Trivia / Heartbeeps

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $10 million. Box office, $2.1 million.
• Creator Backlash: Andy Kaufman blasted the pic, and personally apologized for it on TV. In the memoir Andy Kaufman Revealed!, Bob Zmuda talked about seeing Andy looking exhausted and downtrodden on days after filming. Zmuda claimed Kaufman tried to put on a brave face, but knew deep down he was working on a turkey.
• Prop Recycling: Crimebuster 00719 is a redress of the Death Probe.
• Referenced by...: The Cinema Snob reviewed it here.
• Star-Derailing Role: The only major studio leading role of Andy Kaufman's career. It was intended as a test of whether he could carry a film by himself; he ended up so burnt out by the experience and reception that he decided to stick to TV and live stand-up anyway; alas, his premature death in 1984 meant that he never got the inclination or opportunity to try Hollywood filmmaking again. (One of his final projects was a genuine independent production, My Breakfast with Blassie, and had he lived he might have found success in that field.)
• Troubled Production: The Screen Actors Guild strike of 1980 caused production to go on hiatus for over two months mid-shoot. But even when it was shooting, production was troubled: The weather at the Colorado shooting location caused Stan Winston's elaborate robot makeups — which took several hours to apply — to gradually wilt in the heat, limiting how much footage could be shot in a day. Director Allan Arkush, who had never helmed a big-budget project, staged scenes at a glacial pace that frustrated everyone but him. Kaufman, increasingly bored with the proceedings and having no friends to goof off with between takes (his friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda was specifically prohibited from the shoot), began acting out. Universal executives were horrified by the cut the director presented them with, and their final cut was a mere 79 minutes with credits. The movie grossed only a fifth of its budget, proving to be both Kaufman's Star-Derailing Role and an Old Shame.
• What Could Have Been:
  • MCA was supposed to release a soundtrack album alongside the film, but despite the music being by John Williams the movie's reception meant the album was axed. (Varèse Sarabande eventually issued one decades later.)
  • Sigourney Weaver was offered the role of Aqua and was interested in being in the film but her agent talked her out of taking the part.
  • Andy Kaufman's pet project for Universal was a screenplay he'd co-written, The Tony Clifton Story, based on his most-notorious Alter-Ego Acting persona. The studio needed him to prove he could carry a movie before they'd bankroll the far more conceptually ambitious Tony Clifton Story; as well, his souring reputation with the public over his wrestling women onstage during concerts meant that his handlers wanted him to do something audience-friendly too — and he did like this particular screenplay. Unfortunately, the disastrous production and reception of Heartbeeps meant that The Tony Clifton Story would never be produced. Bob Zmuda even claimed that when he and Andy showed up to write at the studio after the film's release, their reserved parking spaces already had new names stenciled on.