The director of Shaquille O’Neal’s 1996 musical comedy Kazaam is offering his thoughts on the new Scary Movie taking a swing at his film.
In the Paramount comedy reboot that topped the box office over its opening weekend after debuting June 5 (with mild spoilers ahead), O’Neal is unmasked as Ghostface in a cameo near the end of the movie. Shorty Meeks, the franchise mainstay played by producer and co-writer Marlon Wayans, impersonates O’Neal as a mumbling NBA commentator before quipping, “But I never got over Kazaam.” He then kills the basketball legend for starring as a rapping genie in the Disney movie that underperformed at the box office 30 years ago.
“I had no clue,” Paul Michael Glaser tells The Hollywood Reporter about whether he knew the joke was coming. The Kazaam director adds diplomatically, “It’s nice that something you worked on has some resonance.”
After hearing a description of the joke, Glaser — known both for filmmaking and for such acting roles as Detective Dave Starsky in the series Starsky & Hutch — admits to mixed feelings. “That’s nice,” he says jokingly with a laugh. “It sounds to me that when they said, ‘I never got over Kazaam,’ and they killed him, that’s because Kazaam was such a terrible movie.”
Still, Glaser acknowledges that he will always be grateful that a project of his gets remembered and that if the Scary Movie team had reached out ahead of time to get his blessing, he would have had no problem with a joke at his movie’s expense. When asked whether he thinks it might make some younger viewers curious to check out Kazaam, he says, “Who knows? It might jog a few memories.”
As for Kazaam’s origins, Glaser, having at that time directed 1987’s original The Running Man and the 1992 ice skating rom-com The Cutting Edge, remembers a family friend who worked on O’Neal’s management team calling to ask if he and his son would like to attend the NBA All-Star Game.
“And they said, ‘In the meantime, do you know of any good film roles for Shaq before he goes back to basketball camp at the end of the summer?’” Glaser says. The filmmaker had a quick, flippant response: “I said, ‘No, he ought to play a genie,’ and I hung up the phone.”
But the more Glaser mulled it over, the more it felt that the concept could actually have potential: “I came up with that idea about a genie who lost his power, and [through] experiencing the caring and love of a good friendship, he rediscovers his power. I still believe that was a really good idea. I don’t think we executed it as well as we could have.”
As for the genie’s proclivity for rapping, Glaser remembers that stemming from O’Neal’s own pursuit of a hip-hop career in the 1990s. “At the time, Shaq fancied himself a rap musician, so I wrote it as a rap musical,” the director explains. “But he was a lovely guy and great to work with.”
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