Elyria Chronicle Telegram
July 6, 1993
Bette Midler, having survived the flop that was “For the Boys,” could use some movie magic at the box office. Will Disney‘s wild and whimsical witchy romp “Hocus Pocus” do the trick?
“I sulked and cried for so long after ‘For the Boys,’ I didn’t think anybody wanted to see me again. I turned down ‘Sister Act.’ I turned down everything. I stayed home and planted a garden,” the Divine Miss M told Rex Reed in an interview for Premiere magazine. “Now I’m over it. There’s no linear logic in this business, and I was too naive to know it Bottom line? ‘For the Boys’ was my life. I developed it; I raised the money, I produced it I killed myself making a picture for a grown-up audience, only to discover the grown-ups for whom it was made don’t go to movies anymore,… ‘For the Boys’ was doomed, and I took it personally. I gave them my heart, my guts, and my soul, and they didn’t want it Now I’m going to give them what they want… The movie business sucks, because most of the pictures are being made by young, callow men with no life experience and no point of view…. I’ve made bad pictures before because I wasn’t selective. … I have my own production company now…. If you worry about yesterday, you sink. Listen, honey, in 10 years people may took back on Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and say. They don’t make ’em like that anymore.’ Life is full of ups and downs. Hon, I wanted to be Esther Williams, but I couldn’t swim…. And if “Hocus Pocus’ flops, I’m living proof that one bad movie is not the end. Movie musicals may be dead, but baby, thank God I can still get out on a stage and shake my ass.”
