“Death at a Funeral” Punctuates Life on Earth

An-all-star comedy lineup reports for duty in “Death at a Funeral,” the story about one family’s sibling rivalries, secrets and lies during the funeral service of a well-thought-of father.  The cast includes Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan, Regina Hall, Zoe Saldana, Columbus Short, Loretta Devine, James Marsden, Luke Wilson, Keith David and Danny Glover in the Screen Gems remake (of the 2007 British comedy) directed by Neil LaBute.

Chris Rock had this to say about the movie ---

“I saw the original movie in an art house theater with about 10 other people.  One of the reasons I wanted to remake the movie is that something within me asked, ‘why is this playing in an art house and me and the other ten people are laughing our asses off?’   I just thought the jokes would work in America and I thought [that] you watch a lot of the movies that are out right now that are comedies.  We’re not doing a lot of one guy comedies right now. A lot of things are collaborations: something like Date Night or The Hangover with a bunch of people; so I thought the fact that it had a lot of funny parts was perfect for me not wanting to have to carry a whole movie.” 

He further opined, “As for my own funeral, I’d like to see all the living [U.S.] Presidents there and I want them all to be in shorts.”

Speaking to the all-star cast, he credited Clint Culpepper of Screen Gems for that aspect.  Culpepper is President of Screen Gems and under his watch, several black-themed movies have been made, among them, “Not Easily Broken,” “Quarantine,” “First Sunday,” “This Christmas,” and others.

“Death at a Funeral” is a remake of the 2007 British version. 
Chris Rock assembled an all-star cast for the remake directed
by Neil LaBute. Rock and LaBute pictured above.

Martin Lawrence said he came aboard because of Rock.  “Well, my man, Chris Rock gave me a call personally and when he first called, I was like, ‘sorry Chris I can’t do that.  But then he sent me …’ then Rock chimes in with, “I didn’t have a lot of money …” and before he could finish, Lawrence rebounded with, “But then he sent me the British version and I thought it was very funny.  Then when he told me it was about playing his brother, I said, I got to be on board.  Every year, Chris and I will see each other and we will talk about working together.  You know, he came on the Martin show, I went on his show on HBO and we just finally got a chance to really do a movie together and it’s because he put it together.  So I’ve got to give my man the credit for that.”

Rock is passionate about his involvement with this film stating, “I’ll say this, when you know a movie’s ending works, your life’s so much easier. It doesn’t make the rest of the movie not difficult in parts, but boy, when you know… I’ve remade a few movies and they all have one thing in common: great endings. If you’re going to remake something, make sure that ending is tight. I would say it’s a little less challenging if you have a great ending. If you don’t have a great ending, don’t remake the movie.”

His director echoed the same sentiment.  “You’re climbing the same mountain, but you want to find a few ways to do it as well. Especially in this case, I think everyone went into it having seen it and really loved it.  There was no sense of, ‘oh we could make this better,’ it’s just we’re going to make it our own. It’s a whole different kind of family you know?  The temperature was already 80 degrees above where this very reticent English family starts in the original film.  So, we’d have to keep the temperature going all the time, ratcheting up the humor.  How do you find those moments and take a big ensemble of people and for me the only draw back in the original is I took a few people, some of the actors who were slighted in the original and give them more to do.  They are funnier as characters in this particular version and there is a lot to stand up for.  People look at the first one as we do and are appreciative and say, ‘that’s really funny, why are you remaking it?’ Well, for a variety of reasons but I think you do have that to live up to as well so that was the challenge,” said LaBute.