MacGillivray sets Hollywood surf doc

Film to explore production of 'Big Wednesday'

By DAVE MCNARY

A major focus of the documentary will be the troubled production and release of 'Big Wednesday.'

Greg MacGillivray (“Everest”) is slated to direct a feature-length documentary examining 50 years of Hollywood surfing movies with a major focus on 1978’s “Big Wednesday.”

The documentary will explore the troubled production and release of “Big Wednesday,” which John Milius wrote, directed and produced.

“It’s really about how Hollywood’s superficial view of surfing culture has influenced popular culture and the story of what happened when real surfers tried to change that,” MacGillivray said.

The yet-to-be-titled documentary includes Thomas Edison’s 1906 Hawaiian surfing footage and excerpts from numerous other surfing films, plus interviews with Kathy Kohner (the real-life Gidget), surfers such as Greg Noll and Mickey Munoz along with Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Quentin Tarantino.

The fully financed project is produced by Lincoln Forrest-Phipps, Chris Kobin, MacGillivray-Freeman Films and William S. Price III.

MacGillivray began his career making films, including “The Performers,” “Free and Easy” and “Five Summer Stories.”

Sam George is co-directing and writing. George, a former editor of Surfer magazine, wrote the surfing docus “Riding Giants” and “Made in America.”