Mike Lowery
Cinema’s new Irwin Maurice ‘Fletch’ Fletcher, Jon Hamm says we can expect his film – as opposed to the two Chevy Chase-starring entries – to be closer incarnation to the book.
“Maybe there’s a way to get a version that’s more true to life for the book, more intellectual and a little more live in its sensibility,” the former “Mad Men” star tells The Hollywood Reporter of the recently-announced film take on Gregory Mcdonald’s “Fletch” mystery novels.
“No one can touch Chevy’s portrayal of that character,” he explains of the investigative journalist at the center of nine Mcdonald novels published from 1974 to 1986. Hamm says he read them all when he was a kid after seeing Chase topline the 1985 film as a wise-cracking version of the character.
“[The books are] all really funny. It was my first kind of lesson in how people adapt characters for the screen,” he continues. “The character in the book’s a lot different than Chevy’s portrayal, and so when Bill Block at Miramax came to me and said, ‘You know, we own this and we think you’d be a good fit,’ I agreed, but I don’t want to imitate Chevy. I’m not interested in that and I don’t think anybody else would be. We already have that version, so maybe there’s a way to get a version that’s more true to life for the book, more intellectual and a little more live in its sensibility.”
The actor said he’s had an influx of interest in regards to the film, which will be directed by “Superbad” helmer Greg Mottola.
“I’ve never woken up to, like, 50 texts before,” he says, ” “I got messages from friends on the St. Louis Cardinals and [hockey team] the Blues, from heads of studios. It was just such an outpouring of people saying, ‘Oh, I can’t wait.’”
“I literally was just on the phone with, not to name drop, but Tom Cruise called me last night or yesterday because I had just seen a cut of [Top Gun: Maverick], and we were talking and he’s like, ‘By the way, I can’t wait to see Fletch.’ I’m like, ‘What?! OK, we have to get this thing together.'”
