“It’s A Fat Camp!”: How The Box Office Bomb Heavyweights Became A 90s Kids’ Cult Classic

There’s a dirty little secret about reviewing movies at their release and giving out awards to the “best films” at the end of each year – movies, like wine, will age a certain way in due time. One of the biggest obstacles movie critics or even those in the Academy of Motion Pictures have in trying to figure out the next timeless classic is that you can get caught up in the moment and overpraise a film that will be forgotten within just a few years, and completely ignore another that will be a fixture in the culture within the decade. Think of films like 1944’s Wilson which had been a major awards player when it came out and was likely one place away from winning Best Picture at that year’s Oscars; or 2012’s Amour which is one of the few non-English language films to get nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, and won the biggest award that year at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Hardcore cinephiles are very aware of these films, but mainstream audiences aren’t as aware of them years down the line. Hell, I’ve argued on several occasions that the Academy hasn’t picked a Best Picture winner that has gone on to pass the test of time with mainstream audiences since perhaps 2007’s No Country For Old Men or arguably even further than that with 2003’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King. But you also have films like 1982’s The Thing or 1993’s Hocus Pocus which were treated harshly by critics and/or bombed at the box office, seemingly destined as come and go movies that nevertheless went on to become mainstream classics. The point is, it can be a really hard task to know what films will age well with time and which will fade away into obscurity.

The Walt Disney Company, for all of its massive resources at its disposal, is not exempt from this. From the story that they considered Pocahontas a priority over The Lion King while both films were in production, to the aforementioned Hocus Pocus being released in the summer to die as a mistimed Halloween film only for it to become a 90s kids’ classic that is now among the films mentioned to watch every Halloween season and even has a sequel in the works these decades later. Even the mouse sometimes doesn’t see which of its films will have a longer impact than others and generate a substantial fanbase. One other film of theirs from the mid-nineties that was given up on by the studio, had an ill-timed release, was ravaged by critics, had box office struggles, and yet went on to be discovered in the years since and become a classic summer camp film for those of us who grew up as 90s kids with the Disney channel – 1995’s Heavyweights.

Today we see Disney as an unstoppable juggernaut that constantly pumps out billion dollar grossing films, has ownership in smaller studios that go on to win Oscars, buys up billions of dollars in known properties like Star Wars or even whole movie studios like FOX, is constantly updating and/or building new theme parks that break attendance records year after year, and have made billions with their place in the resort and cruise industries. But back in 1994, it was a company in the middle of what has come to be known to Disney fanatics as “The Disney Renaissance” in which the company came within one change in leadership away in the mid to late eighties from being bought up and divided into several parts by investors to exploding in the early to mid nineties with hit films and saving their then-dying theme park interests while being on their way to becoming what they are today. They were a company that had faced a perilous fate and their gamble on exchanging Walt’s son in law with Paramount CEO Michael Eisner as the head guy was paying off big time by then.

One of the many hits Disney had come 1994 were two (would later become three) films about kids learning to play and win hockey games in The Mighty Ducks, hugely successful movies that centered on an ensemble of child actors and which in time would lead to the company even having ownership in an NHL team of the same name for a while. Disney thought they could replicate the same success with a film about boys at a summer camp. Steven Brill, the writer of the two The Mighty Ducks movies was tapped by them to write and direct. Brill, however, had a co-writer in a younger Judd Apatow — yes THAT Judd Apatow, the same guy that would go on to be behind adult comedic films like Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin. The film Disney had asked for was a summer camp version of The Mighty Ducks; the film Brill and Apatow wrote was one ahead of its time with adult elements and small glimpses of the type of humorous films the latter would give us in the decades since.

Filming for Heavyweights took place over April and May of 1994 in North Carolina, in actual summer camp locations, too. Unfortunately not much outside of the eventual blu-ray release has been provided to us on what it was like during filming, but I highly recommend the blu-ray commentary in which the producers and stars of the film fondly look back and tell stories like filming a particular scene on the day the news about Kurt Cobain’s death came out, lead child actor Aaron Schwartz breaking his arm just as they were wrapping up the final scenes to shoot and how they were able to hide that in the final product, Ben Stiller’s comradery with the kids during the shoot, what it was like for the boys when they had the girls come over for the dance party scene, and how much they had to spend on food for a scene in which the kids lose their minds and have a big giant party out in the field with snacks and junk food galore.

The film plays out as follows: We meet Gerald Garner (played by Aaron Schwartz), a young, out of shape and obese boy who plans to enjoy a lazy summer but on the last day of school finds his parents have plans to send him to a weight loss summer camp. Or as he so finely puts it half-way through the promotional video a salesman is playing for them, “It’s a fat camp!”. Garner flies out to join other young boys struggling with weight issues and is delighted to find the kids there stash their own junk food, the counselors are great with kids, and the camp activities range from racing go-karts to swimming in the lake. The kids Gerry meets and befriend include Josh (played by Shaun Weiss) — the quasi leader of the kids at camp and class clown; Roy (played by Kenan Thompson) — the boy who befriends him while they’re both in flight to the camp; Nicholas (played by David Goldman) — a British camper; Simms (played by Robert Zalkind) — a sensitive mute; an others. Gerry’s bunk counselor is the lovable Pat (played by Tom McGowan) who himself has some weight issues and finds himself pining for the new camp nurse, Julie (played by Leah Lail).

Gerry seems to be settling in well into the camp when news breaks that its been bought up by a new owner — Tony Perkis (played by Ben Stiller). Perkis is a spoiled child, son to a lighting fixture magnet who has never dealt with children himself in his entire life. He claims to have been obese himself but figured out a way to lose weight and get healthy. He employs a group of hard-ass counselors lead by the annoying Lars (played by Tom Hodges) and kicks counselors like Pat out of their lodges. It also so happens that Perkis has brought on a cameraman with him in Kenny (played by Allen Covert), in hopes of making the summer a weight loss informercial success story that he can make money off of.

He follows this up with grueling exercises the kids aren’t used to, cuts out meals from their daily schedule, gets rid of any fun activities like the go-karts, places them into competition with Camp MVP — a sports camp filled with jocks they can’t possibly hope to beat, sets up a dance party to humiliate the boys in front of visiting girls, has campfire meetings in which he dons a dark coat and speaks like a cult leader who wants new followers, stops delivery of their mail to their parents, has them set up for a system in which they eventually will be laying in a bed of spikes while someone drives a hammer onto an ice cube that lays on top of them, berates them in front of each other if they don’t lose weight, and on top of all that chaos, plans a miles-long hike for them that includes him losing it and hanging off a tree as it dangles over a cliff. If that sounds like Tony is a madman, its because he is and Ben Stiller’s over the top performance as a fitness guru gone nuts makes all the comedy that ensues from this villainous character the absolute highlight of the movie. In a way it really becomes his movie one third of the way through. Perhaps the highlight is when we watch Perkis’ morning workout routine and the things he says to himself and aloud as he does his jog through the woods (including a scene in which he refers to a log in his way as a demon).

The humor can be childish a few times (unfortunately, a fart joke does show up in one scene), but most of it I’d argue is a bit ahead of its time and definitely more smart than you’d expect from a kids movie made for a quick buck by the most corporate of movie studios. Perkis’ antics bring a self awareness of when obsession with getting healthy and more confident goes awry or how it could push away the very people you’re trying to help. The film does address the fact the kids have to start changing their habits, but they eventually figure out they can do it in a way that doesn’t make them become the next Tony Perkis. There’s also a lot of small subtle jokes that take extra watches to catch, such as when Perkis is trying to tell the Greek mythological tale of Icarus but unknowingly is actually telling a bad version of the story of Sisyphus albeit with such confidence and arrogance in his voice as he tells it. The story even takes a pretty daring turn in the third act in how aggressively the kids are driven to be to finally deal with Tony when they tire of him, and Stiller delivers such a hilarious performance that even when his character seems defeated he’s making you laugh, and yet be intimidated at the same time at the danger he poses. The movie does have a pretty cut and dry, predictable happy ending to it that almost seems slapped on by the studio but its sort of a nice way to leave the audiences smiling and happy for the kids at the end of their crazy summer.

When asked about it in an interview while attending a Lincoln Center event back in 2014, Stiller said the studio had no clue what to do with the movie when the product was finished. Disney’s marketing had no idea how they were going to pitch a comedic kids film about obese boys at a weight loss camp having to overthrow a fitness nut that nearly kills them. They asked for another The Mighty Ducks and instead got something that seemed like it was a better fit as an SNL skit, if anything. Their marketing campaign was to push a generic fun kids at camp movie, and for whatever reason they decided to release a summer themed movie in February when most kids (the target audience) were at school and the movies released (especially then) tend to be ones the studios see as unlikely to make profits. To make things worse, the critics were harsh on the film as its woeful 29% on Rotten Tomatoes shows. Heavyweights unsurprisingly bombed at the box office and came out to little fanfare on VHS that same year of 1995 in August. It was seemingly a one and done bust kids movie that Disney could write off as a failed venture.

The first time I was ever aware of Heavyweights was when my mother’s friend rented it for us when we were kids, you know, back when renting VHS tapes were a big thing to do every weekend. My brother and I ended up barely paying attention to it and focused instead on helping out with getting some snacks my mother was making prepared. A few years later, about the time I was hitting my middle school years, my brother and I were big Disney channel watchers, even to the point there was a stretch when we’d never miss one of their monthly original channel movies. It was through there we discovered some Disney classics via their Vault Disney programming including, like many kids of our time, the aforementioned Hocus Pocus which played every October. One night they played Heavyweights, and this time we paid attention and watched it, and we loved it – and we weren’t the only ones.

Through repeat showings on the Disney channel, the film started to become one of those movies that becomes near and dear to you as you grow up. The movie gained a cult following, and many modern reviews have pointed out how well it has aged in the years since its initial release. Film critic Brian Ordoff said it best when he wrote back in 2013 for his positive review of the film, “Time has been kind to the discarded fat camp movie, finding Heavyweights more digestible these days, after years spent processing the askew sense of humor shared by Apatow and Company.” The film is in the high seventies with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, has an above average 6.6/10 rating on IMDB, scores an average 3.2/5 with the stuffed shirts that dominate Letterboxd, and even scored an A- on Cinemascore when they decided to grade the film with viewers. It clearly has made a comeback from its initial really bad reception.

Disney has noticed this, likely seeing how well its Disney channel airings did and their DVD release of the film back in 2003. They released the film on Blu-ray in late 2012 with a surprisingly good amount of bonus content and made sure to have it come out with the Disney Plus streaming service on day one. It might not have blown up as large as Hocus Pocus did, but Heavyweights has gained a significant fanbase in the last two plus decades and I belong to that fanbase. I hadn’t seen the film in quite some time when I watched it again a few years back and unlike other movies you grow up with only to discover to your horror they don’t age well with adults, this one did for me and clearly has with many others I’ve talked to about the film. And since then I’ve watched the movies a few times every summer after adding it to my movie collection. I even own a shirt with the Tony Perkis fitness company’s logo on it!

At the end of Heavyweights, the last line is Gerry thanking Pat for “The best damn Summer of my life!” and honestly I feel the same exact way every time I see this one.