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May 25, 1999
Showbiz Confidential
By Jeffrey Wells

Bowfinger's Little Tweak

The Church of Scientology has been known to respond very sternly (invasively, some have claimed) to anyone or anything that takes a critical swipe at the organization. But despite an obvious satirical chiding of the controversial cult in the upcoming Steve Martin-Eddie Murphy comedy Bowfinger (due from Universal July 23), church leaders are saying nothing this time out. In view of the group's hyper-sensitive reactions to being tweaked in the past, their response to Bowfinger seems curiously passive. Or perhaps the word is smart.

No one I spoke to about l'affaire Bowfinger would talk turkey on the record. But here's the skinny.

Bowfinger - which is pretty funny, by the way - is about a group of Hollywood wannabes led by Steve Martin who secretly film a hot movie star, Kit Ramsey (Murphy), for a low-budget movie they're making. Ramsey, we learn, is heavily dependent on a spiritual-guidance group called Mind Head. This comes into play when Martin and his guerilla colleagues try to blackmail Ramsey into approving their use of the footage with a videotape of Ramsey involved in an unsavory act. Terence Stamp plays Mind Head's frosty-eyed leader.

Martin, who wrote the script, told Entertainment Weekly that Mind Head is "a pastiche of many things I've seen in Hollywood. [Scientologists] are the biggest, so they'll probably be named, but it's not really…you know, it's many things." (Pause.) "How was that answer?"

Heather Graham told EW that on the Bowfinger set, "I'd go, 'Oh, that Scientology thing is really funny!' and they'd be like, 'It's not about Scientology, it's just a cult group.'"

Church of Scientology public relations rep Janet Weiland says she called former Universal Pictures president and COO Chris McGurk about Bowfinger last February and accepted his assurance that Bowfinger "has nothing to do with Scientology." Universal exec VP of publicity Terry Curtin says that exec VP of marketing Eddie Egan has had conversations of his own with Scientology reps and told them the same thing.

Curtin spoke to me yesterday and also said that Mind Head isn't modeled on the Church of Scientology. I've seen the film and all I can say is, yeah, right. Mind Head is depicted as a tightly organized, control-oriented group that Eddie Murphy repeatedly goes to whenever he's concerned with a career issue. Sound familiar?

The intriguing angle is that despite the film's allusions - anyone who knows anything about the Scientologists will get them, believe me - church reps have decided to back off. Why? Of all their options keeping mum is probably the smartest move.

As one insider put it to me yesterday, "If they made something out of this and got into messing with artists' rights, they know the attention this would bring would be worse than anything the film allegedly says. So they went away. You and I know what they're like but to the rest of the country [that sees Bowfinger], it's just a religious cult of some kind … it's no big deal."

Last weekend it seemed that the Scientologists were at least somewhat concerned. Terence Stamp told the New York Post's Howard Feinstein in a story from Cannes that ran Saturday that he'd "heard" that Scientology devotee John Travolta had "requested a special screening of the film to take directors of Scientology to see it." But Curtin says, "We've never heard of anyone requesting a screening of the film … I don't know that anyone in Travolta's camp has gotten involved in this."

Scientology reps have played it much tougher in the past. Various incidents are alleged, but one was fully researched by Premiere reporter John Richardson for a September 1993 article called "Catch a Rising Star."

Richardson reported that the Scientologists were all over the makers of Delirious, a 1990 Universal comedy starring John Candy, because of a single line of dialogue. The article says that after actress Emma Samms describes in the film a "strange power" that Candy seems to have over her, "like I don't have a will of my own," her brother asks, "Do you think he's a Scientologist?"

When the line was discovered while the film was in pre-production, reports Richardson, Scientology reps let their objections be known. Delirious director Tom Mankiewicz and producer Richard Donner told him they were harassed by a steady stream of letters, phone calls and implied threats. "They just wouldn't stop," Mankiewicz told the writer. When he and Donner ignored the letters, Richardson adds, there was concern about a lawsuit.

"Donner and Mankiewicz still stalled, testing the film, feeling 'First Amendment outrage,'" the article explains. "But gradually things began to escalate, initially with threatening, anonymous phone calls. 'Then Tom's house was broken into,' Donner recalls. 'Nothing was taken, but things were moved around, drawers turned upside down. It was like, 'We can get into your house.' He went to the police, told them about the threats, but there was no way of pinning it down.

"Mankiewicz refuses to comment about either the threatening phone calls or the break-in, saying there was no evidence to link them to Scientology," the article continues. "But Donner and Mankiewicz decided to lose the gag. 'We all felt a little cheaper for having cut the line,' Mankiewicz says. 'It was such an innocuous little joke - a tiny pinprick. God help you if the Catholic church felt like that and you made Sister Act.'"

Ironic, isn't it, that all this could happen in response to a "pinprick," yet nine years later an all-out lampoon of the church's close ties to celebrities (Travolta, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Kirstie Alley, and Juliette Lewis are among the bigger "name" followers) results in nothing?

Scientology may have gotten wind of the Bowfinger satire too late to do anything about it (the picture was pretty much locked by February). And it's a lot easier to gripe about a line of dialogue than an entire subplot. But it could be that the Scientologists have just decided to play it cool.

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