Innerspace

Chip Proser’s first script was a straight Fantastic Voyage derivative; Jeffrey Boam turned it into a comedy. By Joe Dante’s account, Boam started from one question: what would happen if we shrank Dean Martin and injected him inside Jerry Lewis? At one stage putting Michael J. Fox inside Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body was discussed. The credits give Michael Finnell as producer; Steven Spielberg came aboard as executive producer, and the two are separate jobs. In the scenes where Dennis Quaid and Martin Short play against each other, Quaid was on set in a booth, so the exchange really was an exchange; Dante says Quaid would beg for extra takes afterwards in a Katharine Hepburn voice. The film won the visual effects award at the 60th Oscars, a category with only 2 nominees that year, the other being Predator. Against that, a 27 million dollar budget returned 25.9 million in the United States and Canada. Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid met on this set and later married. A good fit if you want a premise nobody tries to defend and a film that loads the weight onto Martin Short’s panic. Not for viewers expecting sober science fiction from the title and poster; that was Dante’s own complaint, since the poster was a giant thumb and gave no sign of comedy.