ZAMM.COM

Casting changes during development are so routine that almost no one writes a movie and then insists that only one star can play the lead — except for Sofia Coppola.

That rare exception was Coppola’s 2003 romantic comedy drama LOST IN TRANSLATION, which she directed and wrote specifically to star Bill Murray, if she could get him. Murray plays Bob Harris, an American movie star whose declining career has given him a midlife crisis while he’s in Tokyo to shoot Suntory whisky commercials.

Bob’s hanging out on his own, mostly in the Park Hyatt Tokyo’s sky view  bar & lounge. He meets Charlotte, an attractive young American woman who’s also on her own in the hotel since her photographer husband is always out snapping celebrities. Scarlett Johansson, who plays Charlotte,  was then only 17 while Murray was 52.

Coppola’s made it clear that she wouldn’t have gone forward with LOST without Murray. Her problem wasn’t getting a distributor to approve casting Murray, but to reach him to offer him the part. The reclusive Murray had split with his talent agents in 1999 and replaced them with an 800 number where filmmakers could leave him voicemails about potential projects.

It was difficult to get the 800 number and even if you did you’d only hear back if Murray wanted to know more. Coppola got the number from her friend, director Wes Anderson, who’d worked with Murray on THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS & RUSHMORE. She apparently left hundreds of messages before Murray replied.

By some accounts, nearly a year went by before Coppola got Murray to sit down to talk, after which he said he’d play the role. He didn’t, however, actually sign an agreement, leaving Coppola stressing over whether he’d turn up in Tokyo for the shoot. “If he says he’s going to do it, he’ll show up,” Anderson told her. She reportedly spent about $1M of LOST’s $4M budget before Murray was officially locked up.

The Park Hyatt is really another star of the film. Coppola began writing LOST after returning from her stay at the towering hotel in 1999 while she was in Tokyo promoting her first feature, THE VIRGIN SUICIDES. Her premise for LOST was that two characters suffering from “romantic melancholy” find one another while staying at the hotel.

Principal photography began Sept. 29, 2002 for a quick 27 days with a small crew and lots of improvising. To finance LOST, Coppola sold its international rights for $4M to several companies, including Focus Features. After she had a cut of LOST to show, she looked for a domestic distributor and Focus came in for $4M more.

It was a win-win deal. LOST premiered Aug. 29, 2003 at the Telluride Film Festival and opened Sept. 12 to critical acclaim. It received four Oscar nominations and Coppola won for original screenplay. LOST was a boxoffice winner with $118.7M worldwide.