Big Fat Liar

Big Fat Liar
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Shawn Levy
Screenplay by	Dan Schneider
Story by	Dan Schneider Brian Robbins
Produced by	Brian Robbins Mike Tollin
Starring	Frankie Muniz Paul Giamatti Amanda Bynes Amanda Detmer Donald Faison Lee Majors Russell Hornsby
Cinematography	Jonathan Brown
Edited by	Stuart Pappé Kimberly Ray
Music by	Christophe Beck
Production company	Tollin/Robbins Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	February 8, 2002 (2002-02-08)
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$15 million[1]
Box office	$53 million[1]

Big Fat Liar is a 2002 American comedy film, directed by Shawn Levy, adapted by Dan Schneider from a story by Schneider and Brian Robbins, and starring Frankie Muniz, Paul Giamatti, Amanda Bynes, Amanda Detmer, Donald Faison, Lee Majors, and Russell Hornsby.

The film is about a 14-year-old compulsive liar, Jason Shepherd (Muniz), whose creative writing assignment "Big Fat Liar" is stolen by an arrogant Hollywood screenwriter and producer, Marty Wolf (Giamatti), who later plans to use it to make the fictional film of the same name. The film is an allusion to the Aesop's Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, with Jason Shepherd being analogous to the shepherd boy in the story and Marty Wolf, analogous to the wolf. It was released in the United States on February 8, 2002.

Plot[]

Jason Shepherd is a 14-year-old compulsive liar and slacker living in the fictional city of Greenbury, Michigan. Jason tries to get out of his one thousand-word creative writing essay by making up a lie, but gets caught by his eighth-grade English teacher, Phyllis Caldwell, who alerts his parents. He is given three hours to submit his essay or he will fail English and repeat it in summer school. Jason uses his talent for lying to write a story titled "Big Fat Liar". While riding his sister's old bike to turn in the essay, Jason is run over by the limousine of an arrogant Hollywood screenwriter and producer, Marty Wolf, and he convinces Marty to give him a ride. Marty is in town shooting his action comedy film Whitaker and Fowl. During the ride, Marty admits he also tells lies and that the truth is overrated. In a rush, Jason accidentally leaves his essay in the limo when it falls out of his backpack. Marty is inspired by the story when he reads it and decides to keep it for himself. Realizing his essay is missing, Jason tries to explain what happened, but neither his parents nor Caldwell believe him and he is sent to summer school to repeat English.

Jason and his best friend, Kaylee, later discover Marty has plagiarized Jason's essay into a film when they see a trailer for it at the movie theater. During the long weekend, they fly to Los Angeles while their parents are out of town, and Jason and Kaylee sneak into Marty's office at his eponymous studio to request that Marty confess to his parents, only for Marty to purposefully burn Jason's essay and call security to remove them. Angered, they decide to inconvenience him until he confesses. Marty's former limo driver and struggling actor, Frank Jackson, agrees to help Jason and Kaylee get him back because of his own troubled history with him. They sabotage Marty through a number of pranks, like dying his skin blue (from pouring blue dye into his swimming pool) and his hair orange (hair dye in his shampoo). They even super glued his headset to his ear, tricked him into going to a child's birthday party, where the children mistake him for the hired clown and beat him up, and tampering with the controls to his car, causing it to malfunction and play Eiffel 65's 1998 song "Blue (Da Ba Dee)". Marty's car is also rear-ended by a cranky elderly woman, knocking it forward into a violent monster truck owned by a wrestler known as The Masher. Thinking Marty nearly hit him, The Masher destroys his car with his truck.

Marty plans to produce Big Fat Liar with Universal Pictures, but Marcus Duncan, the newly-appointed president of Universal, loses confidence in Marty after the critical and box office failure of his latest film Whitaker and Fowl. Marcus declines to approve the budget for Big Fat Liar, so Jason agrees to help Marty in exchange for his confession to his parents. With Jason's advice, Marty makes a successful presentation which gets the film approved by Universal, but Marty subsequently betrays Jason and calls security to remove him and Kaylee for the second time. Marty's assistant, Monty Kirkham, has grown tired of his behavior and treatment of her and decides to help Jason and Kaylee to expose him. They gather Marty's other tormented employees and devise a plan to expose him, while Jason has his parents fly to Los Angeles after admitting to them what he did the whole weekend.

The next morning, Marty heads to the studio to begin filming Big Fat Liar, but his employees delay him through a number of mishaps (including having to jump from a helicopter). As Marty finally arrives, he encounters Jason, who kidnaps his stuffed monkey toy, Mr. Funnybones. Jason flees across the studio, luring Marty to a rooftop where he retrieves his toy and mocks Jason for trying to make him confess, admitting his actions, arrogantly believing no one is listening or ever will, and proclaiming he will never tell the truth to anyone, believing the truth to be overrated. However, the entire conversation is revealed to have been caught on camera and is witnessed by Jason's parents, the media, and Marcus, who immediately fires Marty for his actions. Jason thanks Marty for teaching him an important lesson about the truth not being overrated. Marty insanely laughs, angrily threatens to get him back and furiously tries to attack him, but luckily, Jason leaps off the building, and safely lands on a stunt cushion, where he finally regains his parents' trust.

At the end of the film, Universal produces Big Fat Liar after Marty's firing while using the skills of people whom he had abused. The film becomes a critical success, with Jason receiving full credit for writing his original story, pleasing his parents and Ms. Caldwell. Meanwhile, Marty declares bankruptcy and begins a new job as a birthday clown. During a visit to a birthday party, Darren, the birthday boy and son of the Masher, the wrestler and monster truck driver whom he provoked earlier, kicks Marty in his crotch, at his father's request.

Cast[]

Kenan Thompson, Dustin Diamond and the film's director Shawn Levy appear as guests at the after party of the premiere of Wolf's action comedy Whitaker and Fowl, which they criticize. Jaleel White also appears uncredited as himself, starring as Officer Fowl in Whitaker and Fowl. White is annoyed that Wolf often calls him "Urkel".

Production[]

Filming[]

Big Fat Liar was filmed March 28 to June 2001.

The film was filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood, the Flash Flood set, and Los Angeles International Airport, as well as in Glendale, Monrovia, Pasadena, and Whittier, California.

The exotic Intermec 6651 Handheld PC appears as the computer used by Lester Golub to help Jason by releasing a stream of water into Marty's path.^[2]

Soundtrack[]

The film's soundtrack was released by Mercury Records in 2002.

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Come On, Come On"	Smash Mouth	2:33
2.	"Conant Gardens"	Slum Village	3:03
3.	"Me Myself and I"	Jive Jones	3:25
4.	"I Wish"	Hairbrain	3:11
5.	"Eye of the Tiger"	Survivor	4:29
6.	"Hungry Like the Wolf"	Duran Duran	3:41
7.	"Blue (Da Ba Dee)"	Eiffel 65	3:40
8.	"Diablo"	Triple Seven
9.	"Disco Inferno"	The Trammps	10:54
10.	"Party Time"	The Grand Skeem	3:32
11.	"Backlash"	The Grand Skeem
12.	"Where Ya At"	The Grand Skeem
13.	"Mind Blow"	Zion I	4:38
14.	"Right Here Right Now"	Fatboy Slim	6:27
15.	"Move It Like This"	Baha Men	3:51

Release[]

The film was released in cinemas on February 8, 2002 by Universal Pictures and was released on VHS and DVD on September 24, 2002 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment. The DVD release contains an unlockable cheat code for Spyro 2: Season of Flame that turns Spyro the Dragon blue, as seen in one of Jason's pranks on Marty. It was released on Blu-ray on March 4, 2014.^[3]

Reception[]

Box office[]

The film grossed $48.4 million in the United States and Canada and $4.6 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $53 million, against a budget of $15 million.^[1]

The film grossed $11.6 million in its opening weekend, finishing in second at the box office behind Collateral Damage ($15.1 million).

Critical response[]

The film received generally mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 44% based on 92 reviews with an average rating of 4.9/10. The site's critical consensus read, "Though there's nothing that offensive about Big Fat Liar, it is filled with Hollywood cliches and cartoonish slapstick, making it strictly for kids."^[4] On Metacritic, the film scored 36 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".^[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale.^[6]

Some critics called the film energetic and witty, but others called it dull and formulaic. Some critics gave the film positive reviews. Ebert and Roeper gave it "Two Thumbs Up". Critic David Palmer gave it a 7/10, calling it a fun one for people who love the behind the scenes of making movies, and "not awful considering it's a kids film".

Awards and nominations[]

Year	Award	Category	Nominee	Result	Refs
2002	Teen Choice Awards	Choice Movie: Chemistry	Frankie Muniz and Amanda Bynes	Nominated	[7]
	Young Artist Awards	Best Family Feature Film – Comedy	Big Fat Liar	Nominated	[8]
		Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress	Amanda Bynes	Nominated	[8]
2003	Kids' Choice Awards	Favorite Movie Actress	Amanda Bynes	Won	[9]

Remake[]

A remake of and an unofficial sequel to Big Fat Liar began filming in August 2016.^[10] The film titled Bigger Fatter Liar starred Ricky Garcia as Kevin Shepherd, Jodelle Ferland as Becca, and Barry Bostwick as Larry Wolf. The film was similar to Big Fat Liar except for the plot where the report is stolen by a video game executive to make into a video game to impress his boss. It was released directly to DVD in April 2017 and was both a critical and commercial failure.^[11] It was released on Blu-ray in July 2018.^[12]

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Big Fat Liar

• Big Fat Liar at IMDb
• Big Fat Liar at the TCM Movie Database
• Big Fat Liar at AllMovie
• Big Fat Liar at Box Office Mojo
• Big Fat Liar at Rotten Tomatoes