Brooke Bunny
Chevy Chase had decided not to reprise his role as Clark Griswold in the upcoming “Vacation” reboot” – until Beverly D’Angelo talked to the comic superstar into it.
The film, from writer/directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein , will star Ed Helms (“The Hangover”) as Rusty Griswold, the grown-up son of Clark (Chase) and Ellen Griswold (D’Angelo). Everyone involved in the reboot-sequel were hopeful Chase and D’Angelo would reprise their roles from the original “Vacation” quadrilogy, but nothing was set in stone. Chase had said in several interviews that he had been developing his own “Vacation” script, one that he and D’Angelo would be the stars of; the actor seemingly didn’t like the idea of having to play a small role in the franchise he helped turn into a hit.
At the press day for her new film “Bounty Killer”, D’Angelo tells Crave that she’s managed to coax Chase into it.
“I called Chevy, I said, ‘Have you read it yet?’” D’Angelo said. “He goes, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Read it and then call me back.’ I said, ‘Do you realize the way that they popped in on us, we could answer the door in towels or smoking a joint, just insane. We just could have gone berserk in the meantime. There’s some freedom here.’ He was laughing but we haven’t gotten to that state. We’re certainly not shooting it.”
Last we heard the script was in need of a rewrite.
“I know that in June it looked like it was really close,” D’Angelo said. “They got Christina Applegate, they closed the deal with her, they closed the deal with Ed. Then Chevy and I went in to negotiations and the next thing we heard was they’re rewriting the script so we’ll see what happens. Chevy and I want to work together no matter what, somehow, someway and maybe this’ll be it.”
D’Angelo is secretly hoping the rewrite might involve bumping up her and Chase’s roles in the new film.
“Look, let’s face it, if it’s going to be a Vacation movie, it’s gotta have Clark and Ellen. It’s certainly got to have Clark and you can’t have Clark without Ellen because Chevy isn’t Clark Griswold without me.”
At one stage, said D’Angelo, there was talk of her and Chase headlining another “Vacation” movie – but that was years ago.
“We talked about Griswold Family Robinson or something like that, I don’t know. I thought we should go to the moon. To Chevy once, I said, ‘I think we should get on that trip to the moon.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, and then we miss the bus back, the rocket ship back.’”
