No one thought Bring It On would become the cult favorite that it is. But here we are 23 years, seven movies and a stage musical later. Even through all those adaptations, the original remains the best, and a big part of that is the East Compton Clovers. Come on, we all know the Clovers were the real stars of that movie.
Apparently, it was clear from day one that they should be the focus. During an interview on Bloomberg’s series Idea Generation, Gabrielle Union revealed how the film’s producers pulled a bait and switch to make it seem like the Clovers had more screen time than they did.
“The Clovers were only in like a third of the movie, and when they started showing it to test audiences, the Clovers tested through the roof,” Union said.
Extra scenes of the Clovers were added to production, but none of them actually made it into the movie.
“They were like, ‘We need more with the Clovers but we can’t add it to the movie,’” she continued. “We’re going to shoot scenes, fake scenes, that will only be in the trailer to create the illusion that it was like a 50-50 movie. But what’s interesting is, the people spoke. When the people spoke, they were like OK we got to deliver on – at least fake deliver. And the rest is kind of history. It’s wild to me.”
This is so ridiculous, but also, so Hollywood. You could’ve just given the Clovers a few extra scenes. Are you telling me that they couldn’t cut the story of Kirsten Dunst’s Torrance and her stupid boyfriend Aaron in favor of more scenes with the Clovers? Union explained that none of the cast expected the film to have the enduring popularity that it enjoys. In fact, for many of them, Bring It On was their second choice.
“Bring It On was a movie we all did, or some of us did, because we didn’t get other movies. The movies we really thought were going to propel us through the stratosphere,” Union said. “And I remember Kirsten had really wanted Save the Last Dance.”
The Inspection star still loves the movie, because it represents “Badass young Black girls, who refuse to back down and take shit,” something she’ll always be excited about.