The Real Reason Why Steve-O Made 'Jackass: The Movie'
What can we expect from Jackass 4? Well, probably a lot of what made the first few Jackass movies so successful. Of course, without the beloved Stevie Lee who will be missed. After all, Stevie definitely helped to contribute everything we love (or love to hate) about the Jackass franchise. But it's really no surprise that we've lost some members of the Jackass crew. After all, some fans believe that they are cursed. It's hard not to believe that with all the terrible things that have happened to them... But sometimes terrible things birth new opportunities. That's precisely what happened with the first Jackass movie.
Thanks to an in-depth oral history of the creation of the very first Jackass film by Vice, we know exactly how and why Steve-O, Johnny Knoxville, and the team made this remarkably cringe-worthy first flick.
The Show Was Forced To Change And There Was No Place Else To Go
The main reason why the MTV Jackass show ended was because of all of the young teenagers who tried to mimic the stunts performed by the wonderfully deranged cast of the show. ...We guess that "Don't try this at home" message just wasn't enough to dissuade teens from lighting themselves on fire while barreling down the road on a skateboard with a tarantula in their pants.
It got to the point where politicians were waging war against the show and the network had to impose harsh restrictions on them.
"It basically killed the TV show—the spirit of it, at least, and the fun of it—so we quit doing it at its peak, after we finished filming the third season," Jeff Tremaine explained in the Vice interview.
"MTV was really surprised," legendary producer Spike Jonze added. "We set it up so we could cancel the show whenever we wanted, and I don't think they remembered that. So, a year later when we were like, 'We're gonna cancel the show,' they were like, 'What?' I don't think most TV shows have that, where the producers can cancel the show—but we did."
Ultimately, the whole thing became ridiculous because it was no longer possible to do the Jackass show that they had set out to do. "Jackass meant too much to me and the guys to water it down and make a silly, kiddy version of it, so I quit," Johnny Knoxville admitted.
The Birth Of The Movie
It was after Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and the team quit that the idea for the movie was born. As Jeff Tremaine said:
"At that moment, Spike said, 'What about turning it into a movie?' and we were like, 'You know what? We feel like it's going away prematurely.' We wanted to send it off with a proper goodbye, and doing the movie gave us more freedom, because one: It was going to be R-rated for a mature audience, so we could do more without little kids being influenced by it. Also: a bigger budget to do crazier s***".
This idea really stuck with the cast of the show, particularly Steve-O...
"Looking back on it, it makes sense; there was certainly precedent with the Beavis and Butthead Movie, and I think they had already made the South Park movie.," Steve-O explained to Vice. "Not that it makes sense to compare us to animation, but in a sense, it does—to take something irreverent, and a half-hour basic cable thing, and make it into a movie… that seems counterintuitive. There was a precedent, but I never thought of it beyond being in skateboard videos."
With Spike Jonze attached to produce the film, it really gave the team a leg-up financially. After all, Spike was already making a major name for himself in Hollywood thanks to his films Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Because of him, and the following the show had, they were able to get a deal with Paramount Pictures and MTV for the film.
But the Jackass team was still trying to figure out how they were going to take their little concept that worked on TV and make it something for the big screen.
"Even though the ideas were fresh and great, we had no f***ing idea what we were doing," Steve-O admitted. "Few of us even knew what a release form was. Once we started filming the movie, that's kind of where we started figuring it out. We had slates and a sound guy for the first time, but we were still so novice. I was really awkward talking to the camera."
The first movie in the franchise really focused on the main guys in Jackass. This caused them to battle each other for screentime, but also forced them to work more cohesively as a team.
"All Jackass really was for us was a grand battle for screen time," Steve-O said. "There was never any one guy having a preferred position or status. They would list us in a certain order, but beyond that, the one determining factor for screen time was just great footage. It's that simple. To the credit of Spike Jonze, Knoxville, and Tremaine, there was never any ego. They never featured one guy more. The only criteria was just the quality of the footage. By quality, I mean like, how gnarly is it?"
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