Dan Levy’s Favorite Ivan Reitman Moment After Arnold Schwarzenegger Meeting : ‘Interesting Guy, Right?’
Triplets writers, comedian Dan Levy, and Steve Basilone reflected on working with producer-director Ivan Reitman, remembering how fortunate they were to work with him.
Reitman died at age 75. He had several projects in pre-production at the time of his death, including Triplets, which is the sequel to the 1988 film Twins. Reitman planned to direct.
Dan Levy and Steve Basilone reflected on working with Ivan Reitman
Levy and Basilone shared a copy of the Triplets script on Instagram. Levy recalled a lively meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star of Twins and upcoming film, Triplets. “My favorite Ivan moment was when we left Arnold’s house after a hilarious/insane meeting,” he shared on his Instagram story. “And Ivan looked at me and said, ‘Interesting guy, right?'”
Basilone shared that he looked forward to getting to work with such a legend. “Ghostbusters blew my mind when I saw it as a kid,” Basilone wrote on his Instagram story. “So it was wild to get to work with the man behind it.” He added, “Losing a lot of legends this year already.”
‘Triplets’ was in the making for 33 years
Levy and Basilone shared a copy of the Triplets script from 2017. Reitman looked forward to making the film, 33 years since Twins debuted. The original film pulled comedy from Schwarzenegger and actor Danny Devito being twin brothers. So to build upon that premise, the new film added actor-comedian Tracy Morgan to play the brother’s long-lost sibling.
Eddie Murphy was the original inspiration behind the role. “Twins was quite successful, and some years after, this whole thing started with Arnold meeting Eddie Murphy, and the suggestion came from one of them,” Reitman told Deadline in Sept. 2021.
“It was, ‘I should be a triplet, that could be a very funny comedy.’ We started a script with Eddie, and after the success he had with Amazon Prime on Coming 2 America, he got himself booked up heavily,” Reitman explained.
“And we knew we were going to make it at the beginning of next year. I’d been good friends with Tracy Morgan for a long time and always thought he was one of the funniest men in the world. I thought he would make a terrific triplet, and we rewrote the whole script for him. Now, we’ll go out and try and put the money together and get it made.”
Ivan Reitman planned to begin filming in January
Reitman looked forward to directing again and planned to film in Boston. “We need the winter and my guess is we probably shoot in Boston,” he said. “It looks great and has mountains nearby, and has a good tax deal. We’re dealing with this as an independent, and we want to keep the costs low. It worked out very well for us in Twins, I see no reason not to do that here.”
Reitman said he loved directing. “I haven’t directed in a couple years, but Arnold kept saying, ‘c’mon, we had such a great time.’ I just called him in Budapest and he’s so excited to see how people respond to the reel as we send it out,” he said. “The initial reaction has been very strong, and how young Arnold and Danny look and how great the chemistry is with Tracy. I had a great time doing the first one, and this is going to be fun.”
