Chris Columbus said he wants to make a documentary about Robin Williams using the “two million feet of film” captured while making the hit 1993 movie Mrs Doubtfire.
The director said there is almost 1000 boxes of footage which show the late actor’s talent for improvisation during filming of the 1993 comedy.
Williams, who died in 2014, stars as a divorced actor who disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his children after he loses custody to his ex-wife, played by Sally Field.
In an interview to celebrate the film’s 30th anniversary, Columbus reflected on the amount of footage captured of Williams which could be turned into a documentary.
“We are talking about it and trying to get it done,” he told Business Insider.
“There are roughly 972 boxes of footage from (Mrs) Doubtfire — footage we used in the movie, outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage — in a warehouse somewhere and we would like to hire an editor to go in and look at all of that footage.
“We want to show Robin’s process. There is something special and magical about how he went about his work and I think it would be fun to delve into it.
“I mean, there’s two million feet of film in that warehouse so there could be something we can do with all of that.”
Columbus said Williams’ talent for improvisation meant he would “give us a completely different take than what we did doing the written takes” on the film set.
“It got to the point that I had to shoot the entire movie with four cameras to keep up with him,” he said.
“None of us knew what he was going to say when he got going and so I wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions.
“For Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field, it was quite difficult for them not to break character.”
Columbus added that the last time he saw Williams was when they had a script written for a sequel to Mrs Doubtfire.
“I went to his house and we sat down and talked about it and the script was really strong,” he said.
“Robin’s only comment was, ‘Boss, do I have to be in the suit as much this time?’
“It was physically demanding. For Robin, I think it was like running a marathon every day he was in the Doubtfire costume. He was older, obviously.
“So we talked about it and I think he was hoping in the rewrite we would cut back on the Doubtfire character.
“But then Robin passed away so there will never be a sequel to Mrs Doubtfire.”
