Seth Gordon burst onto the scene last year with the brilliant documentary The King Of Kong about a pair of grown men fighting over the top score on the original Donkey Kong.
It was inevitable that he would transition into Hollywood after the film, but nobody could have predicted that it would happen so quickly. Before The King Of Kong even debuted on DVD, Gordon was hired to direct the comedy Four Christmases — with an all-star cast including Vince Vaughn, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek.
“Vince Vaughn had seen The King Of Kong and I think he responded well to it. He showed it to Reese and they asked to see me,” said Gordon. “I barely had time to review the script. I actually read it on the plane to L.A. Then I told them my first instincts about the story and found that we were very similarly minded about the problems with the script.”
Gordon then worked with the stars to make something that was true to their feelings about families and the holidays. Opening next Friday, the film is about a couple forced to visit their dysfunctional families for Christmas after avoiding them for years.
“I think it’s in some ways the opposite of a traditional Christmas movie because the characters are anti-family anti-marriage, and anti-kids,” says Gordon. “I guess my own personal attitudes about marriage and kids is closer to the protagonists than I was ready to admit. I think it’s very informed by our personal experiences, although I won’t say what is loosely based on specific things.”
Making Four Christmases was obviously quite different from making a low budget documentary and Gordon admits that it was quite a challenge.
“It was such a leap and the movies have almost nothing in common,” he said. “It was a great opportunity that I couldn’t resist. I’ll definitely do some more comedies in the future, but this was a great one to get to cut my teeth on.”
