MAN ON THE MOON
Jersey Films and two-time Academy AwardÒ-winning director Milos Forman team up with the Golden Globe winning screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski to bring a distinctive vision to Man On The Moon, starring Jim Carrey as the late Andy Kaufman, who was considered one of the most innovative, eccentric and enigmatic performers of his time.
A master at manipulating audiences, Kaufman could generate belly laughs, stony silence, tears or brawls. Whether inviting the audience out for milk and cookies or challenging women to inter-gender wrestling matches, he specialized in creating performances so real that even his close friends were never sure where the truth lay.
Although described variously as "a nihilistic elf, a Zen guerrilla, a dadaistic comedian and the first true performance artist," Kaufman always preferred to think of himself as simply "a song and dance man."
Carrey, whose unique talents have allowed him to cross over from stand-up comedy and television sitcoms into the world of film, takes on the role of Kaufman, who grew from an Elvis impersonator to a performer who broke all the rules. By refusing to break character or let the audience in on the joke, he frequently pushed his art over the edge, leaving his audience alternately baffled, and sometimes amused…but it all was a part of the act.
Universal Pictures and Mutual Film Company present a Jersey Films/Cinehaus Production in Association with Shapiro/West Productions of Man On The Moon, directed by Milos Forman, starring Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love and Paul Giamatti. Based on an original screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the film is produced by Jersey Films’ partners DeVito, Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher with
George Shapiro, Howard West (TV’s Seinfeld) and Michael Hausman (who is making his seventh Milos Forman film) serving as executive producers.
Forman received Academy AwardsÒ for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus. Known for making provocative, witty and deeply-felt films about complex men who have forged their own paths to success, he most recently directed the acclaimed motion picture, The People vs. Larry Flynt, for which he received an Academy AwardÔ nomination. Since his directorial debut in 1963 with Black Peter, the Czech-born director has earned international acclaim for such films as Loves of a Blonde, Taking Off, Hair, Ragtime and Valmont.
Screenwriters Alexander and Karaszewski are reunited on Man on the Moon with Forman, for whom they wrote The People vs. Larry Flynt. Their screenplay for Man On The Moon follows the eccentric comic's life from his television-obsessed childhood on Long Island to his untimely death from a rare form of lung cancer in 1984. Alexander and Karaszewski received critical acclaim for their first biopic, Ed Wood. They recently wrote and directed Foolproof, which will be released by Universal Pictures in 2000.
Carrey most recently starred as Truman Burbank, whose life is an on-going television series in the critically-acclaimed The Truman Show. He has created some of the most popular and entertaining characters in modern film history. His unique combination of improvisation, mimicry and innovation with an outrageous style of physical comedy has captured the attention of film audiences throughout the world in such films as Liar Liar, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, Batman Forever, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and The Cable Guy.
