Rachel McAdams - Kate/Slings & Arrows Discussion/Spoilers #1: Because We Would Love To See A Prequel!

winterbird · 07-13-2017, 01:04 AM

Kate/Slings & Arrows Discussion/Spoilers #1: Because We Would Love To See A Prequel!

Quote:

Plot: In the fictional town of New Burbage, legendary theatrical madman Geoffrey Tennant returns to the New Burbage Theatre Festival, the site of his greatest triumph and most humiliating failure, to assume the artistic directorship after the sudden death of his mentor, Oliver Welles. When Geoffrey arrives he finds that Oliver is still there, in spirit anyway, and with his guidance (and often in spite of it) Geoffrey attempts to reconcile with his past while wrestling the festival back from the marketing department. Despite a bitter leading lady, a clueless leading man, and a scheming general manager, he manages to stage a remarkable production of Hamlet -- the play that drove him mad.

GIF credit goes to Amanda @ McAdamsDaily

winterbird · 07-13-2017, 01:08 AM

I wanted to make this thread for a while now but I keep forgetting. This is one of my favorite Rachel projects

And now there seems to be a possibility for a season 4/prequel so I thought it's fun that this project had it's own thread. Co-star and creator Mark MCKinney talked about the possibility of a season 4/prequel to the series last year:

Quote:

AVC: Is there ever any talk of a Slings And Arrows revival? Is that universe closed at this point?
MM: We’ve been working on it for a couple of years now. We have a prequel locked and loaded that we’re going to set up somewhere. It’s a good one. It’s a true prequel, it goes back several years, almost to the foundation of the New Burbage Festival itself. It’s a great story.

AVC: Do you think it might get picked up?
MM: We were with the CBC in Canada, as we were with the original Slings And Arrows—and the original, they dropped it right before, almost at this exact same point, we were ready to go. And unfortunately, I think the almost the identical thing happened. So now we’re looking around. But it’s a vastly different landscape. We might be looking down here [in the United States], we might be looking up there, I’m not sure.

AVC: Do you find that a lot of people have been finding the show after the fact on DVD and streaming?
MM: The afterlife of this show, if anything, has been stronger than Kids In The Hall. It’s constantly being rediscovered and name-checked. It keeps showing up in The New Yorker. I guess there aren’t that many shows that reference the arts as a life, and so, when one comes along and sort of does a nice little play on it, I think it gets held pretty dear. I first started to get a sense of its virality, if that’s a word, when—this is way back—George Wendt, who was touring 12 Angry Men around the country, said, “Oh no, we’ve only got the first two episodes. Can you please send the rest?” So I sent them off to the cast.

AVC: Having worked within the American TV system and the Canadian TV system, do you have a preference between the two? Is one easier? Do they each have their own unique challenges?
MM: I think the Canadian system—and I may be talking about something that’s 10 years out of date now—is creatively very ambitious but without a lot of money. And it’s a slight inversion here, where it’s tons of money, and slightly cookie cutter. But not anymore, because we’re in the Golden Age Of Television. I did do Slings And Arrows in Canada, but I found a huge audience here, and I think if we had done that six years later, we would have wound up on Netflix. It’s that kind of thing. I’m overtly patriotic about Canada—it’s because I’m the son of a Canadian diplomat. I’ve had a great career in both places. I don’t have a preference yet. It’s kind of been a fantastic straddle.
Mark McKinney on finding his Superstore voice and bringing back Slings And Arrows · Interview · The A.V. Club

**Firecrest** · 07-13-2017, 01:46 PM

Love the gifs and the info!

winterbird · 07-14-2017, 05:14 AM

I am not sure if a prequel leaves room for an arc for Rachel, since Kate was the newbie of the company in season 1 but I would love it if there was.

**Firecrest** · 07-14-2017, 02:19 PM

Me too!

winterbird · 07-15-2017, 03:01 AM

I have to share this quote from the creators. It's from an interview from a few years ago:

Quote:

AVC: Did you have other plans for the character of Kate that then had to be cut short because of Rachel McAdams’ success elsewhere?
Mark McKinney: That’s one of the sad things. We talked for a long, long time about what it’s like to come into the arts as a young person, and we were going to lay it all out. I can’t even remember now, where we wanted to…

Bob Martin: Basically she becomes Ellen in a sense, right? Except she doesn’t become Ellen. But she has that same arc, so we sort of see it happen. And then we lost Rachel. [Laughs.] To success. She was fabulous to work with, obviously. But then when she had… It was Mean Girls that, I guess, gave her the three-picture deal.

MM: No, it was The Notebook, wasn’t it?

BM: No, I mean Mean Girls was released, and that sort of made her career.

Susan Coyne: I remember talking about it when we were doing publicity.

BM: We literally could only get her for a couple days of season two, so we just had to change completely the young-people storyline. It became a challenge to come up with one each season. It was always supposed to be about Kate.
More: The creators of Slings & Arrows talk about creating one of TV’s greatest shows · Interview · The A.V. Club

maebyfunke · 07-15-2017, 05:01 AM

I'm sure she would have loved continuing being part of season 2 if she could! I need to watch this show one day. I've never seen it!

**Firecrest** · 07-15-2017, 01:18 PM

Hope you see it soon!

winterbird · 07-16-2017, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maebyfunke (View Post)

I'm sure she would have loved continuing being part of season 2 if she could! I need to watch this show one day. I've never seen it!

I agree! And I also think the creators know this as well.

Rachel filmed her arc in the season 2 premiere during her break from filming Red Eye. Red Eye was filmed in LA, so she returned to Canada for one day during her break, then returned back to LA to finish filming Red Eye. After she wrapped up filming Red Eye, she returned back to Canada to finish filming for Slings & Arrows.