The album went double platinum, and Adam did a rock-and-roll tour after that. I did the visuals on the tour, which included a bunch of videos onstage. One of the skits from that was about a talking goat that became a stoner classic. For our final date in Los Angeles, the head of New Line saw the show and said, “I want you guys to do the goat movie.” We said, “That’s awesome, but we think Adam’s ready for a romantic comedy.”
Writing ‘The Wedding Singer’
Adam and Tim had the idea for a movie about a wedding singer who gets his heart broken, but then has to go back and do weddings. I was also pushing for the idea of an 1980s movie. We pitched the idea to New Line, and they loved it.
It took about a year to write the script. Tim and Adam wrote a draft and it was funny, but it needed more of a feminine touch to it, so we hired Carrie Fisher, who was known for writing romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally. She was so funny and brilliant. I spent almost every day with her for six months. She liked to sit in bed; so me, her and Jack Giarraputo would sit in bed, watch old movies and work on the script.
Through that, we layered in a lot of the heart for The Wedding Singer. For example, the scene I’m probably most proud of came out of watching old movies with Carrie Fisher. One thing I realized about romantic comedies is that a lot of the greats have a near-miss moment between the two leads. For us, it’s when Robbie Hart is going to tell Julia he loves her. That’s while she’s saying “Julia Gulia” in the mirror, and it makes her cry. Then she starts saying “Mrs. Robbie Hart” instead, and she starts smiling.