Groundhog Day is a unique comedy about a selfish, egotistical man who finds himself in the strangest of situations: reliving the same day over and over again in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the nation’s Groundhog Day festivities. Weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) keeps waking up on Groundhog Day, while his producer Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell), cameraman Larry (Chris Elliott), and the rest of the town remain oblivious to his own personal purgatory. The clever comedy about misbehavior and personal growth was released 30 years ago on February 4, 1993.
Writer Danny Rubin had the original idea for the movie while reading The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. He started thinking about immortality, if it would ever become boring and how a person would change over time. Years before that, he wrote a story concept about a man living the same day over and over again. Next, he decided to set the movie on a holiday in the hopes of turning it into a perennial classic and Groundhog Day was born.
Rubin spent two months writing the rules for the time loop, designing the characters, and writing the script. Initially he was stuck deciding on the cause of the time loop and considered having magic or technology or divine intervention, but ultimately decided that a lack of explanation made Phil’s own confusion more relatable.
He wanted to start the movie in the middle of Phil’s dilemma, opening with the lead character waking to “I Got You Babe,” reciting the radio hosts’ conversation verbatim, interacting with other hotel patrons, and then leaving the hotel to strangely attack a pedestrian. Rubin figured this would be confusing for audiences who would want to decipher what was happening.
Envisioning it as a whimsical comedy rather than one with broad appeal, Rubin wrote about Phil’s increasing talent for seducing women and other misbehavior, and his quest to see how far he can get outside of Punxsutawney before the time loop pulls him back into the town. To keep track of the time Phil would read one page of a book per day and become depressed enough to try committing suicide when he ran out of books to read.
The early script focused more on Phil’s loneliness, and he finally breaks the loop by doing good deeds to help other lonely people. In the original ending, Phil confesses his love to Rita once the loop is broken. At that point, the movie changes to Rita’s perspective who is confused by Phil’s profession of love, and she rejects him because she’s not ready for a relationship. Then the big twist comes when Rita becomes trapped in her own time loop.
