IT GAVE THEM 'FEVER' HOW AN ASTONISHING RED SOX WORLD SERIES VICTORY WROTE THE PERFECT ENDING.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Studio executives were panicking, thinking the movie was ruined. Drew Barrymore's boyfriend was freaking out, imagining she had run off with Jimmy Fallon. And Peter and Bobby Farrelly were going out of their heads because their beloved Red Sox had won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

There was nothing ordinary about the making of ``Fever Pitch,'' which began life as a romantic comedy about a tenuous love affair between a die- hard Red Sox season-ticket holder (played by Fallon) and a workaholic career girl (Barrymore) who wouldn't know the Curse of the Bambino from the Howl of the Banshee.

Creating ``Fever Pitch,'' screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell took British writer Nick Hornby's novel and diverted the hero's attention from the soccer field to the baseball diamond. Ganz and Mandell substituted the Red Sox for England's Arsenal Football Club and included numerous references to the Sox's annual autumnal implosion, a New England tradition every bit as ingrained as the leaves changing color.

And then, as you probably have heard, the Red Sox did the unthinkable, taking four straight games from the Yankees in the League Championship Series (becoming the first team in any sport to rally from a three-games-to-none deficit) and then sweeping the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series.

Suddenly, ``Fever Pitch'' needed a new ending.

``If we would have said in the script that the Sox won the World Series, people would have said, ``(Bull). What are you talking about?'' Fallon says. ``You can't even discuss it. They'd lost for 86 years. When we started to shoot the movie in August, they were 10 1/2 games out of first. Then they started winning. And the Boston fans were like, 'Don't have a heart attack, pally. You won't have to rewrite anything.' ''

And, of course, they did. But not much. Before going further, it should be noted that ``Fever Pitch'' may be directed by the Farrelly brothers but it is not a typical Farrelly brothers movie. In fact, if it didn't have their names on it, you'd never know that this rather formulaic romantic comedy was from the same guys who wrote and directed ``There's Something About Mary'' and ``Dumb & Dumber.''

No, ``Fever Pitch'' is a Ganz-Mandell movie (think ``Splash,'' ``Parenthood,'' ``City Slickers''), funny, sentimental and a little bit square (and proud of it). The Farrellys came on board only after promising studio executives - as Bobby remembers it - not to ``go and do all the stuff that you do.'' In other words: no funny hair gel. They were contractually obligated to deliver a sweet, PG-13 movie that closely followed the Ganz-Mandell screenplay.

So why did the Farrellys beg 20th Century Fox for what was essentially a hired-gun job? Simple. They're New England boys (Cumberland, R.I., specifically) and lifelong Red Sox fans.

``They are walking, talking almanacs,'' Barrymore says with a mixture of awe and weariness. ``They bombarded me with facts, and I'd be going, 'I have no idea what you're talking about, but I'm glad you do. You take care of the baseball, and I'll take care of love and the heart.' ''

The Farrellys shot at Boston's Fenway Park on a handful of occasions, putting Fallon, Barrymore and a handful of actors in primo season-ticket seats right behind the Red Sox dugout and then using a handheld camera to shoot the scenes while the games were played.

``The camera guy would crouch down so nobody knew what we were doing,'' Fallon says. ``The fans around us could care less, they were so into the games. Peter would tell them, 'If you look into the camera, we can't use it,' and they'd be like, 'Fine. Whatever. C'mon Manny (Ramirez)! Get a hit!' ''

Another scene that had Barrymore run from the bleachers to the dugout was shot after a game. The players and the fans stayed, with Bobby Farrelly winning over the Red Sox faithful with some cracks about the hated New York Yankees.

In fact, of the few scenes that had to be cut from the film, two involved Yankee bashing. One had Fallon's character wearing a T-shirt saying, ``Take your 26 rings and shove them up your ....'' Another had Fallon sitting on the toilet, using toilet paper embossed with the Yankee logo.

``We lost a huge laugh with that one,'' Ganz says. ``Test audiences love that. But Major League Baseball wouldn't give us clearance to use it.''

The baseball powers-that-be were helpful when the Farrellys rather spontaneously decided to pack up their bags and go to the World Series with Fallon and Barrymore in tow. Flying from Toronto (which doubles for Boston through some of the movie) to St. Louis, the Farrellys, their stars, two producers and two camera guys arrived at Busch Stadium moments before Game 4 of the Series. They were due back on set the next day.

``Drew did my makeup on the plane,'' Fallon says. ``And when they won, we jumped on the field. And we kissed, and it was the coolest thing ever. We went back to the hotel and had champagne, and I had taken dirt from the pitchers mound and I put a little grain of it in all

the glasses, and we did a little toast to the Red Sox.''

The trip was so spontaneous that Barrymore's boyfriend, musician Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes) didn't know Barrymore was going. He was sitting at home, watching the game on TV and, during the celebration, he saw Barrymore and Fallon on the field, whooping and hollering and kissing! The Farrellys had to call him the next day to assure him it was just part of the movie.

``With this one, it was sometimes hard to know when the movie stopped and reality began,'' Barrymore says. ``Real events kept outpacing us.''

The World Series footage transformed what was originally supposed to be a bittersweet ending (another Sox season petering out) into a moment of triumph. For writer Ganz, it was just as well.

``I felt like after the '03 season, the pain of being a Red Sox fan had bottomed out,'' says Ganz, himself the kind of die-hard sports fan (Mets and Lakers) who literally plans his life around his teams' schedules.

``That Game 7 in 2003 where Aaron Boone hit the home run was a perfect cap of 86 years of deprivation. There was no place to go with it anymore. As a writer, you always say, 'Don't repeat yourself.' Well, the Red Sox simply couldn't repeat themselves anymore. It had to change.''

After the season, Peter Farrelly received a Christmas card from Red Sox principal owner John Henry, saying, ``When I first read your script, I thought the ending was just so-so, so I worked to get you a rewrite.''

A rewrite that Fallon calls a ``Hollywood ending from the gods.''

``We're getting scripts from the Cubs, the Cleveland Browns ... whatever teams need to win the championships, we're getting them,'' Fallon says. ``I'm booked through 2010 - just sports fans movies. That's my genre from now on.''

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon

(2) Much of ``Fever Pitch,'' starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon, was shot with handheld cameras at Boston's Fenway Park, including during the final game of the World Series.

(3) ``Fever Pitch'' directors Peter, left, and Bobby Farrelly on location at Fenway Park.

(4) Fallon's Red Sox-obsessed fan tries to make Barrymore's workaholic career woman understand his love for the game.