In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the original team of The Princess Bride have opened up about making the film. The film was more of a sleeper hit than an immediate success,
Filmmaker Rob Reiner said it almost didn’t even happen to begin with.
“It was an impossible sell. The funny thing about it was that before I made ‘Stand by Me’ — I had made ‘Spinal Tap’ and ‘The Sure Thing’ — I had a meeting with this executive at Paramount. She said, ‘We love your films. What do you want to do next? I said, ‘Well, you don’t want to do what I want to do.’ She said, ‘No, that’s not true. I want to do what you want to do. I said, ‘No, no. You want me to do what you want to do.’ She said, ‘No, no. I want to do what you want to do. What is it?’ I said ‘The Princess Bride.’ She said, ‘Well, anything but that.’”
Eventually, he got the funding from producer Norman Lear. Robin Wright was on the soap opera Santa Barbara at the time that she got cast in the film and she explained her mixed emotions upon the booking.
“I was honored and petrified…it was just the warmest family. We stayed at the same hotel and ate together downstairs. Rob rented a house, we would go over there, they could cook dinner and somebody would pull out this guitar and sing songs. Rob would sing. It was a real family and we laughed so much.”