believing Four Weddings and a Funeral would turn off male viewers from the film. In its place they suggested such titles as True Love and Near Misses, Loitering in Sacred Places, Skulking Around, and Rolling in the Aisles, none of which were accepted.[3]

The original score was composed by British composer Richard Rodney Bennett. The movie also featured a soundtrack of popular songs, including a cover version of The Troggs' "Love Is All Around" performed by Wet Wet Wet that remained at number 1 on the UK Singles Chart for fifteen weeks and was then the ninth (now twelfth) biggest selling single of all time in Britain. This song would later be adapted into "Christmas Is All Around" and sung by the character of Billy Mack in Richard Curtis' 2003 film Love Actually, in which Grant also stars. The soundtrack album sold more than 750,000 units.[15]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 69 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10. The site's critics consensus states, "While frothy to a fault, Four Weddings and a Funeral features irresistibly breezy humor, and winsome performances from Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell."[21] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[22]

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four, calling it "delightful and sly", and directed with "light-hearted enchantment" by Newell. He praised Grant's performance, describing it as a kind of "endearing awkwardness".[23] Todd McCarthy of Variety called it a "truly beguiling romantic comedy" which was "frequently hilarious without being sappily sentimental or tiresomely retrograde."[24] Producer Duncan Kenworthy later attributed much of the success of Four Weddings at the box office to McCarthy's review.[3]

Writing for the Chicago Reader, Jonathan Rosenbaum called the film "generic" and "standard issue", stating that the audience shouldn't "expect to remember it ten minutes later".[25] Time magazine writer Richard Corliss was less scathing, but agreed that it was forgettable, saying that people would "forget all about [the movie] by the time they leave the multiplex," even joking at the end of his review that he had forgotten the film's name.[26]

Upon its limited release in the United States, Four Weddings and a Funeral opened with $138,486 from five theatres.[27] In its wide release, the film topped the box office with $4.2 million.[28] The film would go on to gross $52.7 million in the United States and Canada.[2]

In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £1.4 million in its opening weekend, a record for a UK production,[29] and £2.7 million in its opening week from 211 theatres. It was number one for nine consecutive weeks, grossing £27.8 million, making it the second highest-grossing film of all-time in the United Kingdom behind Jurassic Park.[30][15][31] It surpassed A Fish Called Wanda as the highest-grossing British film.[32] In France, it was number one at the box office for ten weeks, grossing $34.4 million.[33] It was also number one at the Australian box office for five weeks and was the second-highest-grossing film of the year, grossing $A21.4 million.[34][35][36] Overall, it grossed $245.7 million worldwide, generating the highest percentage return on cost of films released in 1994.[2][37] The success of the film cleared Working Title's past losses and generated over $50 million for Polygram, clearing most of their losses in the four years since they started producing films.[15]

The film was voted the 27th greatest comedy film of all time by readers of Total Film in 2000. In 2004, the same magazine named it the 34th greatest British film of all time. It is number 96 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".

The Guardian, in a 20th anniversary retrospective of Four Weddings, stated that "Its influence on the British film industry, on romantic-comedy writing, on the pop charts, on funeral readings, on haircuts, was enormous."[3]

Hugh Grant commented in 2016 on the experience of the film's phenomenal success and its effect on his career: "I was making An Awfully Big Adventure at the time that Four Weddings came out, with Mike Newell again, same director, even tinier budget, in Dublin. And we'd get back from brutal days on the set, very long and no money, and the fax machines...were coming out saying that now your film Four Weddings is #5 in America, now it's #3, now it's #1 and here's an offer Hugh, for Captain Blood and they'll pay you $1 million. It was completely surreal."[10]

It was reported in November 2017 that the streaming service Hulu was developing an eponymous anthology television series based upon the film, to be written and executive produced by Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton, with Richard Curtis also serving as an executive producer.[77] In October 2018, it was announced Jessica Williams, Nikesh Patel, Rebecca Rittenhouse, and John Reynolds had joined the cast.[78] The miniseries premiered on 31 July 2019.

On 5 December 2018, it was announced that Richard Curtis had written One Red Nose Day and a Wedding,[79] a 25th anniversary Comic Relief television reunion short film. The original film's director, Mike Newell, returned, along with the film's surviving cast, including Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah, Rowan Atkinson, James Fleet, David Haig, Sophie Thompson, David Bower, Robin McCaffrey, Anna Chancellor, Rupert Vansittart, Simon Kunz, Sara Crowe and Timothy Walker.[6] It was filmed on 13–14 December 2018 at St James' Church, Islington, London.[80] It centered on the reunion of all the characters from the original film at the wedding of Charles and Carrie's daughter to Fiona's daughter.[81] The involvement of additional cast members Lily James and Alicia Vikander, who played the young lesbians getting married, was not announced until the day the film aired in the UK.[82] The film aired in the US on their Red Nose Day on Thursday 23 May 2019.[83]