How An All-Time Great Sci-Fi Comedy Was Sabotaged By Greedy ’80s Execs For Being Too Good

Hollywood is filled with cautionary tales of studios becoming too involved in a film’s production, which could be forcing an executive’s hand-picked choice for a role, adding a giant mechanical spider, or, in the case of Joe Dante’s 1987 classic Innerspace, poor marketing decisions. A satirical take on The Fantastic Voyage, Innerspace was filled with Dante’s trademark twisted sense of humor and a unique blend of low-brow physical comedy and high-brow sci-fi concepts that made it into a hit through sheer force of will.

The problem is that the film was so good that Warner Bros. executives didn’t think it needed marketing. As a result, they put out one of the worst movie marketing campaigns of the 1980s.

A Fantastic Voyage Into Martin Short

Innerspace starts as serious as a film about miniaturizing pilot Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid) and injecting his ship into a rabbit can be, until it takes a very hard turn into manic comedy. The ship, to keep it out of the hands of an evil secret organization, is instead injected into grocery clerk Jack Putter (played by an unhinged Martin Short).

This sets off a race against time to restore Tuck to normal size before he runs out of oxygen by getting both computer chips needed to run the program. Jack has to partner with Tuck’s ex-girlfriend, Lydia (Meg Ryan), impersonate criminal operative The Cowboy (Star Trek: Voyager icon Robert Picardo), and keep his anxiety under control.

Unlike The Fantastic Voyage, which puts an entire crew into an unconscious man, Innerspace allows Jack and Tuck to interact. It was a brilliant twist that separates Dante’s twisted vision from the original and gives both Short and Quaid plenty of opportunities to play off each other.

A Live-Action Cartoon

You can tell that Innerspace isn’t to be taken seriously. According to Joe Dante, the original script was more straightforward until Steven Spielberg picked it up for his new studio, Amblin Entertainment, and encouraged his team to push the script to the point it became a live-action cartoon.

Against all odds, the studio loved it, and the film went on to become a massive cult classic. When it first hit theaters, however, it was considered a huge disappointment.

Dante has been candid in interviews about what went wrong with Innerspace’s theatrical run, explicitly calling out the movie’s poster, which depicts giant fingers holding a tiny Tuck and his ship. It’s hard to see anything except the fingers, and the poster fails to convey any of the sci-fi zaniness that made the film a favorite among those who gave it a chance.

Even the film’s title, which Dante compared to a Disneyland ride, fails to convey the feel or tone of the story. That makes sense, as it was a working title that they kept after failing to come up with anything better.

Theatrical Flop To Home Video Blockbuster

In theaters, Innerspace made around $52 million, which isn’t bad for a family-friendly sci-fi comedy, but the budget was reportedly $26 million. When the film hit VHS, though, it exploded, bringing in an estimated $50 million through rental copies thanks to word of mouth. While the term “cult classic” can be overused today, even Dante admits that the film wasn’t noticed until it became available in stores.

Innerspace is a delightfully weird film filled with the type of physical humor and silly gags that Hollywood has become allergic to as studios now pretend comedies don’t exist. The practical special effects don’t hold up today, but that’s now a large part of the film’s kitschy charm. If you’ve never seen the movie, you should give it a chance, if only for Martin Short’s manic performance from the height of his SCTV fame.

Hollywood doesn’t make them like this anymore, and even then, they had no idea how to market a movie that dared to break the mold. Today, you can find Innerspace as, naturally, a paid rental on YouTube, AppleTV, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango at Home, and Google Play Movies.