'Groundhog Day': How a 'Gypsy Curse' Almost Ruined the Movie

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Here we go again. The concept behind “Groundhog Day” is perfect in its simplicity. A sarcastic, narcissistic man finds himself stuck in a time loop of the same day, Groundhog Day, until he becomes a better person.

But more than a quarter century after the 1993 movie’s release, producer Trevor Albert and screenwriter Danny Rubin had the same horror story about the film’s development that other filmmakers have dealt with over and over again.

“Somebody whose name I won’t say said, ‘Why does the day repeat? Why the hell … I like it, it’s good, but I don’t understand why he gets stuck in this loop,” Albert told TheWrap about an executive at Columbia’s note regarding the script.

Also Read: Andie MacDowell on 'Groundhog Day' at 25: Bill Murray 'Asked Me to Really Slap Him'

There’s no specific reason given for why Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is caught in the time loop. “Groundhog Day” succeeds because the screenplay doesn’t pander to the audience by providing an explanation, and it avoids the need for Phil to spend the movie constantly chasing some meaningless goal.

But that reasoning wasn’t good enough for the studio.

“‘Is it aliens that put a hex on him or what the f—, does he fall into some weird chemical?'” Albert recalled being asked. “They wanted some tangible event to occur in the first act that shows someone has put a spell on him. And that was like, ‘F— no.’ There’s no freaking way. That really is pandering to the audience.”

Also Read: 'Groundhog Day' at 25: How Bill Murray Rom-Com Became an Accidental Classic

Rubin dreaded the day that he would get word from the studio that his screenplay needed to be rewritten, knowing they would want a reason for Phil’s affliction. He preemptively imagined a wrinkle in time, a mad scientist with an invention gone wrong or even a scorned girlfriend who places a hex on him.

“I played with all these ideas and I said it’s so arbitrary! It’s so stupid,” Rubin told TheWrap. “Why do I have to choose?”

Rubin had already weathered a battle of making his initial draft of “Groundhog Day” more amenable to a general audience. In the first version of the film, the script begins with Phil already repeating the day. “I don’t know when it began. It might’ve been a year ago, it might’ve been 500 years ago,” a voiceover for Phil’s character says in the original draft. You followed Phil and wondered how he already knew everything that would happen. It wasn’t until page 10 that you realized the day was repeating.

Also Read: Bill Murray Seen 'Visibly Sobbing' at 'Groundhog Day' Broadway Show

But when that idea wasn’t working out, the film’s associate producer Whitney White floated the idea that the movie should begin before the day starts repeating, offering the catharsis of seeing him freak out.

“It didn’t emphasize the same kind of set up that a romantic comedy has … the same level of sentimentality, and Harold [Ramis] brought that to it very much,” Rubin said about his original draft. “He brought a certain warmth to it where I was a little snide or arrogant in the way I presented it.”

“It seemed like a very elegant solution to taking a movie that felt a little indie and making it more accessible,” Albert said. “The studio was delighted by that turn of events. You guys are playing ball with us. You’re making this a little easier for the audience to digest. Ultimately, it wasn’t a compromise. It actually made the script better.”

But the studio refused to green light the movie unless they agreed to write an additional scene explaining Phil’s predicament.

Also Read: 'Groundhog Day' Broadway Review: Andy Karl, a Star Is Reborn and Reborn

“We were horrified by it, but our solution was, let’s get the scene written. We’ll give it to them, but we’ll put that scene at the end of the schedule, and we’ll never shoot it. Or if we have to shoot it, we’ll never put it in the movie,” Albert explained.

“And then I got the call. The studio, they want a reason. And I’m like, ‘What, a gypsy curse or something?’ And Trevor goes, ‘Yeah! Do that,'” Rubin said. “I was very happy to have Harold as an ally, and Trevor. They both understood that was a better idea than putting something in.”

We got lucky, because as Rubin describes, not answering the question of how he was cursed is, in a way, an “existentially perfect” solution.

Also Read: Listen to Ned Ryerson Tell Behind-the-Scenes Stories About 'Groundhog Day'

“How did any of us get here? We’re born into a life with certain rules, and we try and figure them out and out-smart them and become the victim of them and ultimately, hopefully come to peace with it and find a way through,” Rubin said.

This story was first published on the film’s 25th anniversary in 2018.

'Groundhog Day' and 14 Other Movies That Repeat the Same Day Over and Over (Photos)

You know a movie is special when people describe it as "Groundhog Day" crossed with... something you'd never expect. Here are a handful of films that were inspired by or informed a similar time loop story as the Bill Murray rom-com classic
Columbia Pictures Corporation
“12:01” (1993) • The short story on which “12:01” is based actually pre-dates “Groundhog Day” by nearly 20 years. It’s about a man caught reliving the worst day of his life when his wife is shot and killed. After receiving an electrical shock at midnight, he relives the previous day and finds that things get worse.
New Line Television
“Run Lola Run” (1998) • Tom Tykwer’s action classic takes the time looping premise and turns it into a kinetic, real-time thrill ride. The title character Lola goes on a 20-minute dash as repeated several times, with each time depicting slight changes in the story that invoke ideas about parallel realities and moral choice.
Sony Pictures Classics
“50 First Dates” (2004) • Leave it to Adam Sandler to make another rom-com aping a “Groundhog Day” premise. In this one, Drew Barrymore only thinks she’s living the same day over and over because she has an affliction in which she can’t remember the previous day, but it doesn't stop Sandler from trying to win her over. Short-term memory loss is a real thing, but not Barrymore’s specific affliction.
Columbia Pictures Corporation
“Primer” (2004) • One of the more creative indie time travel stories you’re likely to see, Shane Carruth’s lo-fi thriller is a densely plotted science fiction story about two entrepreneurial inventors who accidentally invent a device that allows them to travel back in time for a few hours at a time. Carruth keeps us in the dark as to what they’ve actually invented until well into the film, and it maintains its tension as it evolves into a character study of these two men trying to double cross the other.
THINKFilm
“Source Code” (2011) • Jake Gyllenhaal wakes up in someone else’s body eight minutes before a terrorist attack blows up the train he’s riding on. It’s his job to use that time to find the terrorist and stop the attack. The movie’s first eight minutes are its best when he realizes that he’s living someone else’s final moments. Director Duncan Jones uses the sci-fi set up as a parable for the frustration of being used as a tool and the nature of free will within each alternate reality.
Summit Entertainment
“Edge of Tomorrow” a.k.a. “Live. Die. Repeat.” (2014) • This is one of Tom Cruise’s most underrated roles. We watch him die on an endless loop as he tries to learn how to win in a war against aliens, with each of his lives playing out like a video game in which he gains experience and gets closer to winning. But its charm comes from a sardonic sense of humor and Cruise’s relationship with a hard-nosed soldier played by Emily Blunt. In the end, she ends up killing him in training more times than the aliens do.
Warner Bros. Pictures
“Naked” (2017) • It’s “Groundhog Day” with no clothes! Phil Connors at least didn’t have to relive the same humiliation Marlon Wayans does, where he wakes up naked hours before his wedding day and has to repeat things over and over until he gets things right. The film is actually a remake of a Swedish film from 2000.
Netflix
“Before I Fall” (2017) • What if “Groundhog Day” was about a mean girl? Zoey Deutch stars as a San Francisco teen with a “perfect” high school life until she’s killed in a car accident. When she repeats the same day of her death, she starts to reassess her relationships and unravel the mystery around her accident.
Open Road Films/Universal Pictures
"Happy Death Day" (2017) and "Happy Death Day 2U" (2019) • "Happy Death Day" is a horror movie about a woman played by Jessica Rothe who has to relive a murder at the hands of a killer in a baby face mask until she can outsmart him and survive. And following the success of that film, the sequel, "Happy Death Day 2U," winks at that premise by having Rothe's character dying all over again...again. And this time, both her and her friends are caught in this vicious death loop.
Universal Pictures
"See You Yesterday" (2019) • Stefon Bristol's time-travel Netflix drama, produced by Spike Lee, features two high-school science geniuses (Eden Duncan-Smith and Dante Crichlow) who keep traveling back to the same day when their first trip back in time ends in tragedy. It combines critiques of racial profiling and over-policing with light moments, including a cameo from "Back to the Future" star Michael J. Fox.
Netflix
"The Obituary of Tunde Johnson" (2019) • This drama played at TIFF and tells the story of a black, gay teenager who is killed in an unprovoked incident of police brutality, only to wake up on the same morning and relive the day of his death.
Toronto Film Review
"Palm Springs" (2020) • This film starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti sold for a then-record $17.5 million to Neon and Hulu when it premiered at Sundance. The film stars Milioti as a woman dreading attending a wedding, only to be drawn to Samberg and get caught up in his own infinite time loop. The film explores personal trauma, depression and guilt for as many wacky set pieces and dance numbers it also has.
Sundance Institute
"The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" (2021) • "The Map of Tiny Perfect Things" directly name-drops "Groundhog Day" and "Edge of Tomorrow" but is a coming of age rom-com about two 17-year-olds who are the only ones aware they're caught in the time loop. Kyle Allen and Kathryn Newton star in the film.
Amazon Studios

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The time-travel plot devise is a concept worth repeating

You know a movie is special when people describe it as "Groundhog Day" crossed with... something you'd never expect. Here are a handful of films that were inspired by or informed a similar time loop story as the Bill Murray rom-com classic

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