First Wives Club Wanna Do It Again

10 Things Yous Didn't Know Nigh 'The First Wives Club'

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Twenty years ago today, three Hollywood actresses of a certain historic period teamed up to headline a major studio release and took it to massive pop success.The Outset Wives Club was a major success story for and then many reasons: an original mainstream comedy, a movie about women over 50, a motion picture that recognized the comedic potential of actresses like Diane Keaton, Bette Midler, and Goldie Hawn … with every twelvemonth that goes by, the moving-picture show seems more than and more like a phenomenon.

The story was elementary and very much in tune with the sensibilities of the '90s. Later their quondam friend Cynthia (Stockard Channing) commits suicide after her husband leaves her for a younger woman, Annie (Keaton), Elise (Hawn), and Brenda (Midler) reconnect and realize that they're all in the same boat: they gave their husbands the best years of their lives, only to be tossed bated for younger models once their men became successes. In an human action of self-improvement and, yeah, vengeance, the women band together to ready things right in their lives.

To gloat the 20th anniversary of this most unheralded of Hollywood success stories, here are 10 fun facts about the film, from the gold cast to the musical numbers to the actors left on the cutting room floor.

i

The Director Was Used to Very Different One-act

Managing director Hugh Wilson took the reigns of manager on The First Wives Clubfor producer Scott Rudin. Wilson'southward most notable previous credit was as the director for 1984 franchise-starterConstabulary Academy.

2

The Cast Is Jam-Packed With Oscar Winners

For a mainstream comedy pitched right down the middle of America's taste level,The Beginning Wives Club benefitted from a remarkably accomplished cast. Function of that was surely the fact that a movie with multiple significant roles for women age 50 or older was not something that came effectually very often. Whatever it was,The First Wives Society boasts SIX performers who either had already won an Oscar (Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Maggie Smith, Eileen Heckart) or would eventually win ane (Marcia Gay Harden, J.K. Simmons). Add together to that Bette Midler and Stockard Channing, both Oscar nominees, and you take one wildly prestigious cast. No wonder they took home a National Board of Review award for Best Ensemble.

iii

Jon Stewart Was Left On The Cutting-Room Floor

FormerDaily Show host Jon Stewart was also supposed to be inThe First Wives Society, as Goldie Hawn'southward beginning-of-the-pic boyfriend. Alas, his graphic symbol was a sacrifice to the editing-room floor, every bit all Stewart'south scenes were cutting.

four

Timothy Olyphant Made His Film Debut

Olyphant — who would afterward continue to makeJustified andDeadwood — played the movie director who wants to cast Elise every bit an aging gorgon of a mother. At age 28, it was Olyphant'southward first flick, ane yr beforeScream two would be his big breakthrough.

5

Donald Trump's Showtime Wife Gets the Movie's Nigh Memorable Line

In 1996, Ivana Trump was the ultimate first wife, sticking with Donald until he was rich enough to toss her overboard for newer, younger Marla Maples in i of the biggest tabloid scandals of the early on '90s. "Don't become mad. Get everything!" Amen, Ivana. Amen.

six

The Large Musical Moment Was 30+ Years in the Making

In the flick's transcendent final scene, Annie, Brenda, and Elise take a victory lap with a group singalong of Lesley Gore 1963 hit "Yous Don't Own Me." Gore was the teenage pop songstress of the 1960s, with hits similar "It's My Party" and "Judy's Plow to Cry." "You Don't Own Me" hitting #2 on the Billboard charts, bested past The Beatles' "I Wanna Agree Your Hand," but perhaps equally cosmic consolation, Gore's anthem to independence was the perfect vocal for these first wives to sing out into the streets of New York as the credits rolled.

vii

The Film Was a Box-Office Bonanza

The First Wives Guild opened #1 at the box part on September xx, 1996, handily besting Bruce Willis'sLast Man Standing. It stayed at #1 for three consecutive weeks and stayed in the tiptop five for six weeks full, all en route to $105 million dollar domestic have. It was the 11th highest grossing pic of the year, and onlyTwister and101 Dalmatians fabricated more money with women in atomic number 82 roles.

8

Keaton, Hawn, and Midler Stole the Show at the Oscars

WhileThe First Wives Social club merely got an Oscar nomination for its Marc Shaiman score, all 3 pb actresses were invited to nowadays at the Academy Awards. No surprise, since all iii were Oscar favorites. Still, theirs was the most sparkling presenter banter of the night, with Midler throwing some (playful?) shade Madonna's way, before she and Hawn got into a (playful?) argument over the proper pronunciation of "Streisand."

9

These First Wives Would See Again

With a cast this big, it was inevitable that the actresses would terminate upwardly starring opposite each other again. Bette Midler and Sarah Jessica Parker had co-starred once before already inHocus Pocus. Diane Keaton and Goldie Hawn would reunite in the Warren Beatty-starringBoondocks and State that was so unmemorably disastrous that Beatty wouldn't brand some other movie for fifteen years (he's back this fall with a Howard Hughes motion picture, though!). And Keaton and Sarah Jessica Parker would reunite nether antagonistic circumstances inThe Family Stone.

There have also been reports of Midler, Keaton, and Hawn all getting together again for a Netflix project calledDivination, where the three would play estranged members of a singing group forced to reconnect, merely in that location has been no further give-and-take on the project since Dec.

x

We're Getting a Remake

TVLand is bringing us a reboot ofThe First Wives Society, starring Alyson Hannigan (How I Met Your Female parent), Megan Hilty (Smash), and Vanessa Lachey. While the premise will once once more middle on three friends who reunite later the suicide of their fourth friends, the women will be San Francisco professionals rather than Manhattan society ladies. It should besides be noted that while Midler, Keaton, and Hawn were all 50 years erstwhile whenThe First Wives Order was released, Hannigan (42), Hilty (35), and Lachey (35) are all quite a bit younger.

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Source: https://decider.com/2016/09/20/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-first-wives-club/