DVD Talk Forum - Office Space SE

the infamous EW article about Judge not getting what he wanted from FOX

the article

The Fax Of Life
A box office loser gets promoted to cult classic. We're gonna need you to go ahead and rent Office Space, m'kay?

Have you ever wanted to punch your idiot boss in the face? Have you fought the urge to drop-kick a printer that's just sitting there, smirking ''PC Load Letter, PC Load Letter,'' out the window? Have you felt bullied into chipping in five hard-earned bucks toward your drip coworker's birthday present? If you've ever seen Office Space, you know you are not alone.

The freaks can have their Rocky Horror Picture Show. The geeks can get off on Spinal Tap. But we office drones depend on Mike Judge's 1999 cubicle comedy to carry us through the pay cycle.

In the four years since the movie's release, Office Space, a glorious send-up of 9-to-5 absurdities and humiliations, has evolved into a stealth blockbuster. The movie -- starring average-Joe actor Ron Livingston and not-so-average-Jane superstar Jennifer Aniston -- has sold more than 2.6 million copies on VHS and DVD and has become a most unlikely cult classic. And, more important, it ruined Michael Bolton's life. (The balladeer is memorably dismissed as a ''no-talent ass clown.'') ''They had to make that f -- -ing movie!'' Bolton complained to ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY. ''I was doing fine. Then they made this movie, and I can't go anywhere!''

And to think that Office Space initially seemed like a disaster. Remembers Judge: ''There was a while there where I just thought, 'Man, I made the hugest turd of a movie.'''

If there were ever an ideal place to while away a workday, it'd have to be Mike Judge's Austin office space. In place of time sheets and Styrofoam coffee cups are a pool table, a pile of guitars, and a pale pink sofa autographed by Cher. But even in this dream den of teenage cool, Judge, 40, looks miserable.

''Oh, God, this is awful,'' he says, chuckling. ''It just brings back all these horrible memories.'' The Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill creator's live-action debut flopped hard at the box office, barely recouping its $10 million budget. Hurt by weak buzz and mixed reviews, Office Space was a blip on the big screen. Reliving the experience stresses him out, but the dude's got a pool table, and probably breaks for margaritas at four. He can handle it.

Judge never really wanted to make the movie, based on his animated Saturday Night Live shorts about an oily automaton named Milton and his suspender-slick boss, but his producers and Twentieth Century Fox talked him into it. Flush from the success of There's Something About Mary, the studio was pushing for another big, broad comedy.

''My God,'' remembers Judge, ''when we were watching the dailies, the execs were like, 'More energy! More energy! We gotta reshoot it! You're failing! You're failing!''' His gangsta-rap soundtrack gave Fox heart palpitations until a focus group voted pro-hardcore. And he hated his ending. ''Coming out of the last test screening I had an epiphany of what the ending should be,'' he remembers. ''A complete rewrite of the third act. You could feel how it should have ended. So that was kind of a bummer.''

Judge blames himself for the film's flaws, but he thinks the studio's marketing plans didn't help matters. ''I hated the poster,'' says Judge. ''People were like, 'What is this? A big bird? A mummy? A beekeeper?' And the tag line 'Work Sucks'? It looked like an Office Depot ad. I just hated it. I hated the trailers, too, and the TV ads especially.'' Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman Tom Rothman agrees that ''the campaign failed to connect. But Office Space isn't like American Pie. It doesn't have the kind of jokes you put in a 15-second television spot of somebody getting hit on the head with a frying pan. It's sly. And let me tell you, sly is hard to sell.''

So nobody was surprised when Office Space limped into wide release on its opening weekend. ''As much as I was bummed out,'' says Judge, ''I was actually kind of looking forward to getting out of Hollywood and just relaxing.'' No more big-studio movies. No more test screenings. No more sleepless Friday nights waiting for the dreaded Saturday-morning call that confirms you did fail and your movie failed and you are one big fat failure. Who needs it?

On the Monday after the movie's release, Jim Carrey's manager called. Carrey loved the film and wanted to meet. Chris Rock called two weeks later.

The cult of Office Space has since gotten larger. A lot larger. Devotees skip happy hour in favor of Friday-night Office parties. They square off in quoting wars. They get sucked into heated eBay auctions for movie paraphernalia. Horn in on any Office Space chat room and a few things immediately become clear. Bosses blow. Mike Judge rules. And the fansite of choice is BullshitJob.com, which boasts an impressive tribute to the movie. Stuart Gaston, the site's 28-year-old Portland, Ore.-based webmaster, feels your paid-by-the-hour pain. ''I worked at this dreary computer job, and a colleague was like, 'You gotta see this movie,''' says Gaston. ''We were talking about how much our job sucked, and he said, 'Come over, we'll have some beers, and we'll watch Office Space.'''

Besides offering an altar before which fans can bow down, Gaston's site invites visitors to send in all the inane, insulting e-mails and memos bosses send out every day. ''You'd be surprised at the number of people who've worked in jobs like Office Space,'' says Gaston. ''At work, we can tell if somebody hasn't seen the movie. We'll recommend that they see it, and if they say 'I'm too busy' or they see it and don't get it, we don't like that person.''

Such communal bonding (or shunning) helped create a video-store sensation -- so much so that years later, the movie's performance continues to surprise the studio. After checking and rechecking sales figures, Fox Home Entertainment spokesperson Steve Feldstein murmurs, ''Huh, interesting, very interesting. [Deep pause of disbelief] Well, Office Space is in the top 30 best-sellers of what we've ever released on DVD. Wait, no. Top 25. Wait, top 20.''

Office Space now stands in the same ballpark as its onetime nemesis There's Something About Mary on the studio's best-seller list. ''I could tell you what it outsold, but I'd get shot for it,'' says a clearly stunned Feldstein. ''It sort of took the path like Austin Powers. Think about it. The first one was marginally successful but its amazing popularity on video is what spawned the sequel.'' Fox is now anxious to release a special-edition DVD with extras like the original ''Milton'' shorts, but Judge says the studio wants to stiff him on the deal, so he won't sign off. Rather tactfully, all a studio spokesperson will say is that ''discussions are ongoing.''

College kids and clock punchers started approaching Livingston when Office Space hit video stores. ''But I remember it really kicking off when it seemed like the movie was on Comedy Central around the clock,'' he says. ''All of a sudden I was getting stopped by jazz musicians and old ladies and junior high school kids.'' (The cable network premiered the movie on Aug. 5, 2001, to the tune of 1.4 million viewers, and has since broadcast it another 33 times.)

After 30 viewings, Dan, a 29-year-old carpenter from Hammond, Ind., was so enamored with the irreverent appeal of the movie's hero that he gave up his engineering career. ''I get a lot of people who say 'I quit my job because of you,''' says Livingston. ''That's kind of a heavy load to carry. You know, it's just a comedy.''

Fans soon started asking Stephen Root -- who gives Milton's queer attachment to his red Swingline a creepy, hilarious vibe -- to sign their staplers. ''The first time I said, 'Wha?! You're talking about Office Space, right?''' says Root. ''And they went, 'Dude! You were Milton, man!' I'd go to parties to promote King of the Hill [on which Root is the voice of Bill Dauterine] and people would be there with friggin' staplers until Swingline finally brought out the candy red stapler.'' In April 2002, the company released the 747 Rio Red stapler in honor of the numerous requests from Office Space fans.

Selling a few thousand staplers is one thing. But in January, the movie Super Bowl-sized its critical mass. The most popular commercial during the big game was Reebok's ''Terry Tate: Office Linebacker'' ad. In it, the football star clotheslines a colleague who forgot to put a cover sheet on his TPS report -- an unforgivable offense in Office Space. Rawson Thurber, the 27-year-old director of the ad, wasn't worried that his direct homage would go unnoticed. ''I knew the cool kids would get it,'' he says. ''It was sort of a comedy snob test. If you get the reference, then you're in the club.''

Austin-based Web-content manager Jenny Ferguson, 37, could run for club president. Ferguson, bless her fluorescent-lit heart, used to work at the office park where Judge filmed his movie. Her onetime dotcom digs, a glowing island of gray desks festooned with the occasional ''Reach for the Stars!'' banner, would have made anyone feel like a rat in a low-ceilinged cage. ''Knowing those halls and walls makes you some kind of geek celebrity,'' says Ferguson. ''A favorite quote of the cube-dwelling masses is 'God, I feel like I'm living Office Space.' But I always say, 'No, dude, I really did live Office Space.'''

When the dotcom bubble burst, Ferguson was forced to lay off a colleague. She sent her buddy home with a fat severance package and her extra copy of the movie. ''He thanks me to this day,'' she says.

Mike Judge takes deep pleasure in his movie's resurrection, but he still can't bring himself to watch the damn thing. ''I was channel-flipping once and Office Space was on,'' he says. ''I watched it for like a minute and a half. I was like, 'Yeah, I don't want to go through this again.' So I shut it off.''

Despite Judge's reservations, Fox is hot for him to make a sequel. ''You should tell him it's a good idea!'' says studio chief Rothman. ''Please encourage him because we want to do it. Although we'd have to come up with a better title. Ha! Office Space, Still Renting!'' Judge swears he'll remain immune to such franchise fever. A return to the corporate world could only disappoint. Right? ''It's weird,'' he says. ''Here's this movie that bombed. But now I think the expectations would be too high.'' In other words, Judge just might take the job offer and shove it.