10 Roles You Didn't Know Robin Williams Almost Played
4. Adrian Cronauer - 'Good Morning, Chicago'
Williams breakthrough film, Good Morning, Vietnam, was a massive success for him creatively and commercially, setting in stone the persona for which he would be most famous throughout the eighties and nineties the maniac with the heart of gold. The film would make over ten times its budget at the box office, and win Williams a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination. Naturally a sequel was considered. A script was drafted, this time set after the Vietnam war, in Chicago, set in and around the Democratic National Convention in 1968. The convention was famous for dividing the Democratic party in the USA at the time, coming only months after the assassination of both Martin Luther King and Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, JFKs younger brother. The Republican party would seize their moment, and Richard Nixon would win the resulting presidential election and we all know how that turned out. All the elements seemed in place, but something about the script didnt gel. Reminded of it years later, Williams said:
Part of it worked, Part of it didnt work because itd be him dealing with the politics of revolt in Chicago at the time but anyway, they did do but it didnt all work. It was also a matter of trying to find someone to back it. It was almost there.
Williams and director Barry Levinson elected to drop the project, and it never resurfaced again.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
