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 revived key characters from that movie: Prince played the character of "The Kid", Morris Day played 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 reviews for Graffiti Bridge were quite 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. The film having cost $7 million to make, it was estimated that Warner Bros would have needed a gross of $14 million in tickets 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", while Madonna would be "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 which would have then undergone many changes.
A New Script
Early July 1989, Kim Basinger worked with Prince on a new script for "Graffiti Bridge" film.
Mid September, 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 the defunct first script. Mavis Staples traveled to Minneapolis to record vocals for Melody Cool, while Tevin Campbell recorded vocals for Round And Round as both were now part of the film characters.
Late October 1989, Prince meets 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 decided to include her in the cast of "Graffiti Bridge"; of the two songs cut, Undercover Lover and Number One, only the latter was included in the film soundtrack.
When, in November 1989, Prince and Albert Magnoli decided to part ways, a new production team joined the project: Arnold Stiefel and Randy Phillips were brought in 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 got them a go-ahead.
On 19 December, 1989, a third draft of "Graffiti Bridge" is completed, featuring Kim Basinger and Jill Jones in the leading roles.
Thieves In The Temple was recorded in February 1990.
Delivery
The first version of "Graffiti Bridge" was delivered to Warner Bros in April 1990. From there, the film went through several cuts and many changes.
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