Robin Williams‘ iconic turn in “Mrs. Doubtfire” may be revisited for an upcoming documentary.
Director Chris Columbus revealed to Insider during the 30th anniversary for the 1993 family film that he hopes to turn the 2 million feet of footage into a documentary about late actor Williams’ approach to improv acting.
“Yeah, we are talking about it and trying to get it done,” Columbus said. “I mean, there’s 2 million feet of film in that warehouse so there could be something we can do with all of that. There are roughly 972 boxes of footage from ‘Doubtfire’ — footage we used in the movie, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage — in a warehouse somewhere and we would like to hire an editor to go in and look at all of that footage.”
He continued, “We want to show Robin’s process. There is something special and magical about how he went about his work and I think it would be fun to delve into it.”
The “Home Alone” director added that Williams was “in his prime at that point in his life” with his comedic acting, calling his performance “divine inspiration.”
“We would have exactly what was scripted, and then Robin would go off and it was something to behold,” Columbus said of the “Good Will Hunting” star improvising. “The poor script supervisor. Remember, this is the early 1990s, she wasn’t typing what he was saying. She was handwriting it and Robin would change every take. So Robin would go to a place where he couldn’t remember much of what he said. We would go to the script supervisor and ask her and sometimes she didn’t even get it all.”
Williams played two characters in the film: soon-to-be-divorced single father Daniel, and nanny Mrs. Doubtfire, a character Daniel creates in order to be closer to his three children while his estranged wife (Sally Field) has a strict custody arrangement with him.
According to Columbus, Williams underwent “four-and-a-half, maybe five hours” in the makeup chair to turn into Mrs. Doubtfire.
“As we went further into production, it got a little quicker. Regardless, we never could shoot two consecutive days of Robin as Mrs. Doubtfire because he was waking up at three in the morning to get into makeup, so by 8 a.m. we could shoot,” Columbus said. “It was a punishing day for him, so always the next day, we would shoot him as Daniel.”
Columbus revealed that he approached Williams about a sequel in 2014, the year that Williams died.
“Back then [in 1993], there was an attitude that sequels were looked down upon by the artists. So Robin was against doing a sequel immediately after,” Columbus recalled. “He and I didn’t talk about a sequel until the year he passed away. We had a script that was written and it was the last time I saw Robin.”
Columbus continued, “I went to his house and we sat down and talked about it and the script was really strong. Robin’s only comment was, ‘Boss, do I have to be in the suit as much this time?’ It was physically demanding. For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume. He was older, obviously. So we talked about it and I think he was hoping in the rewrite we would cut back on the Doubtfire character. But then Robin passed away so there will never be a sequel to ‘Mrs. Doubtfire.’”
As for a possible follow-up in general, Columbus noted that the Williams family, including Robin’s daughter, director Zelda Williams, does not own the rights. Columbus added on a personal note that he would not want a sequel ever without Williams.
“Fox/Disney owns the rights, I think. I don’t think the Williams family owns it, so the studio can do whatever they want with it. Should they? God no,” Columbus said. “I will certainly be very vocal about it if they decide to do it.”
