Robin Williams Improvised So Much On ‘Mrs. Doubtfire' As Director Still Has 972 Boxes Full Of Never-Before-Seen Footage

Ian West/PA

The director of Mrs. Doubtfire has disclosed that he possesses close to a thousand boxes containing unreleased footage of Robin Williams.

Released in the United States on November 24, 1993, the beloved comedy-drama featuring the legendary Robin Williams is approaching its 30th anniversary.

In anticipation of the movie's upcoming milestone, Chris Columbus, the director of Mrs. Doubtfire, has shared his reflections on the experience of collaborating with the iconic Robin Williams.

Columbus disclosed that from the early stages of filming, Robin Williams established the precedent of incorporating a significant amount of improvisation into his performances.

Hollywood Reporter

The director tells Business Insider: "He went to me, 'Hey boss, the way I like to work, if you’re up for it, is I’ll give you three or four scripted takes, and then let’s play.'"

"By saying that, what he meant was he wanted to improvise. And that’s exactly how we shot every scene."

"We would have exactly what was scripted, and then Robin would go off and it was something to behold."

Columbus remarked that he sympathized with the "poor script supervisor" who had the challenging task of manually transcribing everything Robin Williams said during filming, as the actor would alter his lines with each take.

Variety

"So Robin would go to a place where he couldn’t remember much of what he said. We would go to the script supervisor and ask her and sometimes she didn’t even get it all," Columbus continues. 

"Often, he would literally give us a completely different take than what we did doing the written takes."

Due to Williams' extensive improvisation, there were instances where the film in all the cameras would run out.

In response, Columbus had to resort to using four cameras simultaneously in order to shoot the entire movie and keep up with Williams' unpredictable and spontaneous performances.

20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

He adds: "None of us knew what he was going to say when he got going and so I wanted a camera on the other actors to get their reactions."

"For Pierce Brosnan and Sally Field, it was quite difficult for them not to break character."

Ultimately, the production team shot "almost two million feet of film" for the movie.

Columbus speculates that the studio might not have reviewed all of it, suggesting the existence of unreleased footage featuring Robin Williams that remains unseen to this day.

Getty Images/ Jay Paul

As a consequence of Williams' continuous improvisation, Columbus now possesses approximately 972 boxes of footage from the movie.

These boxes not only contain the footage used in the final cut but also consist of outtakes and behind-the-scenes material.

The entirety of this collection is currently stored in a warehouse.

Looking forward, the director has aspirations for the film reels.

He envisions hiring an editor to meticulously sift through all the footage, with the goal of creating a documentary that delves into the making of Mrs. Doubtfire.

Columbus resolves: "We want to show Robin’s process. There is something special and magical about how he went about his work and I think it would be fun to delve into it."

"I mean, there’s two million feet of film in that warehouse so there could be something we can do with all of that."