Thirty years ago this month, Sony released Multiplicity, a comedy directed by Harold Ramis that stars Michael Keaton. When it came out in the summer of 1996, expectations were sky-high, as it paired Ramis—whose biggest movie as a director, Groundhog Day, had come out just three years earlier—with Michael Keaton, who at the time was best known for playing Batman. Sadly, it underperformed drastically at the box office, only grossing $37 million domestically on a $45 million budget.
Ironically, the film is now considered a major cult hit, but at the time, its failure really hurt Keaton’s career. It didn’t help that he was only one year removed from having publicly stepped down as Batman, opting not to star in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. He wouldn’t have another really big hit until he made an unexpected, late-career comeback with Birdman in 2014.
The Perfect Premise for a Comedy Showcase
On paper, Multiplicity had everything going for it. Michael Keaton plays Doug Kinney, a stressed-out construction worker trying to find a good balance between his family and home life. He’s married to Laura (Andie MacDowell) and has two kids. In an “only in the nineties” twist, he randomly meets a scientist who has invented a cloning technology and offers to clone him. Doug says yes and eventually winds up with no less than four versions of himself:
- Doug #1 (The Original): Overworked, high-strung, and desperate for a break.
- Doug #2 (The Workaholic): Aggressive, Type-A, and hyper-masculine.
- Doug #3 (The Homemaker): Ultra-sensitive, gentle, and deeply invested in cooking and feelings.
- Doug #4 (The Copy of a Copy): Clumsy, childlike, and none-too-bright—the result of being cloned from a clone rather than the original.
Keaton plays all four parts to the hilt and clearly is having a ton of fun in the roles. It’s worth noting that the VFX used to allow Doug to interact with his various clones are very good by 1996 standards, and far superior to what we were used to at the time in movies like JCVD’s Double Impact.
So Why Did It Bomb?
Perhaps one of the reasons it underperformed is that by 1996, Keaton was no longer viewed as a comedic actor. This is ironic, as he broke out as a movie star by acting almost exclusively in comedies such as Night Shift, Johnny Dangerously, and Beetlejuice. He took a hard swing in 1988 with the drama Clean & Sober, which led to Batman (and later Pacific Heights). Oddly, he had a way harder time going back to comedy than he did transitioning to drama, which is the opposite of how it usually goes. Many thought Multiplicity would have done better with someone like Ramis’s Groundhog Dayleading man, Bill Murray, in the lead. Despite it failing, Keaton also looked back at the film fondly, telling GQ, “I loved doing Multiplicity.” He also noted how much less complicated it would be to make nowadays with CGI. “Multiplicity – to make it today it would take about seventeen minutes. It’s 96, right? You don’t have all the toys.”
Ramis himself was able to bounce back commercially a few years later with Analyze This, which became a commercial and critical hit in 1999. He sadly passed away in 2014.
Where to Stream It
Despite not doing well in 1996, Multiplicity is well-regarded thirty years later and pretty easy to find on streaming. If you haven’t seen it, and know Keaton mostly as a dramatic actor—or as Batman—give it a shot. It’s not currently on Netflix in the U.S., but you can rent it on pretty much every major platform.
Do you have fond memories of Multiplicity? Let us know in the comments!
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