Ivan Reitman: Legendary Producer, Champion of College Humour, and Canada’s First Decency Laws Criminal

The film industry lost a giant recently. Ivan Reitman passed away February 12, 2022. Condolences and messages of appreciation for Animal House, Ghostbusters, and Twins began popping up from news outlets and on social media platforms right away. And very rightfully so. The man leaves a legacy of over-sized box office success. Along with Spielberg, Lucas, and Zemeckis, Reitman is probably the other major commercial filmmaker to help define 1980s Hollywood filmmaking – and with the growth of VHS, film-viewing, too. Everyone is familiar with Ghostbusters, of course, but Reitman also pioneered raunchy frat-boy humour on film and shaped a cottage industry out of it courtesy of Animal House, Meatballs, and Stripes. He miraculously rebranded action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger in comedy. Furthermore, Reitman’s low-budgets and marketing sensibilities helped make his 80s films obscenely profitable. By the time the 1990s rolled around, Ivan Reitman had shaped the types of projects that were being greenlit in Hollywood.

Despite the astronomical level of success of his movies, Reitman was a much greater producer than he was director. A careful look at his directorial ventures reveals a relatively utilitarian and decidedly unsplashy visual style. For example, cinematically speaking, films like Meatballs and Twins are extremely dull-looking and simply shot movies. Early on in his career, Reitman’s storytelling emphasis lay on allowing the cast and the script’s central gimmick to guide the scenes rather than attempt any special statement via the technical elements of the craft. Arguably, Reitman’s most stylish and interesting efforts as director come from the 1973 exploitation horror-comedy Cannibal Girls (starring Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin) and his final film, the surprisingly suspenseful, comedy-free, and unquestionably personal Draft Day. Although those may be controversial takes, it’s undeniable that most of the films that Reitman directed in between these two were populist efforts with a comedic hook focused on audience appeal and profit rather than critical love—and that’s perfectly OK.

From the very outset of his career, Reitman had an eye for projects brimming with atypical commercial appeal. As a producer of National Lampoon’s Animal House, Reitman felt that following a decade of serious films from serious filmmakers about serious topics, there was an opportunity to bring bawdy comedy into the arena where the old Hays Code once policed. Gangsters, lowlifes, and the Vietnam War had been coming to screens under the new MPAA ratings schema, but not much for comedy. The humour of the 1970s was either embedded in dramas (e.g. Lenny or Dog Day Afternoon) or developed by the handful of comic auteurs already working on their schtick—writer-directors like Mel Brooks and Woody Allen. Reitman correctly imagined rich potential in selling comedy to his generation—an educated, socially aware audience emerging from academia and entering the daily grind. There was something about raunchy, irreverent parody combined with the theme of camaraderie that Reitman knew would work even though at its core the humour wasn’t terribly sophisticated. Sure enough, after years of leg work, he produced and developed National Lampoon’s Animal House – backers didn’t trust him to direct yet. The fraternity comedy made $140M based on a $3M budget and generated some properly iconic moments and quotes of the era. One can simply not say ‘toga’ three times without conjuring imagery from the film.

In short order following Animal House, Reitman directed Meatballs and produced and directed Stripes. In both instances, the idea was simple: harness the raunchy love of life, comedic anti-establishment sentiments, and sense of brotherhood of Animal House. The new voices of comedy over at SNL and SCTV seemed to be a good fit to lead such films—Bill Murray, in particular, as a star and Harold Ramis as a writer. This formula flashed massive profit potential without the requisite of traditional cinematic and technical merit.  It was similar to what was happening with the low-budget slashers of the day and the exploitation markets of the 1970s, but R-rated comedies had higher viewership and earnings ceilings. Reitman’s leadership brought an enthusiasm of storytelling—without artsiness or pretension—to an general audience on the same wavelength. Meatballs made $70M on a $1.5M budget while Stripes made $85M on a $10M budget, and then both became massive successes in the young VHS rental market. Ivan Reitman basically invented the Blumhouse business model back in 1980. Understand what appeals to a specific audience, create an energetic genre film for said audience on a miniature-budget, and watch it recoup its budget tenfold. Only Reitman was doing it with bawdy comedy where Jason Blum now does it with horror.

Interestingly, the back story of Animal House is an excellent example of Reitman’s boldness and even visionary skills as a film-industry mover and shaker. Early in the 1970s, before he had any significant credentials, Reitman cold-called the publisher of National Lampoon magazine and soft-pitched the idea making a film based on their content. He believed there was room for this type of comedy in the market. At the time, Reitman had just produced and directed a stage production in Toronto and in New York, Off-Broadway called Spellbound (with writer David Cronenberg, composer Howard Shore, musical director Paul Shaffer, and featuring the magic of Doug Henning). Not trusting of a financial investment in a movie but still somewhat amenable to a gamble, the comedy magazine hired Reitman to produce a stage production instead. National Lampoon’s Lemmings ran Off-Broadway in 1973 starring young, future stars John Belushi, Christopher Guest, and Chevy Chase. Interestingly, Saturday Night Live would cast part of its first season from National Lampoon’s Lemmings show, and Saturday Night Live’s popularity would later fuel future Reitman and National Lampoon film productions.

This early theatre work came shortly after a tense affair when Reitman and producing partner Daniel Goldberg became the first Canadians convicted under the country’s decency laws. Back at Reitman’s alma mater, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, he and Goldberg found themselves participating in an experimental film directed by John Hofsess called The Columbus of Sex. Hofsess was a student and McMaster film society member with ambitions of making an experimental film inspired by the art of Andy Warhol and psychosexual therapy of Carl Jung, something he called “cinematherapy”. The Columbus of Sex bluntly presents all kinds of sexual techniques, preferences, and positions. Reitman and Goldberg became attached as producers because they saw that such an art film had potential commercial merit in the ‘de-prudification’ of some underground, niche markets. Their involvement led to a criminal charge, a lengthy trial, and eventual convictions for ‘production of an obscene document’. The two men were each sentenced to one year of probation and a $300 fine. It’s an anecdote from Reitman’s past that doesn’t jive with making movies like My Super Ex-Girlfriend, but it speaks to an insight that he’s always had about making a film fit into a commercial space and supporting creators’ visions regardless of public backlash.

Similar encouragement of a filmmaker known for cramming art and squeamishness together arose again when Reitman teamed up with his old theatre buddy David Cronenberg in 1975 to produce Cronenberg’s Shivers. Reitman again found himself in the middle of a dispute over film decency, and yet again, Reitman stuck by his director. This time the level of depravity didn’t go to court, but it was debated in Canada’s Parliament. The ‘Is it art or is it sleaze?’ question elevated to the height of national discourse because Shivers—seen by many at the time as a perverse oddity—was funded by the Canadian Film Development Corporation (now Telefilm Canada), a Crown corporation that operates almost exclusively via public funds. Reitman and Cronenberg escaped the incident mostly unscathed—although Cronenberg was apparently evicted from his apartment due to a decency infraction of his lease’s ‘morality clause’. At the end of the day, the CFDC was in a pickle over the issue because the Reitman-produced Shivers was the first Canadian film to garner a profit and provide the CFDC with a return on its investment. Showing his fortitude as a producer and steadfast support of creative voices, Reitman would prop up Cronenberg again, helping secure funding for 1977’s Rabid (again largely from the CDFC even though they distanced themselves from the project). Some see Rabid as a condemnation of parts of the Canadian establishment—particularly in response to the flack that Shivers received. Reitman apparently came up with one of the production’s more enduring talking points—the casting of porn star Marilyn Chambers in the lead role. Was this choice practical – an affordable, but somewhat known star name? Did it potentially connect the film to additional potential markets? Or was it a frustrated ‘screw you’ to government officials who gave Shivers grief in spite of their mandate to promote arts? Yes, to all. The casting of Chambers served all these purposes and further strengthened Reitman’s savvy as a producer.

Between directing projects, Reitman was a regular supporter and champion of small productions and interesting talent. Todd Phillips is a significant voice in Hollywood now, but his start came with a boost from Reitman’s producing both Road Trip and Old School. It’s easy to see Reitman’s influence on Phillips’ career as he seems to be following a very similar trajectory—beginning with a successful audience connection in saucy comedies, followed by major financial successes, followed by a solid run of producing and developing other projects and creative talent. Furthermore, Reitman—even after moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s—remained connected to and supportive of the Canadian film scene. Despite his stratospheric success, he traveled to tiny little Halifax, Canada, in 2006 to help develop Canada’s beloved cult comedy series Trailer Park Boys into a feature film. It was Reitman’s first time in Halifax since immigrating to Canada as a youth through the city’s famous Pier 21 point of entry. In his 2006 return to the city, he did again what he quietly did through his whole career. He helped manoeuvre a low-budget production of impolite parody into being. Although Mike Clattenburg’s film remained small-scale project, Trailer Park Boys: The Movie was a notable success, setting a record for an English Canadian film’s opening weekend. The film was also released theatrically in the US – no small achievement for a Canadian production – and has become a cult comedy favourite.

Ivan Reitman clearly loved what he was doing—both helping bring films to appreciative audiences and supporting other creatives in their careers. I imagine that it must have been a considerable point of pride to earn his only Oscar and only BAFTA nominations in 2009 for producing Up In The Air with his son, Jason (who also directed). Reitman and his family also generously donated the land upon which the Toronto International Film Festival headquarters is now constructed—a massive gift to the world of film. The northwest corner of King and John in downtown Toronto was the site of the Reitman family business—a car wash—in the late 1960s. Reitman and his family donated the land to the Lightbox development project in the early 2000s as an investment in the TIFF’s work in supporting filmmakers and to offer a gathering place for film lovers. Many of Reitman’s films were not cinematic in the traditional sense, but his legacy as an industry developer and an advocate for emerging talent, was nothing short of epic.