I am a staunch appreciator of Boogie Nights. It would definitely be on my shortlist for my list of best movies of the 1990s. I liked it the first time I saw it as a new movie, but to be honest the subject matter squicked me out a little bit, and it took a few more viewings for me to appreciate what a rich, funny, resonant, accomplished piece of work it is.

Some Paul Thomas Anderson fans might opt for Magnolia or There Will Be Blood or The Master as Anderson’s best movie, but to me that’s all poppycock—the right answer is clearly Boogie Nights in my mind. It’s one of those movies that every time I stumble upon it on TV, I’m going to watch it to the end. I love everything about it.
 

Paul Thomas Anderson and some of his Boogie Nights cast members
 
Released in October of 1997, the movie was eventually distributed by New Line and had a production budget of $15 million. Anderson, however, had considerable difficulty getting the project off the ground; three years earlier, in October of 1994, at the age of 24, Anderson submitted a draft of the script to Twentieth Century Fox, which rejected it. Anderson put the project on the back burner and concentrated on finishing what would prove to be his debut, Hard Eight, which first saw audiences at the 1996 Cannes film festival.

Here’s Fox’s assessment of the various parts of the script:
 

RECOMMENDATION:  NO
CONCEPT: POOR
CHARACTERIZATION: FAIR
DIALOGUE: FAIR
STORYLINE: POOR

 
Here’s the memo (click on it for a larger view):
 

 
It’s not really fair to criticize a preliminary assessment of a screenplay that we now know ended up being one of the signature movies of its era, but it’s impossible to resist the impulse. We don’t know what that first draft looked like; maybe Anderson improved it later (although I very much doubt this was what happened). Mainly the memo transmits an unsurprising lesson, which is that it’s always easy to reject a 186-page script (that’s very long, in case you don’t know) about a bunch of losers working in the porn industry, even if it’s by one of the brightest talents in L.A.

One thing is for certain: the script did change a lot between 1994 and the end of production. Read that logline again: “A porn actor with a large penis rises to the top of his profession but becomes a drug addict, and his career and personal life collapse; after learning of his parents’ deaths, he reforms and returns to top form as a porn star.”

In the final released product, Dirk does have a terrible relationship with his mother. However, his parents do not die in the movie, and the fates of his parents play no role in the final act of the movie; more to the point, Dirk’s arc is not one that describes a rise and a fall and then a return to “top form”; it’s strictly a rise-and-fall narrative.

Whatever, I’m real happy that Anderson stuck to his guns and was able to get the movie made.

Eventually some version of the script made its way to Michael De Luca, president of New Line Productions, who went “totally gaga” over it, and the rest is history.

Here’s Mark Wahlberg as Dirk Diggler memorably singing “You Got the Touch” and “Feel My Heat”:
 

 
via Kottke

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘There Will Be Blood’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ redubbed with Disney character voices