Yes Man (film) - Production

Production

Yes Man is based on a memoir of the same name by British humourist Danny Wallace. The book tells of the 6-month period in which he committed himself to saying 'Yes' to everything based on a brief conversation with a stranger he met on the bus. Danny Wallace also has a cameo in the film, in the final bar-scene of the movie, in which he is speaking to someone behind Danny Masterson.

Jim Carrey declined an upfront salary for his role in the film. He was instead paid 36.2% of the film's gross after its production and marketing costs were recovered.

During shooting of a scene where Jim Carrey's character bungee jumps off a bridge, Jim Carrey interrupted and asked to do the stunt himself. Jim Carrey stated to the stunt double that he intended to do it in one take. When he jumps off, he is seen taking out a cell phone for the scene.

While shooting the scene in the bar where Jim Carrey's character turns around into a waitress and falls flat on his back, Jim Carrey executed the stunt incorrectly and fell to the floor harder than he expected, breaking three ribs in the process. Jim Carrey himself revealed this in an interview for Moviefone in response to a viewer-submitted question about the film's stunts.

Jim Carrey also mastered basic Korean for a scene. A language coach was hired to help Jim Carrey learn the language accurately. This was the same process for the scenes in which Jim Carrey's character learns to play the guitar; Jim Carrey tried to play during the years of his childhood, but "quit before ever learning a chord". Jim Carrey said in an interview with HBO: "Just learning the basic chords was maybe the most challenging part of any movie I've worked on in my career. Peyton even joked about the guitar part being dubbed, or just cut altogether." Reed played the song "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind, which had a high number of digital downloads after the film's theatrical release. After the final date of filming, Jim Carrey "retired" his set guitar, and Zooey kept it. When asked about this, Jim Carrey said: "I'll never need that, or any guitar ever again; guitar is not for me! Never has been, never will be!"

The film's soundtrack features original music by Munchausen by Proxy, a fictional band named after the Münchausen syndrome by proxy (a psychological disorder). In the film, the band consists of actress Deschanel on lead vocals and the San Francisco-based all-girl band Von Iva, a trio of vocals, keyboards and drums. Von Iva's members collaborated with Deschanel, a singer-songwriter and one half of the duo She & Him, on writing and recording the band's songs for the film. Von Iva got the part of the fictional ensemble in the film after the movie's music supervisor, Jonathan Karp, saw the cover of their CD in Amoeba in Hollywood. For the DVD/Blu-ray release of the film, Deschanel and Von Iva filmed a spoof MTV music show-style documentary on the band for which they filmed mock music videos for several of the songs; the home video release also includes full-length performances by the group that were not included in the film.

The soundtrack also features nine songs by Eels, including a brand-new song entitled "Man Up".

The introduction music at the beginning of the movie from Jim Carrey's ringtone comes from the song "Separate Ways" by Journey. It is also featured when Jim Carrey's character bails out from the hospital to catch the joggography at 6 am.