Wild Things, the twisty thriller known best for the steamy kiss between Neve Campbell and Denise Richards (also Kevin Bacon going full frontal), originally had another literally steamy gay sex scene, according to director John McNaughton.
The film, which served as a bisexual awakening for a generation, is turning 25 and McNaughton, speaking with Yahoo Entertainment, dished on a scene that was ultimately cut but would have featured stars Bacon and Matt Dillon getting it on in that infamous shower scene.
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
“In the original version of the scene, Matt walks into his bathroom to take a shower and there’s Kevin,” McNaughton revealed. “They were supposed to look each other up and down and then wham — go at it.”
Why didn’t the scene make it to the screen? McNaughton says it received pushback from one of the film’s stars — although he refused to say which one. “I love surprises, and I love stuff that I don’t see coming,” he said, refusing to specify which star didn’t want to shoot the homoerotic tryst. “But in that moment it was like, ‘You win some, you lose some; we’re moving on,’” he recalled.
While McNaughton isn’t naming names, the stars have previously discussed the chemistry between them, and that there was an almost romance afoot.
“I thought it was great because the whole movie is about secrets coming out, right? As reveals go, that one was just huge,” Bacon told Total Film in 2005, laying the blame for it being cut on investors who balked at the idea of its male leads getting it on. “Unfortunately, the financiers didn’t like the idea of men making out. They felt it went too far. They felt it wasn’t right.”
Courtesy of Columbia Pictures
Dillon, however, made it clear he preferred it being cut. “Man, I was relieved when they got rid of that scene,” he told Total Film in 2005. “Kevin seemed pretty attached to it, though!” Dillon explained he felt this queer twist was “one twist too many, man, one twist too many.”
Side-eye.
McNaughton says while the shower scene will sadly have to remain in our imaginations, there are still hints of it in the film, particularly when Dillon and Bacon’s characters meet at the bar during the end-credits scene.
“Neve preps him, and then Matt goes inside and sits next to Kevin and says, ‘Hey, could I buy you a drink?’ The next time you watch that scene, watch it closely, because [their relationship] is there,” he said. “I always called it ‘acting twice’ with the cast, because what their characters were saying was never really what they were doing.”
