Chris Columbus talks about trimming The Thursday Murder Club movie down – and bringing in Steven Spielberg. Arriving in cinemas this week, before landing on streaming on 28th August, is The Thursday Murder Club. This is the first film adaptation of Richard Osman’s hugely popular series of books, with Chris Columbus directing. Helen Mirren, Celia ... The Thursday Murder Club | Chris Columbus on bringing Steven Spielberg to the edit suite
Chris Columbus talks about trimming The Thursday Murder Club movie down – and bringing in Steven Spielberg.
Arriving in cinemas this week, before landing on streaming on 28th August, is The Thursday Murder Club. This is the first film adaptation of Richard Osman’s hugely popular series of books, with Chris Columbus directing. Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, Ben Kingsley and Pierce Brosnan lead the cast, as a quartet of retirement home sleuths. The plan is for more films should this one succeed, as we chatted about earlier this year.
Chris Columbus chatted to me for Film Stories magazine earlier in the summer, and he talked me through the edit for The Thursday Murder Club, and how the original running time for the film was clocking in closer to two and a half hours.
Still, the edit he tells me was “a very painless process, because immediately, even when we showed an audience a cut that was 20 minutes longer, they responded to it in a big way.”
Columbus still recognised that a 145 minute movie was going to be too long for a film of this ilk, and set about shaving it to a smidge over two hours, including credits. And he called in an old friend: Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg’s Amblin company has produced the film, and, of course, Spielberg and Columbus go way, way back. Chris Columbus wrote Gremlins and The Goonies for Amblin, and Steven Spielberg produced both films.
“Probably two of the greatest days on the production of The Thursday Murder Club were when I was able to show Steven. He was telling me that when he is executive producing or overseeing some of these films, and I’m in shock, some of the directors don’t want his input.”
Columbus was having no shrift with that, and invited Steven Spielberg into the editing room, where they spent two days discussing and shaping the film. “It was joyful, it was amazing,” Columbus smiled. He’s since, too, been announced as directing Gremlins 3, so perhaps Columbus and Spielberg will be in editing rooms together a fair amount in the future.
For now, there’s the small matter of The Thursday Murder Club 2 to consider. And, of course, launching the first film…
