Posted by It’s not only houses, castles or places that can be cursed: sometimes the curse strikes a film. That is the case with Atuk, a film that was never made and which, according to legend, brought bad luck to every actor who came near the lead role.
Atuk is the never-made adaptation of Mordecai Richler’s novel The Incomparable Atuk. Legend says the script is cursed, because several actors linked to the project died prematurely: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, Michael O’Donoghue, Chris Farley and Phil Hartman. Screenwriter Tod Carroll has always dismissed the idea of a curse.
The novel
It all starts with a book. In 1963 Canadian writer Mordecai Richler published The Incomparable Atuk, a satirical novel about a young Inuk who moves to Toronto and is quickly won over by the greed and pretensions of the big city. With it Richler mocked the Canadian cultural elites of his day, and many characters were parodies of real celebrities.
In 1971 director Norman Jewison bought the film rights and planned to shoot it in Canada after Jesus Christ Superstar. The screenplay was written by Tod Carroll, a writer for the satirical magazine National Lampoon. But the film never reached cinemas.
The deaths
John Belushi (1982). The first to read for Atuk was John Belushi, in early 1982. He was immediately interested and seemed set for the part, but a few months later, on 5 March, he was found dead of an overdose in his room at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. He was 33.
Sam Kinison (1992). In February 1988 the film finally went into production in Toronto, with comedian Sam Kinison in the lead. Shooting stopped after just eight days. Kinison wanted to rewrite the script: his manager had promised him creative control without clearing it with the studio, and United Artists ended up suing him, claiming he was threatening to give a deliberately bad performance. Producer Chuck Roven tried to find a new lead but eventually gave up. Kinison died in a car crash on 10 April 1992, aged 38.
John Candy (1994). John Candy also became interested in the role. He died of a heart attack on 4 March 1994, while in Mexico shooting another film. He was 43.
Michael O’Donoghue (1994). In November that same year writer and comedian Michael O’Donoghue, one of the original writers of Saturday Night Live, died of a cerebral haemorrhage. According to legend he had read the script and encouraged both Belushi and Candy to take an interest in it.
Chris Farley (1997). In 1997 the project resurfaced and the role was offered to Chris Farley, a great admirer of Belushi. Farley died of an overdose on 18 December 1997, aged 33, just like his idol.
Phil Hartman (1998). Farley reportedly showed the script to his friend Phil Hartman, suggesting a co-starring part. On 28 May 1998 Hartman was killed in his sleep by his wife, who took her own life shortly afterwards.
Curse or coincidence?
With so many deaths, the script soon earned a reputation as “cursed”. It is also said to have been put up for sale online, but nothing more has been heard of it since. Screenwriter Tod Carroll dismissed the curse rumours in 1999.
And there is another side to the story. Over the years Will Ferrell, Jack Black, John Goodman and Jonathan Winters, who died in 2013 at 87, also showed interest in the film. Many of the “victims”, moreover, had long struggled with health or addiction problems, and almost all came from the same world, American comedy of the 1980s and 1990s.
Maybe it’s just coincidence. But six deaths linked to the same script still make me a little uneasy.
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