The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (film) - Pre-production and Production

Pre-production and Production

Spike Jonze was one of several directors asked to do the film; Jonze turned the job down, recommending that the producers hire Hammer & Tongs.

In a Slashdot interview, Robbie Stamp, one of the film's executive producers, noted the following about the cast of the film:

• The hardest character to cast was "the voice of the Guide itself and in the end came back to somebody who was one of the people Douglas himself had wanted, namely Stephen Fry."
• "Douglas himself is on record as saying that as far as he was concerned the only character who had to be British, indeed English, was Arthur Dent."

Stamp also commented on how large a role the studio and screenwriters other than Adams played in making the film:

• "I think that a lot of fans would be surprised to know just how much of a free hand we have been given in the making of this movie. I know how easy it is to see every decision to cut a scene as 'studio' pressure but it was always much more to do with pacing and rhythm in the film itself."
• "The script we shot was very much based on the last draft that Douglas wrote....All the substantive new ideas in the movie...are brand new Douglas ideas written especially for the movie by him....Douglas was always up for reinventing HHGG in each of its different incarnations and he knew that working harder on some character development and some of the key relationships was an integral part of turning HHGG into a movie."