Graffiti Bridge is a 1990 American rock musical drama film directed and written by Prince, filmed on locations in Minneapolis and in Paisley Park Studios. It is Prince's last large-scale film to date.
Even though the movie isn't a sequel per se to Purple Rain, it revives key characters from that movie: Prince plays the character of "The Kid" and Morris Day plays his own character; both as club owners competitors.
The story revolves around "The Kid" and "Morris Day" rivalry over the ownership of the "Glam Slam" club.
The premiere and party took place in Ziegfeld theater, in New-York, and was attended by the film co-stars Morris Day, Jerome Benton, Ingrid Chavez, Robin Power and Tevin Campbell. MTV covered the premiere on a one-day delay (MTV 24 hours Street party). Prince attended the screening, but didn't appear at the party.
The film was initially scheduled to open in 1,4000 US cinemas on 7 August, 1990; it was released on 2 November, 1990 in 688 US cinemas.
The reviews for Graffiti Bridge were negative, and the film wasn't a commercial success, grossing only 4,5 million dollar at the box office, before being removed from most screens within a month. Allowed an original budget of $8 million, the film had cost $7 million to make, it was estimated that Warner Bros should have grossed $14 million in tickets sales to recover all costs.
Prince won an Ascap Award for Thieves In The Temple as 'Most Performed Songs from Motion Pictures'.
First Steps
From mid September 1987 onwards, Prince started to record songs and gather material for a musical film project called "Graffiti Bridge". A first script was finished on 22 September, 1987 in which Prince would play "Camille Blue", Madonna a character named "Ruthie Washington" and Cat Glover a character called "Vienna".
Other characters would be played by band members: "Angel" by Sheila E., "Almost" by Dr Fink, "Big Sister" by Boni Boyer, "Joshua" by Atlanta Bliss, "Sax" by Eric Leeds, "Gruff" by Greg Brooks, "Puff" by Wally Safford and "The Brothers" by Miko Weaver and Levi Seacer, Jr..
Songs for this first script included: Ruthie Washington Jet Blues, Graffiti Bridge, Camille, Everything Could Be So Fine, The Question Of U, XYZ, Crucial, Power Fantastic, Beat Town, Melody Cool, Big Tall Wall, The Grand Progression. Most of these songs were recorded between July and September 1987, although 3 of them were leftovers from 1986 projects, and The Question Of U was originaly tracked in 1985.
After Madonna turned down the project on 13 October, 1987, the film was put on hold, and it wouldn't be before late 1989 that Prince would be able to focus again on the project.
A New Script
Early July 1989, Kim Basinger started working with Prince on a new script for the "Graffiti Bridge" film project.
Mid September 1989, Prince started recording sessions for the film, cutting 2 new songs, Round And Round and New Power Generation and reworking already existing songs from various projects, including some from the defunct first script. Mavis Staples traveled to Minneapolis to record vocals for Melody Cool, as well as Tevin Campbell on Round And Round; both were now part of the film cast.
Late October 1989, Prince met Robin Herin, a rapper and former dancer on "Soul Train" US Television show. After being invited to Minneapolis to work on a rap album project, Prince proposed her a role in the cast of "Graffiti Bridge"; of the two songs they cut together, Undercover Lover and Number One, only the latter was finally included in the film soundtrack.
When, in November 1989, Prince and Albert Magnoli, who had together created the joint venture Paisley park Films, decided to part ways. A new production team (Arnold Stiefel and Randy Phillips) were hired to secure a deal for the film with Warner Bros Film Division, which had showed very little interest in the project. Their strategy to sell the film to WB as a sequel to Purple Rain paid well, and they were given a go-ahead.
On 19 December, 1989, a third draft of "Graffiti Bridge" was completed, featuring Kim Basinger and Jill Jones in the leading roles.
Late January 1990, after Prince and Kim Basinger parted ways, a fourth draft of Graffiti Bridge was completed. It featured a new character, "Aura" (a mix of former characters played by Jill Jones and Kim Basinger) to be played by Ingrid Chavez while Jill Jones was given a new, less prominent role in the film, as "The Kid's" girlfriend.
On 7 February, 1990, after being slightly revised, the script was finally approved to be the shooting script.
Thieves In The Temple was the last song recorded for the project, on 11 February, 1990.
Delivery
The first version of "Graffiti Bridge" film was delivered to Warner Bros on 19 April 1990.
Unsatisfied with the cut, Warner Bros Pictures organized test screenings to audiences in Pasadena, CA, USA, at the theater that had earned the highest grosses in the US for Purple Rain film. As the screenings resulted disappointing, Warner Bros Pictures decided to bring in their own editor, Steve Rivkin (brother of David Rivkin and Bobby Z.) into the project.
On 30 July, 1990, while on The Nude Tour, Prince flew back to the USA for additional work on the movie. He supervised 4 days of editing on the film as Warner Bros.'s editors had proposed two versions that were rejected. Subsequently, the initial release date for the movie scheduled on 7 August, 1990 had to be postponed since the editing wasn't completed in time.
4 days after the japanese leg of the The Nude Tour had closed, on 14 September, 1990, Prince resumed work on "Graffiti Bridge" in Hollywood, as a few scenes needed re-shooting. More editing and post-production work followed until 24 October, 1990.
Of the musical scenes filmed, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, The Question Of U, Graffiti Bridge, The Latest Fashion and longer versions of We Can Funk and Joy In Repetition didn't make the final cut.
|