Black Sheep (1996 Film) - Production

Production

Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels produced the film, which was directed by Wayne's World director Penelope Spheeris. Michaels later said that the film was "an act of desperation by Paramount", in that the movie studio had under-promoted Spade and Farley's 1995 film, Tommy Boy and was now looking to cash in on the same comedy formula. At the time, Michaels had just finished contentious battles with the studio over the script of Waynes World 2, and the animosity between the two camps spilled over into Farley's contract with Paramount. Although his agent lined up possible roles for the actor in The Cable Guy (for which he was offered $3 million) and Kingpin, the movie studio remained firm on wanting another buddy comedy with Farley and Spade.

The film was written by Fred Wolf, who claimed the studio told him to "deliver a finished script by midnight on Sunday, the last day Chris was contractually allowed to get out of the movie. If I didn't have a finished script -- any finished script -- they were going to sue me." Wolf wrote 45 pages within only a few days, and dropped the script off at Paramount 15 minutes before his deadline. After reading the script, Farley said that he "wasn't crazy" about it, and only agreed to do the film after coaxing from David Spade.

Director Penelope Spheeris had notable disagreements with writer Fred Wolf and David Spade throughout the entire production of the film. Spheeris fired Wolf from the film three times (he was hired back twice by Farley and once by Lorne Michaels), then refused to speak to him and finally banned him from the set. Her relationship with Spade was equally as tumultuous. Speaking to Farley's official biographer, she said, "I don't think I've ever even smiled at anything David Spade's ever done... I still have a recording of a message David left on my answering machine. He said, 'You've spent this whole movie trying to cut my comedy balls off.'"