Blues Brothers 2000

Blues Brothers 2000
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Landis
Produced by	Dan Aykroyd Leslie Belzberg John Landis
Written by	Dan Aykroyd John Landis
Starring	Dan Aykroyd John Goodman Joe Morton James Brown Aretha Franklin B. B. King J. Evan Bonifant
Music by	Paul Shaffer
Cinematography	David Herrington
Edited by	Dale Beldin
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release dates	February 6, 1998 (1998-02-06)
Running time	123 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$28 million
Box office	$14.1 million

Blues Brothers 2000 is a 1998 American musical comedy film that is a sequel to the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, written and produced by John Landis and Dan Aykroyd. Directed by Landis, the film stars Aykroyd and John Goodman, with cameo appearances by various 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 brother, "Joliet" Jake Blues (John Belushi) and their surrogate father-figure Curtis (Cab Calloway) have passed away, 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

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

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

Blues Brothers 2000 was screened out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.^[2]

Box office

The film grossed a little over $14 million in box office sales in North America.^[3]

Critical reception

The film received negative reviews, averaging a 47% positive rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 45 reviews,^[4] and a D score from Entertainment Weekly.^[5] 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)."^[6]

Video game

A Blues Brothers 2000 video game was released for the Nintendo 64 on November 17, 2000, 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

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Blues Brothers 2000

• Blues Brothers 2000 at the Internet Movie Database
• Blues Brothers 2000 at the TCM Movie Database
• Blues Brothers 2000 at Box Office Mojo
• Blues Brothers 2000 at Rotten Tomatoes