The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) on Netflix
PG20131h 54mAdventureComedyDrama
Walter Mitty manages the negatives at Life magazine and spends his days inside daydreams. When the photograph chosen for the final print cover goes missing, he must find it.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/10377,668 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes53%
Trailer
Plot summary
Walter Mitty has worked sixteen years managing the negative assets at Life magazine and lives alone in New York City. He drifts into daydreams. He has a crush on Cheryl Melhoff, a coworker hired not long ago, but he cannot bring himself to ask her out, so he tries an online dating service. The magazine is preparing its last printed edition, and Ted Hendricks is overseeing the transition. Walter is the go-between for Sean O'Connell, a photojournalist he has never met, who sends him negatives and a wallet to thank him for his work. Sean has asked Life to use negative 25 on the cover of that last issue, but the negative is not in the package. Walter cannot reach Sean, so he studies the other negatives for a clue to where the photographer might be.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- 20th Century Fox hired filmmaker Casey Neistat to make a promotional video on the theme of "live your dreams", but Neistat suggested instead that the budget be spent on bringing disaster relief to the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan.
- Goldwyn sued New Line Cinema for breach of contract in May 2001, claiming it wanted to transfer the remake rights to another company and have him surrender his creative input; he won, and in November 2002 New Line was forced to revert the rights, which he took to Paramount Pictures.
- Steven Spielberg, head of DreamWorks, rekindled interest in working with Carrey and agreed to direct in May 2003, bringing DreamWorks in to co-finance with Paramount, but he and DreamWorks vacated the film in April 2004 in favour of War of the Worlds and Munich.
- For the Central Park skateboarding scene, pro skater Rodney Mullen served as Ben Stiller's stunt double, and another double handled the run down a mountain, though the close shots were Stiller wearing a safety rig that was painted out of the final film.
- Despite using stunt doubles, Stiller did perform some of the stunt action himself: a double jumped from the helicopter, but Stiller claims he actually swam in the water and says "half those shots" are really him, citing an example of him hiking up a glacier.
- Wilson dropped out in October 2005 over creative differences, and Scarlett Johansson, who had emerged as front-runner for the role of Cheryl Melhoff after screen testing with him earlier that month, never signed a deal.
- Producer Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., whose father produced the 1947 film adaptation, conceived the idea of doing a remake in 1994, and he had Jim Carrey in mind for the title role.
- Goldwyn found favor at 20th Century Fox and, in May 2007, it was announced that Mike Myers was attached to star in the title role.
