‘Mixed Nuts’ 30 Years Later: Delia Ephron Is “Completely Shocked” At 1994 Christmas Flop’s Cult Status

deadline.com:

Although it failed to captivate critics and audiences alike amid its initial release, Mixed Nuts has all the makings of a holiday classic.

Marking the movie’s 30th anniversary, co-writer Delia Ephron reflected on its cult status to Deadline as she remembered her and late sister Nora Ephron‘s little-known 1994 Christmas film, “a great fun comedy that we wrote together” after the success of Sleepless in Seattle (1993). “I do not believe it got good reviews,” she recently recalled. “I’m not someone who ever reads reviews, good or bad, so that’s not something I know what they said or anything, but I certainly know that it wasn’t initially a hit.” Delia Ephron added, “But that is the weird thing with movies.

They’re not, and then suddenly, they get this cult following of people who absolutely love them. And then I look at them again and I think, well, I really love this.

For me and movies, it’s like having a kid or something. You love all sorts of things about it because you have all sorts of memories connected.” Co-written and directed by Nora Ephron, who died at age 71 in 2012, Mixed Nuts follows the employees of suicide-prevention hotline Lifesavers as they find out they’re evicted from their Venice Beach office on Christmas Eve, while a serial killer stalks the neighborhood.