‘Little Shop of Horrors’ Turns 35: How Budget Fights and a Loathed Original Ending Nearly Torpedoed the Beloved Musical

Feed Me, Seymour!

Frank Oz knew in an instant he “fucked up.” Those are, after all, the exact words the iconic director uses when discussing his original ending that nearly torpedoed the otherwise sublime musical Little Shop of Horrors. But he knew immediately how to fix the problem. And once completed (a second time around), the Warner Bros. film would go on to become a classic.

Little Shop of Horrors arrived in theaters Dec. 19, 1986. Starring Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, the late Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin and legendary singer Levi Stubbs, the film was based on the 1982 off-Broadway musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The PG-13 motion picture was a huge hit with critics (90 percent rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes) and a modest box office success ($39 million worldwide off a $25 million budget). VHS would help its popularity spread like wildfire.

Now, as the film with possibly the most complicated puppet in showbiz history turns 35 (“It took 25 to 30 people to operate the plant at its largest”), director Oz opens up about how the legendary Jim Henson got him ready for the enormous undertaking, how Cyndi Lauper almost nabbed a lead role, the painstaking effort to pull off the musical number “Mean Green Mother From Outerspace,” and the massive pitfall of going against good advice from his producer, among much more as The Hollywood Reporter goes back downtown to Skid Row.

I wasn’t scared of it, I just couldn’t get my hands around it.

Little Shop of Horrors would mark Oz’s directorial debut on a non-Muppets project after sharing duties with Henson on The Dark Crystal (1982) and solo helming The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). Oz was not first on the list of directors for Little Shop, but as others passed due to the seemingly impossible task of bringing a gigantic, man-eating alien plant to life — and singing, no less! — Oz was tapped by producer David Geffen. After reading the script, Oz promptly delivered his answer.

“I said no,” Oz recalls with a chuckle. “I wasn’t scared of it, I just couldn’t get my hands around it. I didn’t get it. I didn’t think the script got itself away enough from the physical limitations of the theater. On top of that, it was such a huge undertaking, with 14 songs and an odd sense of reality.”

However, weeks later, Oz would have something of a lightbulb moment while working on another project in Toronto, unable to stop mulling Little Shop. The trio (Greek chorus) of Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon was the answer — make the three singing ladies and story commentators magical, such as rain does not fall on them. “That opened it up cinematically immediately for me, and as a result, I said yes,” Oz says.

Off to London where the musical would shoot on the enormous Pinewood Studios stages, Oz did a rewrite of the script with his new vision of the film in mind. “I did not want to change any dialogue or lyrics unless Howard gave me permission. I essentially did everything I could to make it cinematic without changing a word.”

I had never heard of Rick Moranis.

With a script approved by Geffen and Ashman in place, it was off to casting. First on the list, Seymour Krelborn, the sweet but shy pushover florist who longs for his co-worker, Audrey.

SCTV funnyman Moranis, who stole several scenes in the blockbuster Ghostbusters (1984) as Louis Tully, was on the top of producer Geffen’s list. There was only one problem. “I had never heard of Rick Moranis,” Oz says of the actor, who became one of his closest friends. “I was working in London for nine years, so I had never seen Rick on television. David recommended him, and I was happy to meet him. I thought he was great after I looked at his work.”

As for Audrey, Geffen wanted a star to play the beautiful but shy and awkward character who worked with Seymour and was in an abusive relationship with sadistic dentist Orin Scrivello. Oz would have to fight for his choice, as his producer wanted Cyndi Lauper. “I really wanted Ellen,” Oz says. “I didn’t think anyone could do better than the actress who played the character during the off-Broadway run. David was not for it. I asked him to please give her a screen test with Rick. After seeing that, David agreed.”

Martin had already cemented himself as a comedy superstar, so whether he would sign on to the project was up in the air, Oz explains. It was Geffen’s idea to pursue the comic-actor who already had several hit films under his belt, including The Jerk, to play the dangerous, violent Dr. Scrivello. “I knew Steve but not closely,” Oz says. “I went to his house in Beverly Hills. He said, ‘I don’t want to play a Fonzie [Happy Days] character,’ and I said, ‘Do what you want.’ So he played it as an Elvis character. So damn brilliant. I was lucky to get Steve.”

Oz would also have to push to cast his first choice of Stubbs as the voice of the alien Audrey II plant. “He was not considered funny by some, but I didn’t want funny,” Oz recalls. “I wanted someone who had some danger in their voice. He was brilliant.”

The casting of Bill Murray for the small but memorable role of the masochistic patient Arthur Denton was one the biggest points of contention between Oz and Geffen, the director recalls. “I did not cast Bill,” he says. “I wanted to cast somebody else, but David had already cast Bill. I got very upset — not that Bill had been cast, but David and I had an agreement that we both had to sign off on whoever was cast. We had a little problem there, but David agreed he would not do that again, and I was glad to have Bill.”

There is nothing like the plant that had ever been done before.

Had it not been for the tutelage of Jim Henson, Oz would never have been ready to take on Little Shop of Horrors. The director notes that fact a few times. “The way Jim worked, we used to say, ‘There are normal hours and there are Jim Henson hours.’ We worked like dogs — and loved it. So I was prepared for the intensity of the shoot because of what Jim taught me.”

The film has 14 musical numbers, which Oz choreographed when he rewrote the script so that the massive sets could be built around the actors’ and puppet’s movements — a process usually done the other way around. But that was a piece of cake compared to handling the actual star of the film: the Audrey II puppet, which had several iterations, the final being a behemoth that took more than 20 people to operate.

“When I said yes to directing, I had no idea how we were going to do the plant,” says Oz in such a way that he still sounds stunned. The largest hurdle was getting the full Audrey II to sing the high-tempo “Mean Green Mother From Outerspace” number up to speed with zero errors.

“I wanted absolute perfect lip-sync, no mistakes at all,” Oz says. “[Creature designer] Lyle Conway was so brilliant in making the plant. But we did not know how to make it work for fast songs. That is, until we realized while watching a tape rewind at a faster speed that we could shoot slower and it would look normal on playback. So Levi sang the song normal in prerecording. Then I would shoot the plant at 12 frames per second when the usual is 24. I would shoot Rick separately at 24 frames per second. And then I would shoot Rick and the plant together at 18 frames per second. On playback, it looked normal. So Rick had to sing and move in slow motion. We averaged about 25 to 30 takes every time to get it perfect.”

Oz prides himself and his team on Audrey II, which came to life without CGI — as it did not exist yet. “Everything you see with the plant is real,” he says. “There is nothing like the plant that had ever been done before. It took 25 to 30 people to operate the plant at its largest. There was one person inside the head. And there was a steel girder from the back of the head to the back of the shop, which we hid. Then there were puppeteers below working the vines.”

Frank, what the fuck are you doing with that much money?

As if the plant was not enough to deal with, Oz said his possible largest source of stress was fighting with the studio over the budget. When he agreed to do the film and rewrite the script, he was asked by Geffen to write for a budget of $9 million. “And I said, ‘David, I don’t work that way, I don’t know how to write that way. I am not a budget person, and no one has ever budgeted a movie like this with a plant like this.’ It went way over budget as a result.”

The project began hemorrhaging so much money, Warner Bros. co-chief executive officer Terry Semel began calling Oz every day. “He would say, ‘Frank, what the fuck are you doing with that much money?’ And I kept on saying, ‘We are doing the best we can’ because I had never done it before. Finally, Terry said, ‘I am coming to London.’ And I said, ‘Terry, don’t do that because we’ll buffalo you. You don’t know enough about it. Send your best production budget guy over instead.’ And that’s what he did. The guy came over for about a week, went through every single department, and at the end, he said the same thing: ‘They are doing the best they can.'”

I fucked up thinking that what I did was funny.

It is no secret these days that the happy ending audiences saw when the film was released was not the original ending Oz envisioned. Not only did the director want to stick to the downer off-Broadway conclusion in which Seymour and Audrey die, Oz went even further, having Audrey II and fellow alien plants take over the world. It was loathed in test screenings.

“I had lost some perspective,” Oz explains. “David warned us in the very beginning that the ending Howard and I both wanted to do should not be done. He said, ‘You can’t kill your stars!’ And although he disagreed, he allowed it.”

What Oz failed to realize at the time is that he created such loveable characters in his fun, upbeat tale that viewers simply would not accept the hard right turn he so thoroughly wanted for the conclusion of his story.

“What I learned was the power of the tight shot, meaning the more we came in close to that love story between Rick and Ellen, the more the audience hated that we killed them. David was right,” Oz admits. “I fucked up thinking that what I did was funny. The ending that I created out of tongue-in-cheek homage to the old B movies was not funny enough. People took it seriously, and they were extremely upset that we killed the people they loved.”

The first test screening took place in San Jose, which Oz recollects like it was yesterday — for all the wrong reasons. “I remember seeing the heads of the studio in front of me. Everyone was applauding after every number. They were absolutely loving it!” Oz says. “And then the last 10 minutes, when Rick and Ellen died — it became an icebox. I could just feel it. It was awful.”

To further drive home how bad the reaction was, Oz explains that in those days, the most important question on the preview survey concerned whether viewers would recommend the film to others. “At that time, you had to have a 55 percent recommendation,” he says. “That was the lowest you could have. We had 13 percent. It was an absolute disaster. I asked Warners if we could please do another preview and they agreed, so we went to Los Angeles. And the exact same thing happened.” Oz knew what he had to do. So, cast and crew returned to London for six weeks and shot the happy ending. “Then we did more previews — and we were fine.”

One never knows.

Naturally, Oz could have never imagined the film would go on to become a pop-culture staple, with references popping up in other films and TV shows through the years, such as Murray quoting it in his Christmas classic, Scrooged, to Family Guy doing an homage. There are even Little Shop of Horrors slot machines in Las Vegas casinos. Oz remains somewhat stunned to this day.

“I am thrilled by the popularity,” Oz says. “You do something, and you don’t think about the longevity. You put your heart and soul to make it the best you can. Then it is up to the marketing gods and the audience gods. One never knows. I am very fortunate and proud my instincts — outside the original ending — created something more enduring than I realized.”