Jason Bateman said “no thanks” to Washington, D.C. in shooting his directorial debut Bad Words. Bateman pulls double duty in the movie, also starring as a nasty proofreader who uses a loophole to enter a spelling bee with kids. Over the nation's capital, Los Angeles was selected to shoot the low-budget flick that has a planned theatrical roll-out to go national on the 28th.
Bateman explains the production's shift across the country, saying, “It was originally scripted for D.C. It was originally scripted as the Scripps Spelling Bee to be televised on ESPN. I just knew that we probably wouldn't be able to clear those two things because of the content. Scripps would probably say, 'No thanks.'” The “content” Bateman refers to is his foul-mouthed character's habit of bringing naughty words into a spelling bee with kids, a bit of vaguely racist comedy and some sexual content like children discussing nipples.
But it was money that kept the crew from filming Inside the Beltway. Bateman reasons, “ESPN, even if they said 'Yes,' we wouldn't be able to replicate the production value. Location-wise, we just couldn't afford to go to Washington D.C. So it was as simple as changing that it's the Golden Quill Spelling Bee and it's Los Angeles, and it's the Sportsmen's Lodge and it's public television. And that...saves you tons and tons of money.”
Allison Janney, Rachael Harris, Phillip Baker Hall and Kathryn Hahn co-star in the flick that Focus Features picked up at last year's Toronto International Film Festival.
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