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The fictional downpour unleashed in Ben Stiller's big-budget action satire Tropic Thunder continues with Tuesday's free release of a mockumentary called Rain of Madness on iTunes.
Equal parts Heart of Darkness and Spinal Tap, Rain of Madness delivers hilarious "behind-the-scenes" footage from the spoof of a Vietnam war epic touted as "the biggest war film ever."
Madness supplements Thunder's send-up of Hollywood stereotypes with pseudo-interviews with the amusingly inept cast and crew, including off-the-wall sessions with Robert Downey Jr. playing Aussie megastar Kirk Lazarus and Jack Black as drug-addicted celeb Jack Portnoy.
"It's a black hole of metaness," Justin Theroux, co-writer of Tropic Thunder and director of Madness, told Wired.com about the faux documentary. "In retrospect, we didn't capture any 'making of' footage that wasn't fake so we could probably even do a third shoot for a real documentary."
Determined to continue the Hollywood roast, Theroux stars as comically idiotic German documentarian Jan Jürgen, who narrates Madness.
(Watch the trailer, embedded.)
"We were inspired by the endless DVD commentary on war movies," said Theroux.
"There's always this sort of arrogant attitude that movie-making is a lot like war – but you're not going to die and you're not killing anyone – so by that definition alone, it's not like war."
Madness has a punchier, off-the-cuff rawness that comes off as almost funnier than the one-liners delivered in Thunder – a side effect Theroux attributes to capturing actors still in character and encouraging them to ad-lib during the interviews and vignettes shot on the set of Thunder.
Keep an eye out for tidbits like Portnoy's (played by Jack Black) early career starring in a Knight Rider-spoof and a lengthy subplot of a wild-eyed Robert Downey Jr. (in character as Lazarus) holding crew members hostage.
Theroux says the only real regret from the film – which spawned protests from disability activist groups over the repeated use of the word retard – was that the film only had two hours of gags. Luckily, fans may soon be able to see the jokes that ended up on the cutting-room floor.
"We could burn through an entire reel of the riffing, definitely," said Theroux. "I think a 'Redux' or a director's cut is in the works."
Photo: Paramount Pictures
See also:
- Tropic Thunder May Oust Dark Knight From Box Office
- Dark Knight Primed to Topple Star Wars
- Iron Man Deleted Scene Shows Tony Stark's Party Pad
- Review: Iron Man a New High for Robert Downey Jr.
Underwire 2.0: Jenna Wortham's Google Reader, FriendFeed**, Twitter; The Underwire on Twitter and Facebook.
