Making the film

Aftermath

"I don't know what my fans are going to think. It's definitley not what they're used to from me"

Bill Murray (Stills Magazine, 1984)

"I remember arriving a few minutes late on the opening day, and they were streaming out of the theatre and shouting to people waiting in line for the next show "don't waste your money, it isn't funny!"

John Byrum

The film premiered on October 19th 1984 at the 'Zeigfeld Theatre' in New York. After a six week run the total box office gross for the film was around $6.6 million.

The film received mixed but overall, underwhelming reviews from critics. Producer Bob Marcucci later blamed Columbia, "The picture would have done better if it weren't for the marketing Columbia Pictures did on it. If you're looking for a comedy, this is not the movie to look for.It was unfair. If his fans would've come to see it, they would've enjoyed it". 

Bill Murray and John Byrum both pushed the film in a stream of press interviews. Byrum conveyed a sense of optimism on the how the film would be recieved. However, Murray seemed nervous of how his fans would react.

Reports suggested that Bill was deeply wounded by the film's failure. This combined with the pressure of two movies back to back as well as a sizeable income from the success of Ghostbusters meant that Bill decided to spend a 4 year period away from the spotlight

"I stayed away, I moved to Paris. I sort of knew how much I could gamble without giving my life away". During this time, he and his family spent a year in Paris where Bill enrolled at the Sorbonne to study Philosophy (particularly Gurdjieff). On return to their rennovated farmhouse in the Hudson River Valley, Bill would often spend time alone in his study, reading historical fiction and Irish writing.

He also appeared in Bertolt Brecht's play "A Man's a Man" in Mayer's Hyde Park Festival, New York, as well as taking a brief cameo in the 1986 re-make of "Little Shop of Horrors". He also nursed his mother through cancer which sadly claimed her life. 

As years have passed, Bill Murray has always looked back with fond memories of The Razor's Edge "I think The Razor's Edge is a pretty good movie. But at the time, it was just as reviled as any other comedian doing a serious thing now. Like The Majestic [with Jim Carrey], movies where comedians go straight, people don't like them." "It angers people, like you're taking something away from them.

That's the response I got. I thought, "Well, aren't we all bigger than that?" I wasn't shocked by it, but I thought that the professional critics would be able to say, "OK, we shouldn't rule this out, because the guy normally does other stuff." Unless it's really despicable, then you have to just jump with both feet on the neck".