The Little Shop of Horrors - Development

Development

The Little Shop of Horrors was developed when director Roger Corman was given temporary access to sets that had been left standing from A Bucket of Blood. Corman decided to use the sets in a film made in the last two days before the sets were torn down.

Corman initially planned to develop a story involving a private investigator. In the initial version of the story, the character that eventually became Audrey would have been referred to as "Oriole Plove". Actress Nancy Kulp was a leading candidate for the part. The characters that eventually became Seymour and Winifred Krelboyne were named "Irish Eye" and "Iris Eye." Actor Mel Welles was scheduled to play a character named "Draco Cardala", Jonathan Haze was scheduled to play "Archie Aroma," and Jack Nicholson would have played a character named "Jocko".

Charles B. Griffith wanted to write a horror-themed comedy film. According to Mel Welles, Corman was not impressed by the box office performance of A Bucket of Blood, and had to be persuaded to direct another comedy. The first screenplay Griffith wrote was Cardula, a Dracula-themed story involving a vampire music critic. After Corman rejected the idea, Griffith wrote a screenplay titled Gluttony, in which the protagonist was "a salad chef in a restaurant who would wind up cooking customers and stuff like that." According to Griffith, Corman was unable to make the film because of the Production Code.

Griffith states that Corman agreed to make a film about a man-eating plant, after the two had become intoxicated. The screenplay was written under the title The Passionate People Eater. Welles stated, "The reason that The Little Shop of Horrors worked is because it was a love project. It was our love project."

Read more about this topic:  The Little Shop Of Horrors

Famous quotes containing the word development:

    The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    Theories of child development and guidelines for parents are not cast in stone. They are constantly changing and adapting to new information and new pressures. There is no “right” way, just as there are no magic incantations that will always painlessly resolve a child’s problems.
    Lawrence Kutner (20th century)

    On fields all drenched with blood he made his record in war, abstained from lawless violence when left on the plantation, and received his freedom in peace with moderation. But he holds in this Republic the position of an alien race among a people impatient of a rival. And in the eyes of some it seems that no valor redeems him, no social advancement nor individual development wipes off the ban which clings to him.
    Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)