Red Sox win forces art to imitate life

Posted Friday, October 29, 2004 at 3:07 PM Central

by John Couture

I can imagine that there's nothing worse than working on a movie and then an outside event, which you have no control over, makes your script obsolete. That was precisely the case for the Farrelly brothers when the Red Sox clinched the World Series on Wednesday night.

The Farrelly brothers are in the middle of filming Fever Pitch for Fox about a woman, played by Drew Barrymore, who falls in love with a crazed Red Sox fan played by Jimmy Fallon. The original story was set in the midst of the 2004 Red Sox season and banked on the 85 years of futility to continue. The ending showed the perseverance of love as their relationship survives yet another heartbreaking post-season loss to the Yankees.

When the Red Sox won game 4 of the American League Championship series, the Farrellys brought the writers back in to work an alternate ending in case the improbable comeback became reality. In September, the production filmed at a couple Red Sox games in Fenway Park and figured their location shooting was over.

But, those with excellent vision might have caught a brief moment of filmmaking during Fox TV's coverage of the the post-game celebration. Jimmy Fallon, who is a die-hard Sox fan in real life, had charged onto the field to help celebrate the World Series victory and passionately embraced an unknown (at that time) woman in the midst of the revelry.

Later, the woman was identified as Drew Barrymore and rumors of a romance began to surface on the Internet. In actuality, the Farrellys brought a skeleton production crew to St. Louis for Game 4 and the actual post-game celebration will make its way into the movie that is scheduled to hit theaters next October.