Leprechaun Legacy!

kill someone by jumping on them with a pogo stick.”

Much like jumping on a pogo stick, playing the part of the Leprechaun would require a careful balancing act. They needed a diminutive actor capable of going from hilarious to horrifying at the drop of a buckled hat.

“We were reading with a lot of little people, and some were good, but I just wasn’t thrilled. Our guy needed to have personality and be funny,” Jones says. “Then my casting director Lisa London suggested Warwick Davis, who had done the movie Willow.”

Jones was initially unsure whether Davis would be willing to come to the U.S. to star in a low-budget horror movie based around a leprechaun and a missing pot of gold. But with the Star Wars actor enduring a fallow period, the opportunity to go against type and play a villain and spend time in sunny California was too good to pass up.

Crucially, Davis shared Jones’ vision for injecting more comedy into the film. “Warwick and I worked together on putting in more of the humor,” Jones says. “We got along great from the beginning and spent a lot of time together creating his character.”

That was crucial to keeping Leprechaun on track, with Trimark expressing some reservations about the tongue-in-cheek tone at the time. “They wanted to keep it more horrific,

Leprechaun 2 (1993)

Leprechaun 2 moved the action to Los Angeles, where the evil fairy sets his sights on marrying a young girl who is the descendant of a formerly enslaved person. Despite a notable lawnmower kill, Jones “wasn’t impressed,” while takings of $2.3 million meant it was the last one released theatrically.

but I insisted it had to be more fun,” Jones says.

There was also the small matter of George Lucas to contend with. At that point, Willow 2 was still a possibility, with Lucas yet to confirm if there would be a sequel. “Warwick was under contract with George, so he had to be let out of his deal to do the picture,” Jones explains. “So we made sure to include a thank you to Lucas in the end credits.”

There were no such issues for the movie’s lead actress. Jennifer Aniston remains the elephant in the room when it comes to Leprechaun, with the Friends star’s involvement overshadowing much of the discussion around the film. Jones said that while several actresses read for the part of final girl Tory Redding, Aniston stood out straight away.

“She walked in, and there was just this energy and aura about her,” he says. “People will go, ‘oh, well, sure. It’s easy to say that because she’s Jennifer Aniston now,’ but I’m telling you, there was just something about her.”

Things could have gone differently, though. “We originally offered the part to Kristy Swanson because she was a name. She had just starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Jones says. “But for whatever reason, she turned it down.”

The studio was also initially hesitant to hire Aniston because, as crazy as it sounds, they didn’t like her hair and wanted a blonde for the role of Tory. Eventually, a compromise was struck.

Jones called Aniston: “The good news is you have the part. The bad news is they want you to bleach your hair blonde.” She was initially hesitant to sign on, but Jones had a plan.

Leprechaun 3 (1994)

B-movie legend Brian Trenchard-Smith was handed the reins for Leprechaun 3, taking the character to Las Vegas for a werewolf-inspired tale that saw a teen transform into the fiendish sprite after being bitten. Arguably the most popular sequel, it also features an astonishing sequence involving an exploding surgically enhanced woman.

“I told her I didn’t want her to bleach her hair. The executives would be working on other movies. So she could just turn up on the first day like normal. No one was going to say anything about her hair not being blonde. They probably wouldn’t remember, and that’s what happened.” years later when Friends was huge. “She said, ‘listen, I know you probably hear things that I disavow that I did Leprechaun or I didn’t like the movie or something,’ and I said, ‘Jennifer, stop there. If I ever have the success you have, I’m going to deny that I made Leprechaun’ and she cracked up.”

Though Aniston is on the record as admitting she was left “cringing” while rewatching the film years later, Jones remains sure some part of her is appreciative of the experience.

“She had fun working on it,” he says. “It’s understandable to look back and poke fun at it once you’ve had the kind of success she has had, but I don’t have any issue with whatever she says about the movie. She’s gotta have some great memories from it because it was her big break.”

Aniston certainly contributed to an enjoyable shoot, even if Jones found dealing with Trimark to be a trying experience, recalling how executives were constantly poring over the dailies and providing feedback. “This was their first picture, so they were nervous and all wanted to put their two cents in,” he says. “But you can’t make a movie by committee.”

Aniston proved a shrewd choice, not least for the fact her future star status helped maintain interest in Leprechaun. “She was a natural,” Jones says. “I was impressed she took it seriously; it was a big deal to her, but at the same time she knew what the movie was.”

Though Aniston has been famously coy on the topic of Leprechaun, Jones recalls running into Aniston a few

Despite concerns about the tone of the movie, Jones plowed on and was eventually vindicated when the studio began testing the film with audiences. “The kids loved it. They really liked it,” he says. “So the decision was made to release it theatrically.”

Up until that point, Leprechaun had been destined for direct-to-video, but the response prompted Trimark to take a chance. Leprechaun hit cinemas on Jan. 7, 1993. Critics were not kind.

Matt Bourjaily of the Chicago

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997)

After 3’s success, Trenchard-Smith returned to boldly go where no Leprechaun has gone before. Rumored to have been inspired by a poster mash-up of Leprechaun and Apollo 13 but branded “gimmicky” by Jones, one Alieninspired scene sees the Leprechaun burst from a man’s groin, telling him “always use a prophylactic.” What could Jones possibly mean by gimmicky?

Tribune said it “brought new meaning to the term ‘bad,’” while Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times branded Leprechaun a “dingy, drab, pointless little movie.”

Jones had been expecting bad reviews but attributes the backlash to the fact Leprechaun arrived in the midst of awards season when many of the big contenders hit cinemas.

“We were up against Chaplin and other big studio pictures like Scent of A Woman,” he says. “The critics didn’t understand what we had. You couldn’t judge us in the same way you would an Al Pacino movie. This was a fun, not taking itself seriously, little horror movie for kids. They didn’t get it.”

Fortunately, someone did. In an age before “internet buzz” existed, Leprechaun benefited from the next best thing: Saturday Night Live. In a season featuring the likes of Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, David Spade, Dana Carvey, and Mike Myers, the movie ended up the butt of several gags on the show.

One saw Melanie Hutsell, as Jan Brady from The Brady Bunch, rate Leprechaun as the best movie of 1993 (the joke being it was one of the first released.) “That aired on Saturday night and ended up enhancing our numbers on the Sunday,” Jones says. “They were much higher than anyone expected. So in making fun of the movie, they helped to promote it.”

Even better was when Myers and Carvey created another bit for their recurring “Wayne’s World” sketch, which saw Myers, as Wayne, terrify Carvey’s Garth by shining a torch under his chin and impersonating the Leprechaun. The bit even ended up finding its way into Wayne’s World 2, which also came out in 1993.

“People started to find the movie and realized they could have fun with it,” Jones says. “It all helped build the audience.” Made for around $1 million,

Leprechaun went on to bring home the proverbial pot of gold with a box office taking of $8.5 million.

Years later, Jones saw Myers in a Hollywood restaurant and sent a bottle of wine over to his table as a thank you. “He actually came over and sat with me, and we talked for about 20 minutes. I asked him ‘Why Leprechaun?’ and he said he’d seen the movie and thought it was interesting and unique and would be great to have fun with.”

Eager to cash in on a new demographic, Leprechaun in the Hood switched focus to Compton and a trio of rappers who stumble upon a magic flute belonging to Lep. Featuring a stellar performance from Ice-T, Leprechaun raps, and Coolio delivering the world’s shortest cameo.

Davis’s last Leprechaun outing to date saw Lep pursuing a group of friends who stole his gold. Trading in tired stereotypes, the high point comes when one character is impaled on a bong. As EW put it: “if a movie could spark a race riot, this is it.”

Leprechaun may have exceeded expectations at the cinema, but Jones said the “real money” was made on video rentals. “We made like a $50 profit on each VHS that went out to a video store,” he explains. “Our first order was 100,000 VHS copies, so that was $5 million straight away.”

That success inevitably led to a sequel. Jones was already focused elsewhere by then with another fairy tale creature feature, Rumpelstiltskin, and was happy to settle for a share of

Leprechaun Origins

Origins saw wrestler Dylan ‘Hornswoggle’ Postl replace Davis for a tale that, on the surface, shared more in common with Jones’ original concept of the Leprechaun as a faceless killer. It centered on two couples traveling to Ireland who are told of the legend of the Leprechaun. “It was terrible,” Jones says.

the sequel’s profits as the creator.

“If I had written and directed the sequel, they would want me to do it their way again,” he says. “At some point, you just have to let them go with it and take the check that they send.”

Jones did pitch an idea for a sequel. “I wanted Warwick to dress up in drag and play a female leprechaun coming back looking for her husband.”

The studio took things in a different direction, though. In all, seven sequels have followed, with Leprechaun heading everywhere from “The Hood” to outer space. Despite that, Jones isn’t ruling out another movie.

“I hear rumblings that they want to do another Leprechaun,” he says. “Warwick and I have talked on and off about it. He likes the idea of a Leprechaun in the Wild West. I think they should do a TV series where the Leprechaun travels the country looking for his gold.”

Whatever the case, 30 years later, the Leprechaun legend lives on.

Leprechaun Returns

This Syfy Channel-produced effort headed into “requel” territory with original cast member Mark Holton back alongside newcomer Taylor Spreitler as Lila, the daughter of Aniston’s character from the original. Davis opted not to return, and Linden Porco filled his buckled shoes. Despite this, it proved an enjoyable nostalgia fest.

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