Pretty woman
Pretty Woman (Pretty Woman in Latin America) is an American romantic comedy film starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. It was directed by Garry Marshall and released on March 23, 1990 in the United States, with enormous box office success.
Plot
Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) is a wealthy businessman who regularly travels to Los Angeles, where he stays in a suite at the luxurious Beverly Wilshire Hotel. After a discussion with his girlfriend, his partners raise the need to be accompanied to a business meeting.
In an ambivalent decision, he brings a sex worker, Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), to the hotel, who is somewhat vulgar, but Edward is attracted to the woman and offers to stay with him all week in exchange for 3000 dollars. She agrees to said transaction. Throughout that week, they will get to know and become intimate and develop feelings. Edward pays for Vivian's expensive, designer clothes so that she can dress according to her socioeconomic position and can accompany him to the social events that she usually attends. The hotel manager (Héctor Elizondo) empathizes with Vivian and her friend Kit (Laura San Giacomo).
Eventually, they will fall in love and form a stable couple, where she will highlight the influence she will have on Edward's change in attitude towards business, and in which he will renounce his destructive policy of buying companies and then cleaning them up and selling them, in favor of a policy of building and maintaining companies.
Alternate ending
The original ending of the film is not the one narrated above, but is much more tragic and dark. Originally, the film ends by throwing Vivian out of a car in an abandoned alley and throwing money on top of her as payment for her services. In this way, Vivian returns to her origins, marking her life forever. Julia Roberts proposed turning down the role because of this ending, but she dropped it when Disney bought the film's script, introducing the ending we all know.
Cast Selection
The casting process for the film was long and changeable. In the first instance, director Garry Marshall had Christopher Reeve considered for the lead role. Without Reeve, Al Pacino was the second option. Pacino even went so far as to hold auditions by reading parts of the script with Roberts, but ultimately quit. Daniel Day-Lewis and Denzel Washington were other candidates proposed by the director. Sylvester Stallone was briefly considered by the studio. Finally, and despite Marshall, Gere got the role of the protagonist.
Dozens of actresses were shortlisted to be the lead actress. Molly Ringwald was considered in the first instance by director Marshall, but she declined and the secondary option considered Rebecca Schaeffer; but she was killed by a fan, and the role of Vivien fell to Julia Roberts who was in third choice; Roberts was originally considered for a supporting role. Among the actresses who were considered for the main role, some rejected the role as humiliating for women, are: Karen Allen, Molly Ringwald, Meg Ryan, Mary Steenburgen, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daryl Hannah, Valeria Golino, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Heather Locklear, Jodie Foster, Helen Hunt, Helen Slater, Bridget Fonda, Robin Wright Penn, Lori Loughlin, Diane Lane, Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, and Sarah Jessica Parker. Actresses Jennifer Connelly, Winona Ryder, Drew Barrymore, and Uma Thurman auditioned for the role, but were turned down due to being too young.
Original Actor United States | Character | Voice actor Spain | First and second voice actor Mexico
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Gere | Edward Lewis | Ricardo Solans | Carlos Becerril Germán Fabregat |
| Julia Roberts | Vivian Ward | Mercedes Montalá | Nancy McKenzie Talía Marcela |
| Hector Elizondo | Bernard "Barney" Thompson | Ernesto Aura | Javier Pontón Arturo Mercado |
| Laura San Giacomo | Luca Kit | Concha García Valero | Rebecca Rambal Carola Vázquez |
| Ralph Bellamy | James "Jim" Morse | Fernando Ulloa | Francisco Colmenero |
| Jason Alexander | Philip "Phil" Stuckey | Alberto Mieza | Raúl de la Fuente Herman López |
| Alex Hyde-White | David Morse | Juan Antonio Bernal | Jesus Barrero Ricardo Tejedo |
Critical and commercial reception
According to the Rotten Tomatoes website, it received 61% positive reviews.
According to the Metacritic website, it received mixed reviews, with 51%, based on 17 comments of which 9 are positive.
The film went straight to number one at the US box office. It grossed $178 million in the United States. Adding international collections the figure rises to 463 million. Its budget was 14 million.
Songs from the soundtrack
Pretty Woman is the name of the film's soundtrack. It was commercialized by the EMI record company, with the production of James Newton Howard and Don Simpson.
It is classified as one of the most successful in sales and publicity in the history of cinema and music, especially for representing a sector of American youth of a particular era. It remained in the first place of sales and lists for several weeks in its year of publication.
- "Wild Women Do" - Natalie Cole
- "Fame '90" - David Bowie
- "King of Wishful Thinking" - Go West
- "Tangled" - Jane Wiedlin
- "It Must Have Been Love" - Roxette
- "Life in Detail" - Robert Palmer
- "No Explanation" - Peter Cetera
- Songbird - Kenny G
- "Real Wild Child (Wild One) Christopher Otcasek
- "Fallen" - Lauren Wood
- "Oh, Pretty Woman" - Roy Orbison
- "Show Me Your Soul" - Red Hot Chili Peppers
- "(Oh) Pretty Woman" - Van Halen
- "Listen to your Hearth" Roxette
BDs and DVDs
Pretty Woman was released on October 9, 2002 in Spain, in DVD format. The disc contains audio commentary, a movie trailer, how it was made, and a music video. It also went on sale on February 11, 2009 in Spain, in Blu-ray format. The disc contains outtakes, live from the wrap-up party, LA: The Pretty Woman Route, 1990: this was the playback, "Will Women Do" Performed by Natalle Cole, theatrical trailer and audio commentary with director Garry Marshall.
The audience phenomenon on Spanish television
Since Pretty Woman premiered for the first time on TVE on January 2, 1994, until the last screening on September 1, 2021, the film has been broadcast a total of thirty times. The first fifteen times it has easily led all audience lists, a recognized record for a film broadcast so many times in Spain, eight times on TVE, twenty-one on Telecinco and one on Antena 3; and it has never dropped below 1,000,000 viewers, moving between 55.6% and 11.5% audience share.
| Date of issue | Chain | Screen boot | No spectators |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2/1/1994 | 1 | 55.6% | 9.223,000 |
| 22/4/1994 | 1 | 41.3 per cent | 6.298,000 |
| 22/12/1996 | 1 | 44.3 per cent | 7.098,000 |
| 17/10/1997 | Telecinco | 43% | 6.267,000 |
| 6/11/1998 | Telecinco | 46.4 per cent | 5,570.000 |
| 1/6/2001 | Telecinco | 38.2 per cent | 4.927,000 |
| 7/2/2002 | Telecinco | 29.5 per cent | 4.234,000 |
| 7/11/2003 | Telecinco | 32% | 4.378,000 |
| 20/5/2005 | Telecinco | 29.3% | 3.905,000 |
| 9/4/2006 | Antenna 3 | 26.6 per cent | 3.926,000 |
| 22/4/2007 | 1 | 22.4 per cent | 3.678,000 |
| 9/4/2008 | 1 | 26.1 per cent | 4.267,000 |
| 19/6/2009 | 1 | 22.5 per cent | 3.405,000 |
| 6/6/2010 | 1 | 20.8 per cent | 3.601,000 |
| 29/5/2011 | 1 | 19% | 3.520000 |
| 2/1/2012 | Telecinco | 15.2 per cent | 2.889,000 |
| 14/10/2012 | Telecinco | 14.5% | 2.003,000 |
| 13/10/2013 | Telecinco | 14.9% | 1.956,000 |
| 19/7/2014 | Telecinco | 16.6% | 1.909,000 |
| 19/4/2015 | Telecinco | 15.2 per cent | 2.121,000 |
| 1/1/2017 | Telecinco | 14.5% | 2.445,000 |
| 7/9/2017 | Telecinco | 13.4% | 1.867,000 |
| 19/11/2017 | Telecinco | 11.5% | 1.471,000 |
| 31/10/2018 | Telecinco | 12.1 per cent | 1.328,000 |
| 21/4/2019 | Telecinco | 12.1 per cent | 1.924,000 |
| 8/9/2019 | Telecinco | 11.0% | 1.494,000 |
| 2/9/2020 | Telecinco | 14.1% | 1.767,000 |
| 11/1/2021 | Telecinco | 9.5% | 1,170.000 |
| 1/9/2021 | Telecinco | 12.8 per cent | 1.003,000 |
| 29/8/2022 | Telecinco | 10.7% | 1.065,000 |
| 4/9/2022 | Divinity |
Awards
Oscar
| Year | Category | Person | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Best actress | Julia Roberts | Nominated |
Golden Globes
| Year | Category | Person | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Best actress - Comedy or musical | Julia Roberts | Winner |
| Best movie - Comedy or musical | Pretty Woman | Candidate | |
| Best actor - Comedy or musical | Richard Gere | Candidate | |
| Best cast actor | Hector Elizondo | Candidate |
Cesar Awards
| Year | Category | Prize | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Caesar to the best foreign film | César Awards | Candidate |
BAFTA Awards
| Year | Category | Person | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | BAFTA to the best actress | Julia Roberts | Candidate |
| BAFTA to the best movie | Arnon Milchan Steven Reuther Garry Marshall | Candidate | |
| BAFTA to the best original script | J.F Lawton | Candidate | |
| BAFTA to the best costume design | Marylin Vanace | Candidate |
Curiosity
- The original title was 3000Like the amount Richard paid Vivian for spending a week with her.
- Among the music there are three different extracts from the opera The traviata by Giuseppe Verdi (as "Amami, Alfredo").
- The piano song that Richard Gere sounds in the hotel lobby, titled He sleeps, was composed and interpreted by the same actor.
- At the scene where Vivian sees the TV show I love LucyJulia Roberts couldn't laugh spontaneously. After many failed attempts, director Marshall (out of frame) tickled her feet, making her laugh to laugh and get the scene.
- Originally the couple in the movie was Pacino-Pfeiffer.
- At the scene Vivian is watching a movie where he falls asleep. Charada by Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.
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