That Thing You Do!
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That Thing You Do! is a 1996 film, written and directed by Tom Hanks. The movie tells the story of a fictional one-hit wonder rock band. It shows their rise to near fame on the heels of the British Invasion in the early 1960s, from local clubs and dances, to a major national tour and a record contract.
The fictional band is called The Oneders (pronounced "wonders", the name combining "one" and "wonder"), but because almost everyone mistakenly pronounces it "Oh-nee-ders", they eventually change it to "The Wonders". The band members are Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott), Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech), Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn) and the bass player (Ethan Embry). The film also features Liv Tyler as Faye Dolan, Charlize Theron, Giovanni Ribisi as Chad, Hanks' wife Rita Wilson, musician Chris Isaak, and Hanks himself as Mr. White, the band's manager.
The movie features original music by Hanks, Adam Schlesinger, Rick Elias, Scott Rogness, Mike Piccirillo, Gary Goetzman and Howard Shore. In the film, The Wonders rise to brief stardom on the strength of "That Thing You Do", a wistful, uptempo ballad. Written and composed by Schlesinger, bassist for Fountains of Wayne, and released on the film's soundtrack, the song became a genuine hit for The Wonders in 1996, and was nominated for the 1996 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and for the 1997 Academy Award for Best New Song. A 2001 VH1.com article claimed that it should have won. (Award won by "You Must Love Me" from Evita.)[1]
Apart from the music being very similar to that of the Beatles, there are several references to the Beatles, such as the names that were originally thought of, the Oneders and the Heardsmen, misspelled "just like the Beatles", the drummer being replaced on the verge of the band's stardom (ala Pete Best), the band frolicking on a map of the USA, referring to the Beatles in the movie A Hard Day's Night and Tom Hanks saying that the Wonders would invade the UK (referring to the British invasion).
Trivia
Hanks included several references to the space program. For instance, two of the band members are named after astronauts in the original crew of Apollo 13: Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly. The marquee of the theater in Pittsburgh shows bands called The Gemini and The Saturn 5. The latter name was used by a Tampa Bay area swing revival band in the late 1990s and early 2000s (they had originally been called The Swinging Mooks).
The film's soundtrack was distributed by Play-Tone, a company set up by Hanks with the same name as the fictional record company in the film.