Blues Brothers 2000

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Blues Brothers 2000
Blues brothers 2000 poster.jpg
Promotional one-sheet poster.
Directed by John Landis
Produced by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Written by <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • Dan Aykroyd
  • John Landis
Starring <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Music by Paul Shaffer
Cinematography David Herrington
Edited by Dale Beldin
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
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  • February 6, 1998 (1998-02-06)
Running time
 123 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $28 million[citation needed]
Box office $14 million

Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 American musical comedy film that is a sequel to 1980's The Blues Brothers, written and produced by John Landis and Dan Aykroyd. Directed by Landis, the film stars Aykroyd and John Goodman, with cameos by many musicians.

Plot

Eighteen years after the original "mission from God", Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) is getting out of prison and discovering that much has changed in the time he's been away. His partner, "Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi) and their surrogate father-figure Curtis (Cab Calloway) are both gone, his band is no longer together and the orphanage where he grew up has been demolished. Elwood soon realizes that he must embark on a whole new mission - to reassemble the old band, this time with the help of a soulful bartender, Mack McTeer (John Goodman), compete at Queen Moussette's (Erykah Badu) Battle of the Bands and set a wayward orphan named Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) on the path to redemption. In the midst of the mayhem, he's got to prove to the police that there's magic in the music...and a mysterious method behind the Blues Brothers' madness. Special appearances and musical performances by B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Jonny Lang, Blues Traveler, Eric Clapton and many more.

Cast and characters

Bands and musical guests

Nia Peeples, Kathleen Freeman, Frank Oz, Steve Lawrence, Darrell Hammond, John Lyons, and Jeff Morris appear in cameos. The film is dedicated to John Belushi, Cab Calloway and John Candy, cast members from the original film who had died prior to the sequel's production.

Production

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Blues Brothers 2000 made it into the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest car pile-up, a record previously held by the original film. Approximately 60 cars were used in the scene after Elwood says to the band, "Don't look back." Inevitably, everyone looks back and sees the massive pile-up. Portions of this scene were filmed in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Casting

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. The film was originally intended to include Brother Zee Blues (Jim Belushi, brother of John Belushi). But due to an already existing television deal (Belushi had been cast in the ABC drama Total Security), Belushi was unable to appear and the script was altered to include Cab Blues (Joe Morton). This character was named Cabel as an homage to Cab Calloway, who died four years prior to the film's release. (His character Curtis was revealed to have died in the film along with Jake.)

The band's original keyboardist, Paul Shaffer, had been committed to Gilda Radner's one-woman show on Broadway and therefore unable to appear in the first film. He was replaced by actor-musician Murphy Dunne. Shaffer does appear in Blues Brothers 2000, taking a week off from Late Show with David Letterman to film his role as Queen Moussette's aide, M.C. of the battle of the bands. (Warren Zevon took his place that week on Letterman's show). Shaffer shaved his head for the role, a change in appearance he chose to keep permanently.

During the Funky Nassau number, Shaffer in his character as "Marco" asks to cut in on keyboards, which Murph allows. This marks the first on-screen time that the Blues Brothers Band plays with the original keyboardist.

Several cast members from the first film reprised their characters, including Frank Oz, Jeff Morris, Steve Lawrence, Kathleen Freeman, Aretha Franklin and James Brown.

Release

The film grossed a little over $14 million in box office sales in North America.[1]

It was screened out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

Reception

Blues Brothers 2000 received mixed reviews, averaging a 45% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 44 reviews,[3] and a D score on EW.com.[4] Roger Ebert gave the film 2 stars, saying, "The film is lame comedy surrounded by high-energy blues (and some pop, rock and country music)."[5]

Video game

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Main article: Blues Brothers 2000 (video game)

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. A Blues Brothers 2000 video game was released for the Nintendo 64 on November 17, 2000, almost two years after the film's release. The plot of the game involves Elwood as the main character going through different chapters and levels while trying to save the kidnapped members of the band one by one. Like the film on which it based and the video game based on the first film, it was poorly received.

Soundtrack

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Main article: Blues Brothers 2000 (soundtrack)

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Rotten Tomatoes page: "Blues Brothers 2000."
  4. ↑ EW.com article: "Blues Brothers 2000 Reviews."
  5. ↑ RogerEbert.com article: "Blues Brothers 2000."

External links

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