Trailer
Plot summary
Frank Cross, the ruthless president of IBC television, is consumed with making his network's extravagant live broadcast of A Christmas Carol a success for Christmas Eve. He approves a fear-mongering advertisement for the broadcast, then fires Eliot Loudermilk, a meek executive who questions it. That night the ghost of his mentor, Lew Hayward, appears and warns that three ghosts will visit Frank. His phone dials Claire Phillips, his ex-girlfriend, who works at a homeless shelter and comes to his office. His boss, Preston Rhinelander, assigns the ambitious Brice Cummings to help with the production, and Frank concludes that Brice wants his position.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Scrooged (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wanting a central acting moment, Murray deviated from his marked positions and improvised his emotional final speech, and Glazer and O'Donoghue thought he was suffering a mental breakdown; when O'Donoghue asked afterwards, "What was that? The Jim Jones hour?", Donner punched him in the arm, leaving him bruised for a week.
- Murray endured real physical pain during his encounters with Kane's character, insisting that she actually hit him during their scenes together, and at one point she tore the inside of his lip by pulling on it too hard.
- Murray described the experience as having a "fair amount of misery", recalling a "dusty, smelly, and smokey" set, feeling alone, and even coughing up blood because of the fake snow being used.
- Murray was paid $6 million for his role, and producer Art Linson justified the figure by saying that for each year Murray stayed away from films his audience draw, and so his fee, potentially increased; aside from Eddie Murphy, Linson said, Murray's was the only name that could draw $10 million of tickets in the opening three to four days.
- Murray considered himself "rusty" after leaving acting for four years following the release of The Razor's Edge in 1984; while Ghostbusters was the phenomenon that would forever be his biggest success, the failure of The Razor's Edge made him feel "radioactive" and he avoided making movies for a time.
- Lee Majors cameos as himself, appearing in the opening scene to help save Santa Claus armed with a stripped-down M134 Minigun, the same one featured in Predator, which he found difficult to carry due to its weight.
