Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins

Orion Pictures, a studio run by the people who had previously been executives at United Artists, was open about their vision for the film, seeing it as the first in a series that would create "a red, white and blue-collar Bond".[3] They signed Ward to star in three movies in the envisioned series.[3]

Orion hired veterans of the Bond series to work on the film, English director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, Live and Let Die) and screenwriter Christopher Wood (Moonraker, The Spy who Loved Me).

For the Statue of Liberty scenes, a replica of the Statue's torso, head and arm was built in Mexico. The shots of the replica were intercut with footage shot at the real Statue of Liberty.

On the casting of the white actor Joel Grey, who went through four and a half hours of make-up every day to look like an elderly Korean, producer Larry Spiegel claimed "We assumed, of course, that we would be using an oriental actor. We couldn't find one and then I thought of Grey."[4] This casting was highly controversial.[5]

Ward performed most of the stunts himself including the scene on the giant ferris wheel shot on the Wonder Wheel located at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn.[3]

"I don't like to intellectualize a role," said Ward. "I just think there are a lot of places to go with Remo. His relationship with Chiun has just begun."[3]

The soundtrack features an instrumental score written by composer Craig Safan, released by Perseverance Records on CD on August 7, 2006, and later reissued by Intrada Records. However, the title song, Remo's Theme (What If), written and sung by Styx member Tommy Shaw, is not included on that album. Shaw released the song as a solo artist on his 1985 album What If.

The film received generally negative reviews from critics.[6][7][8]

The LA Times noted that Hamilton and Wood's result while "downplaying the violence and uplifting the humor, have delivered a welcome and breezy alternative to the mayhem and genocide of Rambo and Commando."[3] Hopes for a series were dashed when the box office results were disappointing, earning only $3.4 million in 1,170 theaters in its first four days.[3]

On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 39% based on 18 reviews.[9]

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins... opened on October 11, 1985, and earned $3,376,971 in its opening weekend, ranking #4 at the United States box office.[10] By the end of its run, the film grossed $14,393,902 in the domestic box office.[2] This dashed hopes for a series.

In an interview, screenwriter Christopher Wood expressed his opinion on the film's lack of success at the box office. He questioned the choice of Fred Ward, who he thought was a good actor but not leading man material, saying he thought Ed Harris, who was up for the role, might have had more appeal. He went on to say "I had also written a slam bang action finale that was cut for budgetary reasons. That didn’t help."[11]

The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 58th Academy Awards, but lost to Mask.