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Click
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 Click Production NotesTagline: What if you had a universal remote... That controlled your universe?
In Columbia Pictures/Revolution Studios’ comedy Click, Adam Sandler portrays Michael Newman, a family man whose busy career as an architect doesn’t leave much time for his wife, Donna (Kate Beckinsale), and two kids.
Unable to figure out which of his many remotes turns on the television, he goes shopping for a universal remote and finds the perfect device through Morty (Christopher Walken), who gives him a one-of-a-kind remote with magical powers. With each click, Michael is able to control his career and personal life. But complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices.
Click also stars David Hasselhoff as Michael’s boss, Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner as his parents, and Sean Astin.
Sounds too good to be true. And it is, because soon the technologically sophisticated device is controlling Michael in ways he never imagined possible.
Synopsis
Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is married to the beautiful Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and they have two terrific kids, Ben (Joseph Castanon) and Samantha (Tatum McCann). But he doesn't get to see them much because he's putting in long, hard hours at his architectural firm in the elusive hope that his ungrateful boss (David Hasselhoff) will one day recognize his invaluable contribution and make him a partner.
Once he's on easy street, he'll be able to lavish attention on the wife and kiddies. At least, that's what he tells himself. After staying up all night to work, a tired Michael becomes frustrated because he can't even figure out which of his remotes will turn on the TV set. Michael sets out to find the perfect device to operate all his electronic equipment and stumbles into the back room of a Bed, Bath & Beyond, where an eccentric employee, Morty (Christopher Walken), gives him an experimental one-of-a-kind souped-up gadget guaranteed to change his life.
Morty wasn't kidding either. Soon Michael is master of his domain, turning on every appliance with the click of a button. But the device has other, more startling functions. It can somehow muffle the barking of Sundance, the family dog - and even more astoundingly, fast forward through an annoying quarrel with his wife.
Michael is fascinated by his new toy and a little freaked out as well. He decides to pay another visit to Morty, the guy who sold him the mysterious device. Morty tells Michael he gave him exactly what he asked for - a universal remote that lets him control his universe. Right before Michael's astonished eyes, Morty demonstrates the device's mind-boggling advanced features, including a function that lets Michael travel back and forth through his life at different speeds.
Michael quickly becomes addicted to this new rush of power, which literally allows him to have his cake and eat it too.
But before he knows it, the remote is programming him, rather than the other way around. And try as he might, a panicked Michael can't stop the device from deciding which events of his life he'll experience and which ones he'll miss. Only then does he begin to truly appreciate and embrace his life - the good, the bad and the ugly.
About the Production
Screenwriter and producer Steve Koren recalls how he and his partner Mark O'Keefe came up with the idea for CLICK. "There was a joke between me and my girlfriend," Koren recalls. "We got into a long argument, so I picked up the remote, pointed it at her and hit the `mute' button. She didn't find my little wish amusing, but I thought a lot of people could relate."
They started with a simple idea: "What if you could actually control your life with the remote? What if you could raise the volume of the world or lower it?" From there the story progressed. What if you could rewind your life and look back at your past? What if, instead of worrying about the future, you could fast forward and look at it? "There were many different areas for the character to explore and it was fun having him jump around while trying to maintain a consistent emotional arc," Koren continues. "In addition to exploring the past and future to find what he wants, he learns other things about his life along the way."
The easy part, says Koren, was sitting around with his writing partner O'Keefe and coming up with every joke they could think of about the use of a remote. "The tougher part," he contends, "was the emotional journey. It's not like most films, where you start one day and you end a week later. You're constantly jumping around. The movie starts in the present, then goes to the past, then leaps ahead 30 years into the future and then drops way back to when the character is a child. Writing-wise it was very tough to construct."
Adding to the degree of difficulty was the fact that, at first, many of the time jumps Michael makes are intentional. "At work, he wants this promotion without having to sit around and experience the day-to-day drudgery of getting there," Koren laughs. "With a simple press of the button, he's suddenly a partner. Who wouldn't be tempted to hit that button?
However, problems arise when the remote starts to anticipate his intentions and makes jumps all on its own. For instance, every time he starts to argue with his wife, the remote jumps until the fight is over. "The movie presents a combination of those choices. At first, Michael knows where he's going, but soon he has no idea what's going to happen next. He just keeps waking up and suddenly it's 30 years later and he's in bed with someone he doesn't know," says Koren. "The autopilot aspect of the story came about to underline the more serious themes of the movie. You can be at an event, but not really present. You're either thinking about something that happened in your past or worried about getting somewhere else later. We decided to give it a name - you're on autopilot, talking to people, but not really there."
Koren's favorite segment of Click is when Michael first gets the remote and he hits the menu on his life. "I just love the fantasy of that happening to you. Somebody gives you a DVD and says, `Here's your life,' and you pop it into the player and hear a running commentary on the making of you. That was really fun to write and even more fun to watch Frank direct and Adam act it. It's a real joke bag, literally one joke after another, after another."
Koren's relationship with Sandler dates back to "Saturday Night Live" where they worked on many sketches together. "Comedians like Adam are good at thinking on their feet, so they're always coming up with new jokes," explains Koren. "Adam and Frank have collaborated on a lot of big hits. He loves to hear ideas and he usually takes them and comes up with something even better. It's fun to throw stuff at him and he runs with it so that every take is different."
The Family Click
Director Frank Coraci says that what drew him to Click was the chance to work with his buddies on such an exciting project. "I knew that I would be looking forward to how much fun I was going to have at work every single day," he says. "As I sat there reading the script, I kept dreaming up these amazing transitions through time going from one room to the next or fast forwarding out of a situation."
As he envisioned it, the premise of Click would enable him to be more visually adventurous than is usually the case with comedies. "For a director, it allows you to dream up these great visual moments, to storyboard them and then come to the set every day and execute them," he enthuses. "It's a really cool journey."
Coraci and the film's star and producer, Adam Sandler, have been friends since they were teenagers. They went to college together (Click producer Jack Giarraputo was Coraci's roommate) and have always had the ability to make each other laugh. "Another reason Click is so much fun is that it's filled with the kind of stuff that makes me and Adam laugh - stuff about life we learned when we were growing up. As we're getting older, we're starting to make movies about things that we've experienced in life."
The on-the-set camaraderie and the trusting relationships formed back in college days paid off creatively as well. "During production, at the end of every day, we'd kind of high five each other or regroup and say, `Boy this script is funny, but the stuff we came up with on the set today was even funnier,'" says Coraci. "It was so cool, because Adam is so good at that. He makes it all look so easy."
Though Oscar winner Christopher Walken was new to the group, he immediately fit right in, according to Coraci. "When you see Adam and Christopher Walken side by side it's pretty cool. Walken is a genius actor, but the pairing of him and Adam together is even more amazing. It's rare you get to see two such great talents get together and do funny stuff like that."
Walken also brought his training as a singer and dancer to bear in the role of Morty, the enigmatic behind-the-scenes store clerk. "Walken does a little dancing and some singing in the movie," says Coraci. "But what was most impressive is that he can pick any word of his dialogue from the script and make it funny. Listen to the way he says the word `remote' with such a dry delivery that's just hilarious. I don't know of any actor who can say one word like that and be funny."
For "the perfect wife," Coraci says, they found the perfect actress - Kate Beckinsale. "The key thing in the movie is that Adam's character has two amazing kids and a wife who is supportive and gorgeous. She's the kind of perfect woman than anybody would want to be married to, strong and beautiful with a good heart. I don't know of anyone who's not going to fall in love with her in this movie."
To play Sandler's parents, Ted and Trudy, the filmmakers turned to two comic veteran actors, Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner. "They are the perfect blue-collar, sweet parents who get on your nerves because they love you so much. Henry and Julie did it so well. As soon as we put them together, we realized we couldn't have come up with a better combination. They both have the ultimate comedy chops. Henry, who worked with us before on The Waterboy, completely understood our routine. And, Julie, what can I say? She got into the rhythm very quickly and when you have all these people that are comfortable with each other, things can get really funny."
David Hasselhoff plays Mr. Ammer, Michael's insensitive boss. Coraci describes him as an actor "who has so much energy you'd think there were seven of him instead of only one. Besides being an icon, the guy is really funny. And when he arrived he just came in, put his total trust in us and had a great time."
The production was no less lucky with the actors who took on the roles of Sandler and Beckinsale's children. "They were amazing," says Coraci. "Tatum McCann, (Samantha) is a sweetheart, you warm to her immediately. Joseph Castanon (Ben) is just this really talented little boy. He can do it all. Don't tell anyone, but despite what they say about working with child actors, they were the easiest people to direct. They learned so fast and did everything I said exactly right."
Besides their talent, McCann and Castanon connected emotionally with Coraci as well. "They were the most loving kids. At the end of the day they would come up to me and say `Frank, we love you,' and give me a big hug. It was perfect for the movie because it created a real sense of family."
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Kate Beckinsale and Adam Sandler in Click.
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