Trailer
Plot summary
Karen Powell goes into labor at a costume party and is rushed to the hospital by her husband Brian. Their baby, Jack, arrives after only ten weeks of gestation but looks full-term and healthy, and tests show a condition that makes him grow four times faster than an ordinary child. At ten, Jack has the body of a forty-year-old man. Taught at home by Lawrence Woodruff, he has stayed childish, and Woodruff suggests school. Karen and Brian worry it would be traumatic, then agree. Jack enters fifth grade, and most of the children reject him because of his appearance.
Cast
- Ashlee Laurenas Allison
- Mario Yedidiaas George
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Jack (1996)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Francis Ford Coppola said the script's story of Jack's isolation reminded him of his own childhood experience with polio and of the short life of his son Gian-Carlo "Gio" Coppola, to whom he dedicated the film.
- John Travolta was interested in playing Jack, but an apology from Disney to Robin Williams over royalties from Aladdin guaranteed Williams the lead role.
- Gary Nadeau co-wrote the Jack script intending to direct it himself, but after Disney bought it he was fired from the director's job because Williams had a wish list of directors that included Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Barry Levinson and Brian De Palma.
- When Michael Ovitz became head of the Walt Disney Company, he sent Coppola studio notes demanding that Jack's melancholy tone be enlivened and more morbid scenes cut, and neither Coppola nor co-writer DeMonaco was satisfied with the final film.
