ZAMM.COM

Casting changes during development are so routine that no one writes a movie and 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 gives him a midlife crisis while he’s in Tokyo being highly paid to shoot some Suntory whisky commercials.

Bob’s hanging out alone, mostly in the Park Hyatt Tokyo’s sky view bar where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), a young American who’s also on her own since her photographer husband is busy snapping celebrities. Johansson was only 17 at the time while Murray was 52.

Coppola’s said she wouldn’t have gone forward with LOST without Murray. Her problem wasn’t getting a distributor to approve casting him, but just to reach him to offer 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 projects.

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

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, sign an agreement, leaving Coppola to stress 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 her $4M budget before Murray was officially locked up.

The Park Hyatt is really another of the film’s stars. Coppola began writing LOST after returning from her 1999 stay at the towering hotel while she was in Tokyo to promote 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 much 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 had a big buzz premiere Aug. 29, 2003 at the Telluride Film Festival and opened in Los Angeles Sept. 12. It went wide 10/3 to critical acclaim. LOST was a boxoffice winner with $118.7M worldwide and received four Oscar nominations with Coppola winning for original screenplay.