Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

What Dreams May Come
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Ward’s next feature film, What Dreams May Come, was a love story centred around
Chris, a doctor, and his wife Annie, a painter. Their lives were blissfully happy until
their two children were killed in a car crash. Annie was reduced to despair, but Chris
brought her back to herself, until he was also killed in a car accident. After his death,
Chris was transported to Heaven - which for him, was a landscape of one of Annie’s
paintings. Annie however, committed suicide, and she found herself in Hell where she
and Chris could never be reunited. Chris’s love for his wife was such that he was
impelled to travel to the underworld to bring her back to Heaven where they were
reunited with their children. The film ended with Chris and Annie deciding to be
reincarnated so that they could fall in love once again. Ward believed he was fortunate
with the film for two reasons: firstly, because he was able to secure a very big star like
Robin Williams for the main role 908 and secondly, because “it was drama, it was good
material, with a company that was more European, a background that was a little more
open”. 909 He admitted however that, “if you make a film that’s under a certain budget,
then you can negotiate, you can do what you like, with normal budgetary constraints”
but there was less freedom to negotiate during What Dreams May Come because of the
size of the film’s budget ($150 million). 910
The film was adapted from a book of the same title by Richard Matheson, published in
1979. Stephen Simon, a Hollywood producer with a particular interest in unusual
stories with a New Age resonance, had bought the rights to Matheson’s book in 1981,
but it was not until 1994 when Ron Bass had been brought in to write the screenplay
(after a number of failed attempts to get the film version made) that Ward was asked to
direct the film. 911 The choice of Ward as director was made on the basis that “What
Dreams May Come required a director who knew how to create a whole new world on
film, and Vincent was obviously a genius in that realm”, according to Simon. 912
Initially the project seemed to offer Ward an opportunity to make a film that he cared
908
Robin Williams has worked on more films that have been an enormous commercial success than
almost any other star in Hollywood.
909
Sam Gaoa, unpublished interview with Ward, 17 October 1998.
910
Sam Gaoa, unpublished interview with Ward, 17 October 1998.
911
This process is detailed in Stephen Simon’s book, Stephen Simon, The Force Is with You: Mystical
Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 2002).
912
Simon, The Force Is with You: Mystical Movie Messages That Inspire Our Lives 233.