Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and Maybe Baby (2000) | The never-ending shoot, and Ben Elton's directorial debut

Film Stories with Simon Brew

Simon Brew

Film History, Tv & Film

4.9 • 813 Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The plan was for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to spend around six months in the UK for the filming of Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. Kubrick had been mulling the film for decades, and considering a couple of other projects, too. But the shoot of Eyes Wide Shut would ultimately be his final film - and it's end up in the Guinness Book of Records. For Ben Elton, he was keen to pursue making the film Maybe Baby, having enjoyed success with the same story in his novel Inconceivable. But his insistence on a particular piece of casting nearly derailed the whole project. Stories of both are told in this episode. Please do like and subscribe and leave nice reviews! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Simon Brew.
0:02.5	I'm the founder of Film Stories magazine and a very warm welcome to the Film Stories podcast.
0:08.3	Sorry about that. I literally had to fly in from outer space.
0:12.6	Come with me.
0:14.6	And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
0:17.9	And movies. Movies that have stories.
0:20.7	That the story just sucks a man.
0:23.2	This is just the beginning.
0:25.7	We would be honored if you would join us.
0:32.5	Hello and a very warm welcome to film stories with Simon Brew.
0:36.6	I'm less ill now.
0:38.8	I am Simon Brew.
0:43.3	As always, that's absolutely everything you need to know about me. The aim of the podcast is given away by the title. I'm here to talk of the stories of films and I tend to talk about development
0:47.4	stories, marketing stories, release stories, distribution stories, endless production stories,
0:52.7	all the ingredients really that go towards making the films that we know and sometimes love, just that the films that we know and sometimes love.
1:00.3	The films I tend to cover on the podcast lean more towards the mainstream than anything else.
1:04.6	They're films I'm interested in or invested in to some degree.
1:07.8	I try not to do snark.
1:09.0	I try not to punch down.
1:10.4	This podcast is a celebration of cinema
1:12.6	and a real appreciation that somehow, somehow, films managed to get made. Film Stories is also a very,
1:20.5	very proud part of the Film Stories Podcast Network, a network of over 40 shows across films, TV,
	...

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