What to Watch Flashback: Almost Famous and its growing pains

For months, Brad Pitt was attached to a role in Almost Famous. When he quit the project, writer and director Cameron Crowe “wept”.

Wenlei Ma

@wenleima

6 min read

March 27, 2023 - 3:36AM

Almost Famous is a seminal part of early 2000s film canon.

Every week we take a look at a classic movie that’s endured in the cultural landscape, and remember why we were all so obsessed with it in the first place, and why it’s worth another look today

Almost Famous is widely considered a classic of the 2000s canon. A warm, smart and offbeat road movie about the “dying” days of rock 'n' roll, it launched Kate Hudson’s career and for 22 years has held a place in audience’s hearts.

It was kaleidoscopic and intoxicating, evoking a time when the music business still seemed loose and freewheeling, but on the cusp of a moment of change. It made you want to be a “band aid” and go on tour with Stillwater, even though there was a sadness that underpinned that nomadic, disconnected life.

But the film wasn’t always so beloved. While Almost Famous was an immediate critical hit, writer and director Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical movie actually bombed at the box office.

Crowe was coming off the back of the runaway success of Jerry Maguire, which had made $US273 million from a $US50 million and went onto to be nominated for five Oscars, winning one.

So, he was hot property and the prospect of his semi-autobiographical story – Crowe was 16 when he went on the road with the Allman Brothers for a Rolling Stone feature – was enough for the studio to stump up $US60 million.

Well, according to a contemporaneous report from the LA Times, the plan wasn’t to pay $US60 million, that’s how much it cost after Crowe went over budget by $US15 million.

Kate Hudson was nominated for an Oscar for her role.

Given the cast was relatively low-key at the time – Almost Famous was Hudson’s break-out role so she wasn’t yet commanding much cash – most of the budget was spent on the production.

The LA Times wrote Crowe’s commitment to detail necessitated reams and reams of film for the 172-page screenplay, which was about 50 per cent longer than the average. Principal photography ran to 92 days, compared to the average of 50 to 65 days.

And it didn’t pay off – not at first anyway. When the movie was released, it finished its opening weekend in third place, behind a rerelease of The Exorcist.

The LA Times remarked that Crowe went silent once the dismal numbers started rolling in, despite his loquaciousness before the release – “he refuses to come to the phone now to discuss it,” the paper wrote. It also claimed relations between Crowe and the studio, Dreamworks, were strained.

Almost Famous ended its cinema run at $US47 million in global ticket sales, including $US2.2 million in Australia.

While it may not have made buck in those dark days, rave reviews and a successful awards season, including four Oscar nominations and a win for Crowe for his screenplay, ensured Almost Famous had longevity beyond those early bums on seats metrics.

The film came out at a time when the popularity of DVDs surged, and it had a second life on the home entertainment circuit. A year later, the studio even released an extended version of the film, adding another 41 minutes to the runtime. Remember, Crowe did shoot all that footage.

Cameron Crowe (right) on the Almost Famous set with Billy Crudup.

Within a couple of years, Almost Famous wasn’t even a “cult” hit, it was a hit hit, often appearing on lists of iconic movies of that era.

But that memorable close-up image of Hudson as Penny Lane in her violet-tinted sunglasses almost wasn’t to be. No doubt if Hudson had never landed the role, she still would’ve found a way to be famous famous and not just almost famous, but she wasn’t the first choice for the role. She wasn’t even the second.

There was a version of Almost Famous that would’ve had three very different stars in the roles that went to Hudson, Billy Crudup and Frances McDormand.

Crowe revealed in a 2020 podcast marking the film’s anniversary that Natalie Portman was originally in the running for the magnetic groupie with a sad soul. Later on, Canadian actor and now Oscar-winning filmmaker Sarah Polley was attached. And Meryl Streep was being considered for the role of William’s mum, which McDormand ultimately played.

But the big one was Brad Pitt, who was in talks for Crudup’s eventual role of Russell Hammond, Stillwater’s charismatic frontman.

Brad Pitt spent months working with Cameron Crowe on Almost Famous.

Crowe told the Origins podcast that he had previously met Pitt around the time of his 1989 rom-com Say Anything.

“He was just starting out, and he just really had something,” Crowe recalled. After Jerry Maguire came out, Pitt, now one of the biggest movie stars in the world, called Crowe and mentioned the pair should work on something. Crowe promised to call him for the next thing.

“So, I called him with this to play Russell Hammond and we spent about four months working on it. He read with Natalie Portman.

“We kind of geeked out about music and everything and he was slowly kind of putting on the Russell Hammond persona. Really funny, really, really funny.”

Pitt was still attached by the time Patrick Fugit came on the scene. Fugit was a teenager from Utah with no acting experience when he auditioned on tape. When he got the call back, he was ecstatic just to be flying to Los Angeles in first class, he told Vulture in 2020.

He told Vulture he remembered Rachael Leigh Cook was in the waiting room, as was John de Lancie’s son Keegan.

Fugit was told he would be screen-testing with Pitt, and he was, understandably, nervous. Pitt started to talk to him about a snowboarding video game called Cool Boarders to help him feel at ease.

Fugit told Uproxx, “He was like, ‘Hey, man, I’ve been playing this game, Cool Boarders. Do you play Cool Boarders?’ I, by the way, had been playing a f**kload of Cool Boarders.

“So, I was like, ‘Well, Mr Pitt, I can do these tricks’ and he was like, ‘Wow, you can land that trick? I’ve only got this one and that one’. And he’s like, ‘You’ve got to show me how to land that trick’. Just loosening me up and geeking out about Cool Boarders, but really just spending the time to get to know me, make me feel comfortable.”

Almost Famous is now considered a classic, despite initially bombing at the box office.

But it wasn’t to be. Crowe said he when Pitt eventually left the project, he “wept”.

“I knew [Pitt] had never fully fallen in love with the character,” Crowe told Origins. “He had fallen in love with the idea of the character. But maybe there just wasn’t enough on the page.

“He told me [the money] wasn’t the case [for his exit]. I think it was probably half and half. I think he was also uncomfortable with the age difference between Russell and Penny Lane.”

That wasn’t the last Crowe saw of Pitt. A few months later, Pitt walked in the door of Crowe’s office and said he was driving past. “He just wanted to come in and say that we’d always been on his mind and good luck. And I loved him for it!”

So Almost Famous may have had some growing pains, but Crowe’s heady story about the seductions and ultimately empty promises of the 1970s music scene hit exactly the right chord.

In fact, the filmmaker’s legacy is so wrapped up in Almost Famous, he would get more chances to revisit the world of his seminal film. In 2016, made a little-seen and swiftly cancelled series called Roadies, set in the world of music touring.

And as with so many beloved movies of that time, Almost Famous was adapted into a stage musical. When it opened on Broadway last year, it filled up 94 per cent of its seats.