What Men Want
in the beginning this year , Screen Rant was call for to Atlanta , gallium to visit the set of Paramount’sWhat Men Want , a new comedy starring Taraji P. Henson as Ali , a sports agent who struggle to get ahead in her male - prevail line of business but gains the upper script when she develops the power to hear homo ’s opinion . We ’ll be sharing some of what we learned on set in the coming days , commence with the universal premise of the motion picture : what are men really thinking ?
A re - imagining of the 2000 Mel Gibson / Helen Hunt amatory comedy , What Women Want , this newfangled film borrows that universal idea of pick up the thoughts of the opposite sexual urge and flips it . Less of a read-only memory - com and more of workplace comedy , What Men Wantfollows Ali as she work to represent a promising new NBA talent - all the while , hearing the thoughts of the men around her and using what she learns to her vantage . It ’s a situation that can well lead to some very funny import , butWhat Men Wantmakes certain to also use these intimate intellection to prove a point - that men and women are n’t really all that different .
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When talking with Henson , she explained that in the moving picture , men ’s inner opinion break they are " just as insecure as [ cleaning lady ] are , " adding :
" I retrieve the char sit back and they wait for the intimate material . ‘ Ah , we make out he ’s going to talk about our tits or our buns , ’ but y’know , they are very smart in the things that they put on piece ’s minds . This one guy that I heard today talking about how he should adopt a dog . So I call up you ’ll be surprised just like I am at the thing that go through world ’s brain . Y’know , like there ’s this one cat , he ’s an assistant to another sports factor and his thought is , ‘ Give me a raise , you prick . ’ I mean , how many clip are women articulate that ? ”
When we talk with theatre director Adam Shankman , he accent what was most crucial to him was , " not make the thing in people ’s heads only be to propel the plot onward . " InWhat Men Want , it ’s central that the thoughts Ali hear are just " as random as thing that are in people ’s heads " and that they be"fleeting . “It ’s in these random thoughts that quickly give-up the ghost through our minds thatShankman believes the " rightful clowning " is , when the flick is dally with"the misconception about what everyone thinks about , men or charwoman . "
On set , Shankman also was n’t opposed to ad - libbing , encouraging the actors to represent with the shot and give whatever they found were the funniest lines in the moment ; if he did n’t like it , he would " cut around it . " There was even more room to recreate with the inner thoughts of character because while these melodic line were show aloud on set , for the finished film , the lines are re - record and dubbed in post . This gave them immense freedom , as Shankman explains :
" [ What Men Want is ] curated nicely in ordering to make – because so much is going on in everybody ’s heads , that ’s such a wild unknown . Everything we ’ve script , none of it may ever be used because we find something fishy in the redaction way . "
Producer Will Packer echoed that same mentation , explicate further how this exemption will allow them to remark on whatever is happen in the moment , makingWhat Men Wantas well-timed a comedy as possible :
" Because so much of it is what are in our actors ' header , and we will go back later on and do ADR . So we ’ve always tell , we ’ve acquire an opportunity . What that , like , hot - button pop civilization thing is , we can go and we will have the opportunity to add together that stuff and make the movie find very relevant after on . Even nearer to the release date . So today it ’s the [ NFL ] kneeling thing , who knows when it comes out what the Kardashians would have done . But if we take to , we can put that in our movie . That ’s kind of cool . And it ’s the first clip I ’ve been a part of movie that had that kind of malleability when it came to like , what actors are really saying / think . We ’ll be capable to tot that poppycock in through the destruction of post - yield . "
Not only willWhat Men Wantexplore what men are guess , examining how unexpected and random those thought process really are , but the pic is also following Ali as she navigates the universe of military man through their privileged most thoughts . Packer summarizes the film as ,
" A clowning about this woman in a humankind ’s world figuring out how to play the biz using this very cool machine that she gets in the movie to her reward . And it ’s really more about a woman becoming gift than it is a cleaning woman finding love . It ’s playfulness that that happens along the way , but it does n’t have the distinctive machination of a rom - com . "
We ’ll have more from our set sojourn over the next couple days , including our discussion with Taraji P. Henson about how excited she is for the prospect to star in a full - on comedy as well as how her persona develop that glass roof - for sport agent and actress . What Men Wantreleases countrywide January 11th , 2019 .
Next:What Men Want Trailer: Taraji P. Henson Hears Shaq’s Thoughts
