Nancy Drew (2002 film)

Last updated
Nancy Drew
Genre Mystery
Drama
Crime
Based on Nancy Drew
by Carolyn Keene
Written by Ami Canaan Mann
Directed by James Frawley
Starring
Theme music composer Richard Marvin
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producers Lawrence Bender
Kevin Kelly Brown
James Frawley
ProducersHans Proppe
Ami Canaan Mann
CinematographyJames Chressanthis
EditorsMicky Blythe
Scott Vickrey
Running time87 minutes
Production companies Touchstone Television
Bender Brown Productions [1]
Release
Original network ABC
Original releaseDecember 15, 2002 (2002-12-15)

Nancy Drew is a 2002 American television film directed by James Frawley and written by Ami Canaan Mann. It stars Maggie Lawson as teen sleuth Nancy Drew, who heads off to college and finds yet another mystery to solve. [2] The film first aired on December 15, 2002, on ABC. [3] [4]

Contents

Plot

Nancy Drew begins college with her two best friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne, at River Heights University. After the star football player goes into a coma, Nancy investigates, finding a campus-wide conspiracy and a fraternity's drug use. [4]

Cast

Production

The pilot was ordered by ABC in January 2002, in contention for the 2002-03 television season. Production for the pilot began in Los Angeles on March 11, and was finished within the month. [5] In May, ABC announced it wouldn't include Nancy Drew on the fall 2002 schedule, instead deciding to air it as a part of The Wonderful World of Walt Disney, to see how it would do for a possible mid-season replacement. In anticipation of a pickup, ABC ordered six additional scripts, and put the actors under contract for a Spring 2003 premiere. Despite this, ABC decided in January 2003 to not pick it up. [6] [7]

Lawson was the first to be cast in early February 2002. [8] Actresses Christine Lakin and Rachel McAdams also auditioned for the title role. The pilot was the first audition for McAdams, who later stated losing the role helped get her a leading role in The Hot Chick . [9] [10] Ritchie, Birkell, Delfino, Finn, Freeman, and Cullen were all cast in late February, while Avery was not cast until March. [5] [11] The film was dedicated to the original author of the Nancy Drew books, Mildred Wirt Benson. Wirt ghostwrote the series under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene, from 1930 to 1953; she wrote 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew books. Wirt had died in May 2002. [3] [4]

The songs "Analyze", "Fade into You", and "I Tried to Rock You But You Only Roll" were used in the film. [12]

Broadcast

Originally scheduled to air Sunday, October 20, 2002, [13] the film aired on ABC on Sunday, December 15, 2002, as a part of The Wonderful World of Disney . [3] [4] It was watched by 7.5 million people, placing in third for its time slot. [1]

Reception

Laura Fries, of Variety , states, "Nancy Drew is off her game. The plucky heroine from the books of Mildred Wirt Benson, aka Caroline Keene, just doesn't have the same relevance she once did, and while ABC's updated version for the Wonderful World of Disney is a slick, earnest effort, it's way out of place." [14]

Nancy Drew was nominated for a 2003 Prism Award in the category "Movie or Miniseries for Television." [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Drew</span> Fictional character in a juvenile mystery series

Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and a TV show as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. Created by the publisher Edward Stratemeyer as the female counterpart to his Hardy Boys series, the character first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and consisted of 175 novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mildred Benson</span> American writer

Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson was an American journalist and writer of children's books. She wrote some of the earliest Nancy Drew mysteries and created the detective's adventurous personality. Benson wrote under the Stratemeyer Syndicate pen name, Carolyn Keene, from 1929 to 1947 and contributed to 23 of the first 30 Nancy Drew mysteries, which were bestsellers.

Carolyn Keene is the pseudonym of the authors of the Nancy Drew mystery stories and The Dana Girls mystery stories, both produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate. In addition, the Keene pen name is credited with the Nancy Drew spin-off, River Heights, and the Nancy Drew Notebooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maggie Lawson</span> American actress

Margaret Cassidy Lawson is an American actress who is best known for her role as Detective Juliet "Jules" O'Hara in the TV show Psych. From 2018 to 2019, she held the recurring role of Natalie Flynn on Fox's Lethal Weapon's third and final season.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harriet Adams</span> American novelist (1892–1982)

Harriet Stratemeyer Adams was an American juvenile book packager, children's novelist, and publisher who was responsible for some 200 books over her literary career. She wrote the plot outlines for many books in the Nancy Drew series, using characters invented by her father, Edward Stratemeyer. Adams also oversaw other ghostwriters who wrote for these and many other series as a part of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, and rewrote many of the novels to update them starting in the late 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin W. Dixon</span> House pseudonym used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of different authors who were part of a team that wrote The Hardy Boys novels for the Stratemeyer Syndicate. Dixon was also the writer attributed for the Ted Scott Flying Stories series, published by Grosset & Dunlap.

<i>Nancys Mysterious Letter</i> Nancy Drew 8, published 1932

Nancy's Mysterious Letter is the eighth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1932 and was penned by Walter Karig, a replacement writer for Mildred Wirt Benson. Benson declined series work when the Depression forced a reduction in the contract fee provided to Stratemeyer Syndicate writers, so Karig, already an established Stratemeyer writer, took over the authorship. Due to Karig having died in 1956, the 1932 version passed into the public domain in Canada and other countries that have a life plus 50 policy, in 2007.

<i>Nancy Drew</i> (2007 film) 2007 American mystery thriller film

Nancy Drew is a 2007 American mystery comedy film loosely based on the series of mystery novels about the titular teen detective of the same name by Edward Stratemeyer. It stars Emma Roberts as Nancy Drew, with Josh Flitter and Max Thieriot. Directed by Andrew Fleming, the film follows Nancy Drew (Roberts) as she moves to Los Angeles with her father Carson on an extended business trip and stumbles across evidence of an unsolved mystery involving the death of a murdered movie star, prompting Nancy to solve the cold case. It was released in theaters on June 15, 2007, by Warner Bros. Pictures. Critical reactions were mixed, but the film grossed $30 million worldwide on a $20 million budget.

<i>The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries</i> American television series

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries is an American television mystery series based on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew juvenile novels. The series, which ran from January 30, 1977, to January 14, 1979, was produced by Glen A. Larson from Universal Television for ABC. Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy starred as amateur detective brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, while Pamela Sue Martin starred as amateur sleuth Nancy Drew.

<i>The Mystery of the Ivory Charm</i> Nancy Drew 13, published 1936

The Mystery of the Ivory Charm is the thirteenth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1936 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Mildred Wirt Benson.

<i>Nancy Drew: Danger on Deception Island</i> 2003 video game

Danger on Deception Island is the ninth installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled Whispers in the Fog (1999).

<i>The Clue in the Crossword Cipher</i> Book by Harriet Adams under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene

The Clue in the Crossword Cipher is the forty-fourth volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1967 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

<i>The Sky Phantom</i> Book by Harriet Adams under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene

The Sky Phantom is the fifty-third volume in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. It was first published in 1976 under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. The actual author was ghostwriter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.

Georgia "George" Fayne is a character in the popular Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series. She is one of Nancy's best friends and cousin of Bess Marvin. Her birth name is Georgia, although no one calls her that except her parents.

<i>The Nancy Drew Files</i> Fiction series by Simon & Schuster

The Nancy Drew Files, or the Nancy Drew Case Files, is a detective fiction series started in 1986 and released by Simon & Schuster, New York. It is a spin-off of the original series of novels featuring Nancy Drew, with a greater emphasis on adventure, malice and romance. All the books have been written under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. This series has been targeted at readers who are age eleven and up. With a new book released almost every month, 124 titles were released in 11 years. More than 17 million copies are in print and the books have appeared on the bestseller lists of Publishers Weekly, B. Dalton, and Waldenbooks. In 2014, Simon & Schuster started releasing this series in eBook format.

The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories is the long-running "main" series of the Nancy Drew franchise, which was published under the pseudonym Carolyn Keene. There are 175 novels — plus 34 revised stories — that were published between 1930 and 2003 under the banner; Grosset & Dunlap published the first 56, and 34 revised stories, while Simon & Schuster published the series beginning with volume 57.

<i>Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships</i> 2009 video game

Ransom of the Seven Ships is the 20th installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affects the actual plot of the game. The game is loosely based on a book entitled The Broken Anchor (1983).

Girl detective is a genre of detective fiction featuring a young, often teen-aged, female protagonist who solves crimes as a hobby.

<i>Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase</i> (2019 film) 2019 American teen mystery comedy film

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase is a 2019 American teen mystery comedy film, based on the book The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene. It was directed by Katt Shea, with a screenplay by Nina Fiore and John Herrera, and served as a reboot of the Nancy Drew film series. The movie, produced by A Very Good Production and Red 56 and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, stars Sophia Lillis in the role of amateur detective Nancy Drew, as she investigates a haunted house. It also stars Zoe Renee, Mackenzie Graham, Laura Slade Wiggins, Sam Trammell, and Linda Lavin in supporting roles. The same book had been adapted for a film of the same title in 1939.

References

  1. 1 2 "TV Listings for - December 15, 2002". T.TV . Luxembourg. December 15, 2002. Retrieved January 24, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Nancy Drew". Turner Classic Movies . Atlanta: Turner Broadcasting System (Time Warner). Retrieved July 6, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 Harris, Beth (December 13, 2002). "No mystery: Actress detects similarity with Nancy Drew". Associated Press.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Erickson, Rovi (2015). "Nancy Drew (2002)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . New York City. Archived from the original on 2015-07-19.
  5. 1 2 Grego, Melissa (February 25, 2002). "Casting their lots". Variety . Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  6. ↑ "The Unofficial Nancy Drew TV Show Website". www.nancydrewsleuth.com. Archived from the original on 19 February 2003. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  7. ↑ "The Unofficial Nancy Drew TV Show Website: On the Case". www.nancydrewsleuth.com. Archived from the original on 13 March 2003. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
  8. ↑ Grego, Melissa (February 12, 2002). "Harris and Moreno board pilots for Peacock, Eye". Variety . Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  9. ↑ Agard, Chancellor (February 19, 2016). "Why Rachel McAdams Owes Her Career to Rob Schneider". People . Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  10. ↑ "Rachel McAdams Online". Fansite Host. Retrieved November 7, 2017.
  11. ↑ Grego, Melissa (March 18, 2002). "Pilots land passengers". Variety . Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  12. ↑ "Nancy Drew: TV Show sightings". Nancy Drew Sleuth. United States. Archived from the original on March 12, 2003. Retrieved July 11, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  13. ↑ "Nancy Drew (2002)". Brett Cullen. United States. Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  14. ↑ Fries, Laura (December 11, 2002). "Review: 'Nancy Drew'". Variety . United States: Penske Media Corporation . Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  15. ↑ "Nancy Drew" (2002) Awards
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