2000’s What Women Want began life as an undeveloped idea that King of Queens producers Cathy Yuspa and Josh Goldsmith pitched to Disney’s Touchstone Pictures in 1996. Originally entitled Head Games, the pair’s proposal was acquired as a potential vehicle for Tim Allen. By the time Yuspa and Goldsmith turned in a script, studio execs were looking to go in a different direction with the story and hired Nancy Meyers to rewrite it. Somewhere along the way, they lost Allen to other commitments.
Though Meyers said that Yuspa and Goldsmith did a “fine job” with their script, it wasn’t a movie she was interested in making as written. Meyers reportedly wrote two additional drafts herself before signing on to direct. However, Touchstone eventually got cold feet and abandoned the project altogether.
Paramount Pictures decided to pick it up a few days later, and Meyers sold them on casting Mel Gibson in the lead role.
26 Years Ago, ‘What Women Want’ Cut a Secret Steve Martin Cameo Because Nobody Noticed It
But despite the fact that Meyers’s changes and suggestions were instrumental in getting the film made, not every one of her contributions was used. At the same time, What Women Want was filming in Chicago, Steve Martin was in town working on the David Atkins comedy-thriller Novocaine. During a break one day, Martin decided to visit Meyers, who’d written and produced his 1991 movie Father of the Bride and its 1995 sequel.
Joining him were his Novocaine co-stars Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern:
As a gag, Meyers threw her old pal in a crowd scene just to see if anyone would notice. To her surprise, Paramount executives completely missed the joke. But that wasn’t all: Because Martin’s cameo somehow went unnoticed while the movie was being edited, the sequence didn’t even make it into the final cut. Evidently, Martin didn’t take it personally, though, as he still showed up to the premiere when What Women Want was finally released in December 2000.
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