EMPIRE RECORDS Originally Didn’t Include a Story About ‘The Man’ and Lucas’ Actions Were Inspired by a True Story

The 1995 movie Empire records is one of my favorite teen movies from the 90s. It’s one of those movies that I completely connected with when I was a teenager. The film has a sizable fan base, but was a box office bomb because it didn’t get the proper marketing or proper theatrical release.

The film was dropped from its studio just weeks before its release, and barely made it to any theaters with only a two-week run. Then there were the critics who hated it, and it only made $150,000 at the box office on a $10 million budget.

But the film has found its audience! The screenwriter of the film, Carol Heikkinen, shared some behind-the-scenes info regarding the movie that I wanted to share. That information includes the real-life inspiration behind Lucas’ arc and how the film didn’t originally involve the entire “Damn The Man” aspect of the film.

The film begins with Lucas, an Empire employee bringing $9,000 to his boss in Atlantic City to try and win some extra cash. Why? Because he just learned that Empire Records was going to be sold and this was his bumbling attempt to save it.

It turns out this was inspired by a story Heikkinen heard while working at Tower Records in West Hollywood. When he spoke about the actual employee, he said, “And the interesting part to me is that he went back to the store and he didn’t get arrested. I think he got fired, but they made arrangements for him to pay him off without getting arrested.”

From there, he built the story. In the original script that you wrote, there was no corporate takeover threat. This ended up in the second draft of the script inspired by the antibody principle of alternative culture.

Speaking of the original script, Heikkinen said, “It was a much more low-key film. It was about friendships and family and not ‘The Man’.” She added that in the original draft: “Lucas sat on the couch all day and at the end of the day he made plans with Joe to pay him back.”

One of the other changes involved the character Corey, explaining, “I’ve never written a draft where Corey wanted to lose his virginity to Rex Manning.” She shared that Corey wanted to meet him, and that was it. But, during the film’s production, someone decided that “a teen film needed a raunchy plot.” So, that’s how it happened.

I’m just happy that the movie was made and released. It recently appeared on Hulu and is always a good movie to revisit. One of the many great things that come with this movie was the soundtrack. But I’ll talk about that another time.

In the movie “Joe (Anthony La Paglia) runs Empire Records, an independent Delaware store that employs a tight-knit group of young music experts. Hearing that the store might be sold to a major chain, slacker clerk Lucas (Rory Cochrane) bets a portion of the store’s money, hoping to get a big return. When this plan fails, Empire Records gets into serious trouble, and various other employees, including the lovely Corey (Livi Tyler) and brooding Deb (Robin Tuna), has to address the problem, among many other issues.” The film is also the protagonist Renee Zellweger AND Ethan Embry.

Source: ABC.net