Movie 43 (2013)

The following is an account of the events that led up to the production of Movie 43. For their own safety, all sources will be kept confidential.

It began with the death of Kim Jong-il in December of 2011. This was a fragile time for North Korea, as the entire world waited to see how his son, Kim Jong-un, would take control of his country. Being dictator of such an isolated nation is not easy. If you allow even one crack in the armor, your regime becomes incredibly vulnerable. One of the most important aspects of this is propaganda, and anyone familiar with this peculiar nation will know that one can barely walk 10 feet without seeing some poster or piece of art that decries the evil imperialists of the west. For his first move as supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un decided to make the greatest piece of anti-Western propaganda ever seen. This would be a film, he decided; a film that exemplified all that was wrong with American and Western culture. Seems easy enough, doesn’t it? But Kim Jong-un was much more ambitious than that. He wanted this movie to look like westerners made it themselves. Voluntarily. He knew it would not be easy, but if he pulled it off he knew he would have a masterpiece. This enterprise would eventually become known as “The Movie 43 Project.”

No one knows why Movie 43 was the title that was chosen. We may never truly know. Some say that it is Kim Jong-un’s lucky number, and he simply says it whenever he is asked to name a number. This began at a young age, for whenever his private tutor asked him to count to ten it was rumored that he would start with 43 and then go back to one. His tutor didn’t dare to correct him. Anyone who made the future leader unhappy was immediately deemed an enemy of the state. If these rumors are true, than that would seem to explain the origins of this very strange title.

It was decided that the first step in assembling this anti-masterpiece was to kidnap an American writer/director who had a history of broad comedy. While browsing the Internet Movie Database one afternoon, one of Kim Jong-un’s lackeys proposed that one of the Farrelly brothers could be just the person for the job. The DPRK was able to sneak a couple secret agents into Los Angeles, California, and one day they were able to kidnap Peter Farrelly (Bobby was apparently out of town) as he was walking out of a Jamba Juice. They flew him to Pyongyang with a bag over his head, and when he arrived the first thing he saw was the Supreme Leader himself. There was no small talk. Kim Jong-un simply placed a script on the table and then slid it across to Farrelly. It was made very clear: he was to produce this screenplay and get it released into multiplexes across America. If he failed at this task, he would be very, very sorry indeed.

As he read the script on the plane ride back to Los Angeles, Farrelly was shocked by what he saw. Movie 43 was to be a sketch movie, featuring some of the laziest gross-out humor he had ever read. And this was the man who made some of the most well known gross-out movies of all time. Kim Jong-un had also gone through the trouble of casting all the sketches, and any failure to meet his specific requests probably wouldn’t end well. The sketches were as follows:

 1)    A woman played by Kate Winslet goes on a blind date with a man played by Hugh Jackman. Everything is going great, until Jackman removes his scarf and reveals that he has a pair of testicles hanging from his neck. This goes on for quite some time, and then ends abruptly.

 2)    Liev Schrieber and Naomi Watts are parents who home-school their teenage son. This involves giving him the full high school experience; bullying, a horrifically awkward first kiss, etc. “This could actually be a cool concept,” Farrelly thought. “But it seems to go to all the easy places and doesn’t have much energy.”

 3)    Anna Faris asks Chris Pratt to poop on her. That’s it. That’s the joke. Only stretch it out over 10-15 minutes.

 4)    Kieran Culkin and ex-girlfriend Emma Stone just shout ridiculous and gross stuff at each other at a supermarket.

 5)    The “iBabe” is an mp3 player that seems to resemble a naked woman. Richard Gere is in charge of this whole enterprise, and he tries to figure out what the problem is when his project starts causing injuries.

 6)    A bunch of comedic actors in cheap superhero suits yell at each other during a night of speed dating. One of these characters, played by Jason Sudeikis, has an incredibly long rant about another character’s pubic hair.

 7)    Chloë Grace Moretz gets her period for the first time while at a male friend’s house, and everyone there starts to freak out about it.

 8)    Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott get in a bloody fist/knife/gunfight with a couple of leprechauns played by Gerard Butler. The punch line involves a fairy who performs oral sex for money. (This is to be directed by Brett Ratner, which seems about right.)

 9)    Stephen Merchant and Halle Berry go on a blind date—apparently this is one of the only premises the dear leader is familiar with—and ultimately play a game of truth or dare. It eventually escalates to penis tattoos and embarrassing plastic surgery.

 10) Terrence Howard coaches an African-American teen basketball team. He yells at them about how they’re black and their opponents are white for what seems like an hour. The end.

 11) Elizabeth Banks and Josh Duhamel are a couple with an animated pet cat that does a bunch of disgusting things. At the end, a small child stabs Elizabeth Banks in the head.
 

12) All this is to be placed within an overarching story in which Dennis Quaid is pitching the movie to Greg Kinnear. It will have many fellatio jokes.
 

Farrelly was appalled by what he read, but he knew he had no choice. He had to make this movie, or his life could well be in danger. He returned home and called every actor, writer and director that was on the list, but they all turned it down. It got so bad that Farrelly had to alert the DPRK that he wasn’t making the progress he had hoped. Kim Jong-un was unusually understanding about this, so he promised Farrelly he would help out. By “help out,” he of course meant that he would have all the actors and directors kidnapped and made to produce their scenes at gunpoint.

“It was terrifying,” said one actor who chose to remain nameless. “I didn’t think an experience could get worse than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but everything changes when your life is in danger like that. And the scene I was acting in? Atrocious. Balls on the chin? What kind of sophomoric premise is that?”

And so the production marched on, with new actors being brought in every day to read their ostensibly comedic lines while constantly fearing for their lives. This is certainly reflected in the final product. There is no energy to Movie 43 whatsoever, and most of the actors appear to be most concerned with getting out of this ordeal in one piece. Another anonymous actor confirmed the tough working conditions.

“There weren’t even any good craft services,” she said. “I’m an Oscar winner, darn it all! I don’t care if you come from North Korea, treat me with respect! And don’t constantly barrage me with Catwoman jokes!”

Eventually the job was completed, and the North Koreans left the film in the hands of Farrelly to get out to the masses. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-un did not get the July 4 release he wanted. Movie 43 was dumped into theaters in January to almost no fanfare or press, and it failed to become the anti-Western sensation that the North Koreans so wanted it to be. In fact, most of the people who chose to saw the movie were critics, and their savage reviews killed whatever momentum it might have had. The DPRK took one last stab at getting Movie 43 the attention they desired by ordering Farrelly to publicly sing its praises—he’s the only one involved with the film to do such a thing—but it was all for naught. Kim Jong-un dreamt that Movie 43 would cause the world to revolt against Western culture. Instead, it seems as though it will fade away and become the answer to a trivia question at best. It may be a truly terrible movie, and it certainly is one of the worst in recent memory, but it is unlikely to have any staying power.

Not coincidentally, North Korea started threatening the world with further nuclear tests and “high profile” retaliation after the all-around dismissal of Movie 43. Some say it is because of United Nations sanctions. But there are a select few people who know the truth. Movie 43 was his pet project from the second he took over for his father. Now, he has spent the last week watching it crash back to Earth not unlike a rocket intended for space. This type of failure is bound to anger just about anybody. To calm himself down, Kim Jong-un took a walk in his backyard, shot a perfect 18 at the local golf course, and then spent the late afternoon hours committing about a dozen human rights violations. All in a day’s work.

Grade: F