Sorry, There’s No ‘Freaks And Geeks’ Reunion In ‘Vacation’
Late July brings the reboot of the comedy classicNational Lampoon’s Vacation. This time it’sEd Helmsleading the new take, simply calledVacation, playing a grown-up Rusty Griswold bent on taking his own family on a trip to Walley World in an effort to bring them closer together.
There are plenty of little references to the original flick, including appearances byChevy ChaseandBeverly D’Angelo, but something else that we were looking forward to in the movie was a miniFreaks and Geeksreunion.
The cult classic NBC series starred a youngJohn Francis Daley, who is now a successful screenwriter with writing partnerJonathan Goldstein, and the two actually make their directorial debut onVacation. Last fall, Daley said that fellow geeksMartin Starr(Silicon Valley) andSamm Levine(Selfie)would be appearing with him in cameos. But it turns out those cameos didn’t end up in the final cut.
Find out more about the axedFreaks and Geeksreunion inVacationafter the jump!
First, here’s what Daley revealed last fall:
“I don’t know if anyone even knows this yet, but Samm Levine, and it’s looking like Martin Starr, will also be in the film. I don’t know if they’ve been confirmed yet in the cast, but it’s looking really good. I just wanted a chance to get the three geeks [fromFreaks and Geeks] back together, in the same project.”
So how do we know that they don’t appear in the film? Peter Sciretta and I were lucky enough to attend an advanced screening ofVacationat Comic-Con, and both Daley and Goldstein were around afterwards for a Q&A. Since I didn’t spot Samm Levine or Martin Starr in the movie, I asked what happened to theFreaks and Geeksreunion.
Daley explained that Starr and Levine were definitely on hand to shoot cameos for a sequence that took place atBurning Man, the crazy festival that happens in the Nevada desert each year. However, the sequence apparently didn’t work; it wasn’t as funny as they hoped it would be in the final cut of the movie. So that bit was taken out. you’re able to actually still see remnants of the sequence in these shots from the trailers cut from the final film:
The good news is that fans still hoping to see theFreaks and Geeksmini-reunion will still get that chance in the deleted scenes special feature whenVacationhits Blu-Ray and DVD. And maybe Daley and Goldstein will be able to fenagle cameos in the forthcomingSpider-Man, since they’ve just beenconfirmed to write the comic book reboot for Sony. In the meantime, if you haven’t seen it yet, watch the most recent trailer forVacation:
Following in his father’s footsteps and hoping for some much-needed family bonding, a grown-up Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) surprises his wife, Debbie (Christina Applegate), and their two sons with a cross-country trip back to America?s “favorite family fun park,” Walley World.
