New Jersey Turnpikes

Not sure what the hell the other guy (phoenixmetro187) was talking about in his comments, but I was an extra in this film. It was filmed in the spring of 1998, and the part of the film I was in was filmed at the old CNE coliseum in Toronto. Neil Sadaka was also in the film. From what I remembered it was about a rebel basketball team playing in a start up league, al the ABA. Pretty good cast, and seemed pretty campy, and I kept on waiting for it to come out.

FOr what it's worth, the food for the extra's was pretty good, but the dudes who worked on the production company were *****. I really want to know what happened to this film. Anyone?

As the Supervising Sound Effects Editor on this film, I'm in a pretty good position to know what really happened to this film and why it was never released. Once the sound mix was completed there were several test screenings held so Universal could gauge potential interest and fine-tune the marketing. Alas, the screenings were not encouraging, and with that information the studio was faced with an expensive question: do we cough up the very expensive licensing fees for all the '70's period music that we had already mixed into the film, and then release it to an indifferent audience... or do we cut our losses and just shelve it?

The financially prudent answer was: shelve it. To the best of my knowledge, there was no need for Kelsey Grammar, who was very funny in the film, to buy the rights from Universal and "destroy" it. I don't think that ever happened.

What really happened with the movie.... I was an extra in the movie and I know the owner of the talent agency Stone Wall in Hamilton, well anyway she told me that Kelsey Grammar didn't like the movie after it was completed and bought the rights to it and destroyed it, this is why the movie was never released. The movie may have been shot in more than one coliseum, because the scene I was in was shot inside Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. I was devastated by the news because I was only 13 and it was a school thing some of the lucky kids got to do. we were only supposed to stay until 3:00 pm, but myself and some friends managed to stay until 11:00pm I got into SO much trouble and for what LOL another funny part was a fat naked man ran through the middle of the arena with police chasing behind him which completely shocked us because we were only 13 years old. I thought it was part of the movie but later learned it wasn't.

I was just wondering what happened to this movie too... I was an actress that played Bedonna. After shooting in in Toronto in the spring of 1998, I never heard anything more. The only thing that I knew was that they needed to shoot some scenes in New York and LA. As far as I knew, it was supposed to be released in 1999. Does anyone know what happened? For the first person that replied, how did you see the movie? I would love to get a copy of it.

The movie was amazing to make...the director was one of the nicest people I have ever met. Since this was my first acting gig, he made me feel really comfortable. The cast was excellent and the after party was great. I'll agree with the second comment...they had excellent food.

I saw a test screening of this film in Los Angeles circa 1999 - looks like it was never released.

As I recall, it wasn't especially funny, but it had its moments. The New Jersey Turnpikes are a failing basketball team. There's some kind of issue going on with the basketball league splitting in half - the NBA and the ABA? I have a feeling it was done as a mockumentary set in the 70s.

And Lee Majors reprises his role as the Six Million Dollar Man, though they may not have called him that exactly. As I remember, his sequences were the highlight.